Three Content Marketing Challenges You Can Say Goodbye to in 2016

Digital marketing expert Qamar Zaman says press release marketing can help businesses overcome three of the biggest content marketing challenges of the past year.

As the new year begins, businesses everywhere have begun putting their plans into action for surpassing the successes seen in 2015 with their marketing efforts. Many who fell short of their goals have gone to great lengths to assess what went wrong during the past year in an effort to get it right this time around.

 

Major Content Marketing Benchmarks and Drawbacks of the Past Year

One of the most significant items placed on the list for assessment is content marketing and what ROI was seen after implementing related strategies.

Before 2015 began, writer Kim Garst wrote in an article published by the Huffington Post that among the top digital marketing trends expected to dominate the year were a decrease in the number of online marketing strategies employed by businesses and content marketing becoming more about quality rather than quantity.

As stated by Garst “A successful content strategy should be about producing first-rate content, not just rehashing or compiling everyone else’s insights. Businesses will finally realize that blah, run-of-the-mill content does very little in terms of increasing search rankings or attracting followers. In fact, they will begin to see that producing low-quality content can actually be damaging in terms of SEO and building trust.” Read more from the Huffington Post here.

According to Qamar Zaman, a digital marketing expert and CEO of online press release distribution service, KISS PR, there were three key challenges that a number of businesses faced in 2015 with regard to content marketing in particular in their effort to focus on quality driven results as opposed to quantity. These included:

• Problems with identifying clear goals
• Failing to promote content effectively
• Problems with utilizing social channels for broad reach

Zaman says these issues gained more prominence for businesses last year because of the frustrations that accompanied the hard hitting changes in the overall landscape for SEO. Zaman, a certified Google analyst says, “Google never wavered from its determination to make sure that search results were spot on matches for user inquiries. The stricter rules made a lot of content businesses were putting out less qualified for the most competitive rankings.”

New Year, New Business Marketing Resolutions

This year, experts are predicting that the evolution of how content can be utilized digitally will make it a major component of marketing strategies for companies of all sizes. Writer Shafqat Islam wrote of the topic in an article recently published by Mashable, “Over the last five years, content marketing has matured and content itself is now the fuel that powers the entire modern marketing engine. Brands will recognize the deeper value of content and put it at the center of the holistic customer experience they provide — every channel, every time, every customer.” To read more visit http://on.mash.to/1JHYtZN.

However, as expressed by Zaman, businesses will have a hard time using content to elevate their success to the levels they are seeking unless they have effectively dealt with the three aforementioned issues specified. Says the CEO, “identifying clear goals, using the right channels for promotion, and making content engaging on social media are going to be paramount to businesses seeking true success with their content marketing efforts throughout the year ahead.”

Zaman says that press release marketing is a driving force that can help businesses accelerate their growth while dealing with a number of content marketing challenges stating, “with a service like KISS PR, businesses have a turnkey solution at their disposal that can provide them with a means of meeting specific target marketing goals, and promoting their content through an extensive network, including on social media.” He proposes that with press releases the three key challenges that impacted so many businesses in 2015 can be easily overcome in 2016.

Zaman’s service is multifaceted in its approach to helping businesses achieve greater visibility through digital promotion. Businesses can contact KISS PR today to inquire about how press release distribution can help with their unique content marketing needs this year.

For more expert business marketing tips from Qamar Zaman, or for more information about the services provided by KISS PR, please visit http://bit.ly/1WPsNDq.

Media Contact:
KISS PR
Salma Zaman
972-646-2788
Connect with KISS PR on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube

Qamar Zaman
Chief Visionary at One SEO Company. An Internet Entrepreneur SEO & lawyer Internet marketing professional & Starbucks Lover.

from Dallas Internet Marketing Blog

Did Google roll out a Brand Bidding Algorithm Update Last Week, Or Was it Part of Penguin 4.0?

A week ago, there’s a bit of a commotion in the SEO community that prompted some to conclude that Google had at last rolled out its most anticipated algorithm update which is Penguin 4.0.  But, after careful checking, reliable sources and even Googlers themselves confirmed that it’s not Penguin yet.  Googler Gary Illyes also confirmed it on his tweet.

So, what really happened?

For those who haven’t caught up yet with this latest algorithm roll out, here’s a quick flashback on what had transpired last week.

 

On the 11th of this month, Joost de Valk, founder of Yoast, reported that they’ve witnessed the biggest and most dramatic changes in Google rankings in the last few years. At first he taught that it’s the most awaited Penguin update, but later on he corrected himself and concluded that it’s a Google core algorithm update.  Here’s what he wrote on his blog.

 

“So… What changed? We don’t know. The changes are… Weird. We’ve been using a couple of datasets to look at this update, but most of all we’re looking at SearchMetrics. They publish a list of winners and losers every week and this week the changes seem to have happened mostly for news sites, specifically for brand terms.”

 

Joost is actually referring to the sudden fluctuation of the SERPs (search engine result pages) that mostly affected news websites wherein brand keywords are the target.

 

Likewise, on the day before that, Dan Petrovic of DejanSEO.com, has a bit similar observation.

 

“It looks like Penguin, but it’s broader in its scope so at this stage it appears to be a multi-purpose update encompassing a range of search quality parameters. From webmaster reports we know this update carries global impact.”

 

Link Research Tools and Search Engine RoundTable also have the similar observations.

But, are there proofs that what Google rolled out or tested was the Brand Bidding Algorithm?

Some experts in the industry concluded that the search giant rolled out an update for its Brand Bidding algorithm, but there are also those who are not convinced.

Joost de Valk is not convinced with the brand bidding algorithm and he quickly explained it in the following blog post.

 

“Bartosz has written a good post (with tons of interesting screenshots if you don’t have access to SearchMetrics), that touches on some of the things I had seen too. He calls it a “brand bidding update”, which I don’t think is right. I do agree with him that the change was in the type of results that Google shows for brand queries. The switch seems to have been from news articles to more “timeless” URLs.”

Our take about this latest unnamed roll out.

This core algorithm update is really something that should be analyzed more deeply.  As of this writing, we noticed that there are only a very few who tried to dig more data to find out what really it is.  Google hasn’t released any statement yet about it and what we mostly read online are just mere speculations and unconfirmed conclusions.

 

Despite the confusions, we think the roll out last week was part of Google’s core algorithm update that they regularly release every now and then, but that one is really big.  And, basing on how it affects branded key terms, it is definitely not related to the much anticipated Penguin 4.0 update.  But, we can’t really say that we are right.  Let us end this article with this interesting comment from one of the members of a Black Hat forum.

 

“There have been massive SERP changes/fluctuations since September/October of 2015. For all we know, Google has been silently rolling out the new Penguin algorithm all this time. It is in their best interest not to announce its rollout when it is actually happening and instead wait for it to roll out, the SERPs to stabilize and then “announce” that they have implemented it. This way they get to avoid the massive PR sh*tstorm which always takes place when they announce large algo updates the moment they take place. Why do you think Matt Cutts is no longer the spokesperson for these updates? They learned that it is better to just be as vague as possible and/or keep everyone in the dark when it comes to large updates.”

 

Lastly, on the 16th of this month, another massive core algorithm update has been rolled out by Google and it is called “Burj Khalifa”. Google has been very sneaky these past few months.  Fortunately for them (and unfortunately for us) they always have the upper hand if they wanted to announce the release of their big algorithm roll outs or not.  Now, it’s your turn to create a conclusion.

Read my latest blog post on SEO 2016 Link Building Fundamentals
Qamar Zaman is a head of SEO and CEO of OneSEOCompany.com

Qamar Zaman
Chief Visionary at One SEO Company. An Internet Entrepreneur SEO & lawyer Internet marketing professional & Starbucks Lover.

from Dallas Internet Marketing Blog

SEO 2016 Link Building Fundamentals

Qamar Zaman a Dallas based SEO outlines fundamentals to link building In 2016 – 7 Mortal Sins in Off-page Optimization You Should Not Commit Again.

It’s already 2016, but when I checked my inbox this morning, I still got emails from online companies wanting to publish a sponsored post on my blog with a back link to their commerce website. What these people are thinking? Real-Time Google Penguin is expected to hit within this month or early next month and these individuals are still looking for ways to get their websites penalized.

For those who don’t know, Real-Time Google Penguin or simply Penguin 4.0 is one of the most anticipated algorithm update from Google that might have been launched before this write-up has been published. As of this writing, a lot are expecting that it will be released within January or early February, but others said Google will release it on March. But, nevertheless, building backlinks these days should not be trusted to people who are still using black-hat or grey-hat tactics to game the system.

According to experts and insiders, Penguin 4.0 once unleashed will automatically penalize websites with suspicious or shady backlinks. With this information alone, it’s sad to know that there are still SEO practitioners who are still committing these mortal sins in off-page optimization.

7 Mortal Sins in Off-Page Optimization People Are Still Doing These Days

1. Paying bloggers to publish your article and asking them to make the backlink do-follow.

There are still a lot of SEO practitioners who believe that this is something Google won’t notice. I mean, how would Google know if you are paying a blogger or not to get a backlink from their high authority blog site? Nice rationalization, right? But, believe it or not, Google will know. May be not now but later, they will find out that you’re buying links. And, once that happened, it will be too late for you to save whatever it is that needed to be saved.

My point really is, if you are doing sneaky things, better not leave any trace because if you do, well, you are trading the future of your business in exchange to temporary boost in search rankings.

2. Forcefully inserting a SEO keyword as an anchor text in a blog post or landing page.

Believe it or not this practice still happens nowadays. Exact-matched SEO keywords forcefully inserted in a blog article and landing page for the sake of getting high rankings is really a suicide, but why is it that there are still many who are doing this kind of trick these days? Google may not penalize your website now, but their upcoming Penguin 4.0 release will definitely leave “harrowing fatalities” for those who keep doing this abuse.

Real-Time Google Penguin algorithm update is expected to instantly penalize all web pages that show signs of spammy links. Would you wait to be penalized first before you straighten up your act?

3. Commenting on unmoderated .edu or similar websites (with high domain authority) to get “high quality” backlinks.

This trick is outright spammy but you will be shocked at how many people are still doing it these days. Leaving comments on unmoderated .edu pages with exact-matched keywords as usernames is definitely one of the easiest ways to boost rankings in search…before. But, if you are still doing this kind of lousy trick these days, please stop it now.

If you hired a SEO agency before and you have no idea that you have backlinks from these spammy pages, you better start a SEO audit to determine where you can start disavowing all those links before Penguin 4.0 will hit your website. You can search for free SEO audit software online or you can buy premium ones as well.

4. Getting backlinks from a webpage with more than 1000 outgoing links.

This is somehow related to number 3. Imagine having backlinks from unmoderated comment section from a .edu website filled with similar spammy backlinks? What value would it give your website when it has a backlink from another web page filled with spam? If you want to ruin your link reputation, then by all means keep on doing it, but for sure if you are the business owner and you know that you hired someone who is still doing this, then by all means pull out your project immediately.

Getting a backlink from a webpage with excessive number of backlinks can automatically trigger Google’s anti-spam filter and can lead to your page getting de-indexed and penalized.

5. Getting backlinks from web pages with the same IP address.

This is actually a thing in the past. Those days wherein webmasters and SEO experts create blog networks to increase backlinks for their money sites and ultimately increase their search rankings. But, surprisingly, there are still people who are doing it these days. They are the ones who proclaimed that they don’t rely solely on Google, thus they are not afraid to go beyond what is ethical.

The problem here is, despite the fact that they are not bothered if Google will penalize them, what’s the guarantee that other search engines won’t do the same? Any tactic to game the system (any search engine for that matter) is bound to get caught and the culprits will be having their not-much anticipated consequence.

6. Creating too many backlinks with exact-match anchor texts.

Too many exact-match anchor texts and do-follow backlinks are signs that you trying to manipulate the system. Even a simple link audit tool can easily detect that you are building links solely to increase your search rankings. You may not be caught easily now but trust me, in the long run, Google will catch up and all your optimization efforts will fade into thin air.

The best way to avoid getting hit by the next Google algorithm update is to diversify your backlinks and never get obsessed with the do-follow trend. Of course, getting a dofollow backlink is great, but if you have way too many, search engine bots will get suspicious and the next thing you know, your website is already deranked and de-indexed in the SERPs (search engine result pages).

7. Using automated program to create backlinks.

Creating automated backlinks is definitely very unethical and is strongly discouraged by big search engines most especially by Google. But, it’s still surprising to observe that many practitioners in the industry still use automation in the guise that it makes redundant tasks easier to manage. But, despite this, the abuse in using automated software in building backlinks is still rampant among those who are fond of utilizing black-hat SEO to game the system.

Are you still committing these mortal sins in Off-page Optimization these days? If you are, I highly recommend you look for ethical alternatives now, or else suffer irreversible consequences later that can ultimately cost you your job or your business.

Building backlinks should not only focus on increasing its number. It should also focus on creating long lasting relationships with leaders and authority in your niche. Reaching out to bloggers, contacting fellow webmasters for a guest post request, attending SEO conferences, sponsoring social media activities, and getting a free backlinks from all these are the type of link building you should do this 2016. Isn’t it more fulfilling if your link building campaign also reflect on how you do well in building relationships in real life?

Qamar Zaman can be reached at OneSEOCompany.com or via phone call 972.437.8942

Qamar Zaman
Chief Visionary at One SEO Company. An Internet Entrepreneur SEO & lawyer Internet marketing professional & Starbucks Lover.

from Dallas Internet Marketing Blog