15 Experts Discuss Content, Digital Marketing & SEO (Pt. 2) -

• Updated on: 2018-11-25
• Read original article here

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(Last week) we introduced you to 15 digital marketing experts who shared some knowledge on the industry – specifically content and SEO, and how to get your site to rank on search engines. Regardless of the field you’re in, and what type of business you operate, your digital presence is the key to higher visibility on the World Wide Web. The topic of digital marketing is broad in itself; made up of different components, but the essentials – like keywords, and backlinks – are already known. So we’ve gathered 15 more experts to shed more light on these topics. Whether it’s what common SEO mistakes to avoid, how to drive immediate traffic to your website, or how to create “shareable” content, they’ve got the insight.
Jason Berkowitz is the founder and CEO of Break The Web, a full service digital marketing agency with locations in New York City and San Diego. Starting with just simple SEO campaigns, Break The Web has launched a fully managed digital marketing team, capable of providing results for businesses of all sizes. 
www.breaktheweb.org
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
Since SEO has changed so much in the last five years, many people still continue to believe the old-school techniques are still plausible today. This simply is not the case! Many are still going the cheaper, less researched route and purchasing $5 bulk links. We receive inquiries from prospective clients daily who have made similar mistakes like this and it has only led to issues we had to rectify. Another common SEO mistake that many are still making is automation software. Automated link building software was a big deal a few years back, mostly because they worked really well. Since that time, Search Engine algorithms have become really advanced and can detect these types of low-quality link building. To this day, we still hear about SEO companies using automation tools like SENuke, Magic Submitter & GSA.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Content may be considered more “shareable” than others due to a wide variety of reasons. One reason could simply be the audience. Does the content hit emotional triggers within the audience? Does the audience feel that the content piece is something they have benefited from (and willing to share with ours)? Is there even an audience? Content generation is great, but it is essentially useless if people are not coming across your articles. Making sure you have proper engagement with an audience is key to getting shares. Even something as simple as saying, ‘Share this post with your friends…” can go a long way.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
It is no secret that SEO can be a bit of a waiting game. SEO results are meant to be organic & natural, but there’s nothing natural about quick SEO rankings. While the SEO campaigns are taking place, immediate traffic can take place by utilizing other forms of digital marketing. We typically run Google AdWords campaigns for our clients, while we wait for the SEO results. This allows them to start generating more traffic/leads/customers almost immediately. Other forms of paid advertising that will bring instant traffic is Facebook Ads & Real-Time Bidding (RTB).
Sean Si is the CEO and founder of SEO Hacker, an SEO company in the Philippines. Si is a start-up, data analysis and urgency junkie who spends his time inspiring young entrepreneurs through talks and seminars. 
 
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
I guess the most common is focusing on one facet of SEO. It’s tempting to zero in on the facet that you’re most used to – either copywriting, marketing/outreach or technical. All three of these have to exist and have to be taken cared of everyday. You can’t zero in on one and leave the others hanging. Doing so will either increase the risk of penalty, or will be ineffective.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Value. It’s simply how much value does the content bring to its target audience. No value, no shares. If it does bring value, how well was it promoted? Did you do an outreach campaign for promoting the value your content brings? If not, you miss out on an exponential factor in shareability.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
Ads. Either that or through an outreach campaign but even that has no guarantee. If you want guaranteed eyeballs, you have to spend some money. Run ads in Facebook or Google and have those people subscribe to your newsletter or push notification.
Eric Enge is the CEO of Stone Temple, a 70 person digital marketing agency out of Boston. He is the co-author of “The Art of SEO” and was named 2016 US Search Awards Search Personality of the Year. He also earned the 2016 Landy’s Search Marketer of the Year title. Stone Temple provides SEO services and content marketing services to large enterprise organization. 
www.stonetemple.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
Unfortunately, there are many SEO mistakes that are common. Some of the most common include: a. Improper tagging of SEO tags, such as NoIndex, rel=canonical, and rel=prev/next. For example, many people put rel=canonical and NoIndex instructions on the same page, and they conflict with each other. Or, they put rel=prev/next tags on a paginated sequence of pages, but also place a rel=canonical tag on all the pages pointing back to the first page of the sequence – these also are conflicting instructions. b. Creating too many pages because they are chasing the long tail of search.
Google does not want to see your “size 12 red
running shoe with black soles and yellow laces” page in their index, especially along with millions of other pages of similar granularity.  Developing a site as a single page app, without implementing a URL structure or “deep linking” to allow the content to be indexed. Also, having a terrible mobile site experience. Or, it’s close cousin, having a mobile site that is not ready for the mobile-first indexing world.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
It’s worth defining shareable for a moment. Really cute cat pictures are shareable, but that doesn’t mean that it serves your business well at all. So, I’m going to focus on shareable content that helps build your business. Moz and BuzzSumo did a joint study in September of 2015, in which they analyzed the results of 1M articles. They found that most content is not very shareable at all. But, there were exceptions. In particular, opinion forming journalism from well established sites gets share a lot. And, data-driven studies also do quite well, and they don’t require that your business be quite as established. If you’re looking to build the reputation of your business, these two areas are probably your best shot.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
Honestly, the fastest way is via paid search of paid social media. You can set a campaign up and have new traffic coming to your site within a day. SEO results, even with good on page tweaks to your site, are not immediate. A successful viral marketing campaign can drive traffic as it goes viral, but creating viral content takes quite a bit of effort, so that’s not immediate either. The paid approach is the best one for immediate traffic.
Ashley Zeckman is the Director of Agency Marketing for TopRank Marketing. She is responsible for creating digital marketing programs that drive customer acquisition and growth for the agency and advising on influencer driven content programs for clients. Her background includes expertise in everything from content marketing strategy to branding, account management and social media. 
www.toprankmarketing.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
In the past, marketers spent a lot of time focusing on optimizing content for one specific keyword. But as search engines and users have gotten more savvy, it’s important to optimize content based on the user intent. Start by identifying what your target audience is searching for and create content that answers those questions. A second SEO mistake that many marketers are making is neglecting to update high-performing, evergreen content. If for example your company has published some blog content that still ranks really well but has some outdated information, take the time to update it in a way that will make it hyper-relevant for your readers.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Our CEO Lee Odden talks a lot about the importance of “info-taining” content. If you create content that is just informational, your audience may get bored. If you create content that is just entertaining, your audience won’t learn. By combining informational and entertaining content you have the ability to engage your audience to not only consume but share the content. Co-creating content with the RIGHT influencers can also be a great way to increase your content’s exposure and sharability. Not only will the experts help share the content they helped create, but your audience will be engaged with the tips included from people that they respect and trust.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
There really is no quick-fix way to drive website traffic immediately. However, you can increase your chances by cleaning up any technical issues that may exist with the site, optimizing your on-page copy and creating some great content to draw in new audience members.
Mike is a content marketing practioner, award-winning blogger and author from St. Louis. He is the Chief Marketing Officer at SiteSell, and has been working with websites since the early 1990’s. Mike also teaches holistic approaches to content marketing that leverage blog content, social media, and SEO to drive traffic, generate leads, and convert those leads into sales. 
www.sitesell.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
While there are plenty of mistakes folks make with SEO, the most common that I see is simply trying too hard. Instead of being focused on creating content for humans content creators and businesses worry too much about search engines and end up with content that fails to impress. All of the SEO tricks and techniques in the world cannot overcome poor, useless writing.
That’s because the most important signals that Google looks at are traffic, time on site, and backlinks. Poor content will fail at those, while great content will surge ahead. Businesses that focus on answering customer questions and providing the best possible information that they can will find themselves, and their content, in a far better position.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
The key driver of sharing that occurs on social media is self-interest. Will this content make me look good, either by providing much-needed answers, or simply through association? Of course, individuals think that way on a subconscious level. When they’re reading an article or social media share, their first reaction is a very personal, emotional one. Or not. If there’s no emotional reaction, good or bad, the reader will likely move on.
If, however, they think something is really cool (or horrific), then there’s a snap decision whether to share that with their own audience. If they think their friends and fans on social media will have a similar reaction, they will be more likely to share that piece of content. Therefore, the emotional quotient of a piece of content is a critical consideration for content creators.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
While I have written extensively about blog promotion (and if you’re not yet utilizing the majority of these techniques, that’s certainly a place to improve in the short-term), the more critical piece is to have pillar, epic content on your site that people cannot help but to share. If you are not yet creating that 10x level content (as Rand Fishkin puts it), that’s where you need to focus your time.
That’s because all digital traffic is not created equal. Traffic to poor pieces of content will likely be poor traffic. Whereas traffic to high quality content can lead to even more high quality traffic due to the shareability factors we just touched on. And the more people share your great content, the more traffic you’ll get, and so on. So start by making sure you’re publishing the best possible content that you can.
Chris Raulf is the founder of Boulder SEO Marketing, a boutique digital marketing agency located in Denver, and Boulder Colorado. Raulf was also recently recognized as a “Top 30 SEO Agency.” Raulf and his team assist local, national, and international clients with all of their SEO, social media, and content marketing needs. 
www.boulderseomarketing.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
One of the most common SEO mistakes I see people make is that they are not patient. Luckily there’s no magic switch for SEO. Earning those page number one keyword rankings and an increase in Google organic search traffic has to be earned over time. It oftentimes takes 3-5 months until we see results from implementing a sophisticated digital marketing strategy. Google’s algorithm is probably comparable to the FICO credit score system. As it would time to fix a damaged credit score, it will take time to proof to Google (and other search engines) that your site deserves the rankings you’re aiming for.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Google initially addressed the weak content issue with it’s Panda algorithm update back in February of 2011. It seemed that even having weak content on a site actually helped a website’s SEO. Luckily, this no longer works and anyone now has to put at least some kind of effort into publishing high quality content on their website. We help customers do this by hiring subject matter expert writers who can actually produce the highest possible content available out there.
We also educate them about search engine optimization by giving them access to our online SEO training course and other educational resources on our website. That said, aim for developing content that is well researched, addresses your target audience’s questions and that’s also optimized for search. If you do this, then the people reading your content will likely link back to it and share it via social media and other ways.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
As mentioned in my answer to question one, earning keyword rankings and driving organic search traffic to a website takes time. Some of the most commons ways to immediately drive quality traffic to a site include: Pay-per-Click (PPC): An easy, yet sometimes costly, way to get traffic to a website is by setting up Google AdWords campaigns. The more you pay, the more traffic you’ll get to your website.
It’s not a ranking signal in Google’s algorithm, however, if you get people to your website this way they may consume multiple pages which could send positive signals to Google overall. Social Media Marketing: Implementing and deploying a sophisticated social media marketing strategy should result into driving traffic back to your site. Though, make sure to not only promote your site in your postings, this will turn off some of your audience and they’ll unfollow you.
Email Marketing: Email marketing is also an easy way to immediately drive traffic to your website. Though, be careful about potentially spamming people and make sure that you content only goes to people potentially interested in what you’re promoting.
Stoney deGeyter is the author of “The Best Damn Web Marketing Checklist, Period!” He is also a speaker, teacher, husband, father, and web marketer! Stoney is the president of Pole Position Marketing, a results-driven, inbound marketing agency that has been helping businesses grow their web presence since 1998. He is also a nationally recognized speaker and leader in the web marketing industry. 
www.polepositionmarketing.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
I would argue that the most common SEO mistake is made by DIYers and Developers thinking they know what SEO is. Many have the perception that SEO is something you do once, but in reality it’s something you do constantly. If you don’t understand this before optimizing a site you’re going to be disappointed with the results and potentially waste a good chunk of money and time in the process.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Some industries are inherently more sharable than others. For example, you’re not going to get much traction with content about flow meters outside of that niche industry. But that doesn’t mean you can’t make your flow meter content more shareable than the next guys. It all comes down to providing something valuable and that readers aren’t finding anywhere else. It also helps if you take the time to engage with your readers on social. Those things can provide a big boost to getting your content shared, regardless of industry.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
The most immediate way to drive traffic is through paid ads. But that’s not always the most cost effective. Organically, I wold get on social media and build up a presence there. While you’re doing that begin optimizing the site. Look for low hanging fruit keywords that you can optimize. These will be keywords with relatively little competition that you can rank for more easily. This will start bringing people through the doors.
Marcus Miller is Bowler Hat’s digital strategist. He’s been working in the industry for nearly 20 years and wears many (Bowler) hats as a highly technical developer and SEO manager. He even has a fancy computer science degree to prove it. He encourages continuous, ceaseless improvement and his predictions of trends are always spookily correct. 
www.bowlerhat.co.uk
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
Oh gosh, where to start! Search can be really complicated. So, one of the biggest mistakes we see is a misunderstanding regarding what is actually possible in this highly localized, personalized search landscape. It’s very important to ensure that what you are trying to achieve is actually achievable. A great example is wanting to rank nationally for a keyword that aggressively shows local results. You can’t bend the search engine results to your will. You have to work within the confines of what those desirable results look like.
To help small businesses get the basics right we have a free website design planning guide that covers everything from the domain registration to SEO. Another common mistake would be a failure to get the basics right – site structure, page titles, meta descriptions, page content. Get all that dialed in first. If you want the best results from SEO be the best result. We look at several sites every single week at the Bowler Hat, the agency I own and run in the UK and we never, ever see sites that have all these fundamental basics 100% dialed in and perfect. A common mistake we see on the link and authority building front is a failure to have anything that deserves to be linked to. It’s unnatural for small businesses websites to have lots of links with the anchor text they would like to rank for pointing at the homepage.
However, develop some form of content that relates to your target audience, make it great, promote it in guest posts and with digital PR and you can naturally build some descriptive anchor text and help Google understand that you are an authority on that subject. Remember, the search engine only knows what you know if you share it by creating content.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
There are a bunch of factors that can influence how “shareable” a piece of content is. Connecting your content to a given date or something in the news can really help. Having something hugely valuable to users can help as well. As can creating something that makes the sharer look wise and considered. Something that is funny never hurts. Ultimately, you have to think about why someone would share the content. What is in it for them? Work backwards from there and you will increase the odds of creating good viral content.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
SEO quick and easy wins like on page optimization or improvements to existing, well ranking content. Paid search. Display marketing. Social ads. Often the quickest options to drive digital traffic are the ones that require a click budget. Often the best ways to build traffic, like organic search, are a slow, sustained and measured process that is built firmly on the back of content marketing with some solid SEO smarts in the mix.
Joseph Cruz is the author of “Ranking Elite: an SEO and Online Marketing” blog. He’s been an industry expert since 2011, and as worked as a link builder for an international SEO company based in the Philippines. He later became an in-house SEO specialist for a multi-national publisher in Australia. 
www.rankingelite.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
There is a lot of SEO mistakes committed by SEOs, some are minors and some are majors such as failure to optimize the page for search and for users. But there is one mistake that is often overlook, which is not tracking the performance of strategies being implemented. In digital marketing, whether Search Engine Optimization or Pay Per Click, tracking is always important.
You should know whether your current strategies are working effectively and providing you results you are expecting. Otherwise, you might be spending your time and effort over something that is not even worth doing or spending on.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Some content are more shareable than others is because they use different methods to make their content shareable. One good example is click to tweet, – Click to tweet can increase the chances of a webpage to be tweeted on Twitter with a link back and twitter handle being tagged on the tweet. Another example is Pin It Button – If your website is driven by images, you can increase the chances of being shared constantly on Pinerest which is another hack to make your content shareable. There is no straightforward approach as to why is certain content more shareable than the others but to make a logical approach on how you setup a webpage to be socially shareable.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
There is no easy way to succeed in digital marketing. But if your website is fairly new, you can drive immediate traffic to a website through advertising on different platforms such as Social Media, Newsletter or Pay Per Click. These methods is just a matter of setting up the audience targeting and dedicated budget to run the ads campaigns. However, these immediate traffic will not last until you run out of advertising budget. If you are looking for long term results, there is no immediate method to make it possible. You should spend time developing your brand/website by producing the right piece of information to your audience.
Bill Sebald is the owner of Greenlane, an digital marketing agency in the Philadelphia area. He is a blogger, speaker, and Professor at Philadelphia University.
www.greenlaneseo.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
Not thinking of the indirect values of SEO campaigns. These are the things you don’t (or sometimes can’t) immediately measure. “We SEO’d this page, but it generated no revenue. Stop doing SEO.” But did it assist a conversion? Was it necessary as a an introduction into a sales funnel? Did it help raise awareness of your brand, which in turn generated hundreds of new loyal customers? When it comes to SEO, think bigger.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
One word: resonance. People like to share content that is a reflection of them. For example, my wife works for a rehab, and she routinely shares articles about addiction that resonate with her and what she sees each day. It’s typically a piece of content that made a point or generally demonstrated high value. It’s often a piece where a time (and cost) investment was clearly present. It also helps when there’s social proof (others sharing, engaging comments, etc).
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
Buy it from AdWords or pay for content promotion. There’s a lot of noise, so you have to boost your signal. You want to take the time to be very targeted, so invest in understanding your audience, their needs, and their intent. Otherwise, earning that engagement organically could take some time (which may include earning some brand reputation through routine awareness campaigns).
Philip Verghese ‘Áriel’ is a multi-niche freelance writer, blogger, translator, roundup post expert and an internet marketer, who writes in English as well as in his mother tongue Malayalam.
 
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
Keyword stuffing or the overuse of your main keyword is one among the major common mistakes many do in SEO. Though keywords are very vital in SEO its overuse will surely give a bad effect to it. Not only that there is chance to get penalized too. Many in the beginning of their blogging use many keywords stuffing in between the text thinking that it will be visible to search engines and will get that into a better ranking in Google. Another common mistake is that unstable Meta Titles and the Meta descriptions. Some just miss to add this, in fact, this will help the searchers to get a quick idea about our content.
These descriptions should be to the point and should give a quick idea what the content is all together, though the words are limited here we must create an attractive short description. And yet another mistake is that the misplacement of the keyword, It is a must to mention the keyword in the first paragraph of the content, many miss this fact while creating contents and miss the mark. Also often many miss to place the keyword in the subheading H2, in fact, this is one of the important criteria counted in SEO
Why is certain content more shareable than others?
The contents which talk about a problem and a solution to fix it will really help many. Such contents will get easily shared. And if the content is giving a newly developed idea which is not shared or developed. Another thing I noticed is that if you are posting a content which is connected with another fellow blogger, or let me put it this way: If you are making mention of the fellow bloggers in a content, it will be shared at once by the other persons, and surely that will reach to his friends circle and from there it goes on to that person’s friends list and again like a chain it goes on and works wonders. From my experience, I can say that some of my Roundup posts I made shared all over several times by the fellow bloggers. surely Roundup posts are a sure fire in this aspect.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
To drive traffic to our sites, there are many methods available. But the quick and immediate result will get via sharing through major social medias like Facebook, twitter, Google+ LinkdIn etc. Especially Facebook is a wonderful media, and many bloggers use Facebook and this strategy of using facebook to share their links immediately after publishing their posts. Of course, you can do this by sharing to different groups in the Facebook itself and various other forums. An active participation in Groups and forums will bring in good traffic to our new posts. This is no doubt a proven method to get quick traffic.
Of course, another important factor is the list building. Creating a list of emails of your visitors and contacts will help you in making a valuable subscribers list. There are many easy to use plugins and platforms available now for this purpose, which helps you in creating a good list. Then by using the list, we can quickly convey them about the new posts. This will surely get the attention of our regular visitors and readers and ultimately they visit our pages.
Gabriella Sannino is an international SEO consultant who loves to write about marketing, social media, and SEO. Her blog, Level 343, encourages readers to continue the conversation about these aforementioned industries. She’s also crazy about pistachios, and Nutella.
www.level343.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
There are several “most common” mistakes; we covered some of them in 5 Common SEO Mistakes Still Being Made, but there are three that stand out in my mind. One very common error is to use images to display text. No matter how good search engine crawlers are getting, they aren’t quite good enough to pull text out of images. If the text is relevant, it should be overlaid on the image – not placed in the image. And if it’s not relevant… why is it in the image anyway? Another “most common” is not using the title and meta description (search snippet parts).
People think, “Oh, Google doesn’t count those anymore for ranking, so we don’t have to worry about them.” I’ve seen numerous sites that don’t even bother now. But optimization is more than ranking. If a search snippet is the first encounter a visitor has with your site, wouldn’t you want to make sure you’re putting your best foot forward? The third, I’d have to say, is misunderstanding the usefulness of SEO. I outlined the problems in 3 Reasons You Can’t Depend on SEO, but in short, search engine optimization should never be a standalone procedure (done only by itself), a singular procedure (only done once), or a satellite procedure (as an afterthought, and non-integrated).
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Excellent question, and one that delves straight into the psychology of marketing. For example, humans like visual components. They draw the eye and light up more areas in the brain than only text. Visuals, used correctly, can quickly pass along information and thought processes. After that, it gets less complicated. We share the things we like. The more people who like a certain type of content, the more “shareable” it is. Half of marketing is finding out what people like to share so we can get them talking about our product.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
Define “immediately”… Look. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is traffic. If you mean “from day one.” you’re going to have a mad scramble. However, overall, the fastest way to build your traffic is to just provide value and to continue providing value. Wherever you are, whatever platform you’re using, keep that up. For example, think about why people follow you on Twitter? Because you provide value – and since they’re used to that value, they come to trust what you have to say. So when you share a link to your blog, they’ll follow that link to see what more you have to say beyond 140 characters. There is no quick way to build the kind of traffic you want – qualified traffic. It’s a process, and it takes time. Building a reputation for providing value, however, is the quickest way to do it.
Glen Dimaandal is the sole author of Glen Demands, and the founder/CEO of GDI, a Philippine-based digital marketing agency. Glen’s core competencies include SEO, content development, SEM, direct response copywriting, and conversion rate optimization. He has a background in computer science, journalism, and special education. 
www.glendemands.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
In my experience, most mistakes happen in the areas of technical SEO and link building. A lot of SEOs seem to neglect factors like crawlability, selectiveness in which pages to index, site speed and internal linking. All of these factors have become increasingly impactful in the past several years and you can go a long way in your campaign just by addressing issues related to these. As for link building, the most common mistake I see is when people chase links based solely on unofficial metrics such as Domain Authority or Citation Flow.
These metrics can easily be rigged by PBN owners and can make some crappy sites look like good link building prospects on the surface. Some SEOs aren’t aware that Google is smart enough to links from a lot of sites like these, nullifying their effects. It’s still better to chase sites with legitimate readerships. These sites tend to grow in authority over the years and the links they send your way have a greater tendency to get clicked on by human users. These are the best kinds of links because they drive more potent equity and referred visits to your pages.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Sensationalism aside, there are two main reasons why content can become shareable: unique value and emotional appeal. As the term suggests, unique value is inherent in a piece of content if it contains information that’s useful to others and is hard to find anywhere else. In some cases, the information may not be unique but if the quality of presentation is better than anyone else’s, the content can still be considered uniquely valuable. Some content may not be useful or unique, but it can still be shareable if it triggers emotion.
Pictures of cute cats still get passed around because people find feline appeal timeless. Rant posts about Donald Trump are also easily circulated over social media due to the divisive nature of the person involved. Inspirational stories of human triumph against great odds also tend to become viral because emotional appeal that resonate with people.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
I know it sounds like a cop out, but if you need fast traffic, PPC and social media ads are your best bet. SEO and content marketing are great at driving targeted visitors in huge volumes but it takes months or years for their full effects to really set in.
Kristopher B. Jones is the founder and former CEO of Pepperjam, which he sold to eBay in 2009. Since selling Pepperjam Kris has invested in nearly 20 companies and currently serves as CEO of LSEO and Special Guest App. A prolific writer with nearly 300 publication Kris is the best-selling author of SEO Visual Blueprint, which has sold over 100,000 copies.
www.lseo.com
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
Too many SEO’s get lazy or take huge risks building links. For instance, when writing content for your website or blog your end goal must be to create content valuable enough to earn a link from a 3rd party, but is most instances the content created isn’t link worthy. There’s a big difference between thin content that is not link worthy, and a a carefully thought out and executed (aka link worthy) content strategy like “the American Muscle Guide Program.” Similarly, SEO’s tend to lack creativity when it comes to building content.
However, occasionally they get it right like for example the creative genius of speculating about putting President Donald Trump on a gold coin. The reason I love this piece (and why it’s gone viral) is because you can’t honestly tell if US Gold Bureau is being honest or simply spoofing the idea – either way it’s creative and totally link worthy!
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Content that is shareable is either entertaining, informative, engaging, or unique is some way. Content that is focused on selling something is highly unlikely to get many shares unless you are giving 95% off of something of value. Instead, focus on adding value in some way and not selling anything and you’ll watch your shares and shareability increase. Two solid examples of what I mean are the Fanatics blog and any content from social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
If you want to generate traffic to your site immediately I’d leverage Facebook Ads or Native Ad networks like Taboola or Outbrain. Keep in mind that traffic doesn’t always drive more important key performance indicators (KPI’s) like leads and sales so be careful about focusing on traffic as a key metric unless you are very careful about controlling quality.
Raghav is a content marketer working with Single Grain. He helps B2B companies get more leads through content marketing.
 
What are the most common SEO mistakes?
The most common SEO mistake is creating content for search engines and trying to “game the system”, rather than creating content that people would love to read. The truth is, engineers at Google working on Search are smarter than most internet marketers, and their whole job is to figure out way stop people from manipulating rankings. So the people who win when it comes to SEO are the ones who create content and promote it naturally. For example, you shouldn’t have too many links pointing back to your site in a short period of time, and you shouldn’t have the exact same anchor text pointing back to your site in every backlink.
Why is certain content more “shareable” than others?
Most content on the internet feels “recycled”, especially in crowded markets like SaaS or online marketing. At a certain point, they all start to sound the same. Most marketers already know that you have to have long form, well researched content if you want to stand out from the pack and go viral — but one thing that most people don’t talk about is creating content that talks about your own experience. For example, if you’re giving SEO advice, what were some SEO successes / failures you had in the past? What were the numbers behind that? By documenting your own experiences, you ensure that people can’t copy you, and that you stay unique.
How can I drive digital traffic to my site immediately?
Paid traffic like Facebook or Adwords are always an option, but if you’re starting out, chances are you don’t have a high marketing budget. For that reason, platforms like Quora or Medium are a great place to start driving traffic to your site. You can start answering questions related to your niche on Quora, or posting on “publications” on Medium, This way, you’ll get your content in front of a larger audience without having to spend any money or following up for weeks with journalists to get featured in the press.