- Blogging can often seem like it's a big massive chore.
And if you don't see the results,
that's all it's ever going to be!
- So in this video we're
gonna show you the blogging strategy
that the world's leading experts are using to get ahead.
- So if you had not yet seen results
from your blogging strategy,
then you need to keep a watch on this video.
Was angry, but it's true, you have to keep watching.
- For massive results.
(slide whistle whistling) (bell dinging)
Hey, we're Andrew and Pete and recently we've
been interviewing some of the world's leading bloggers
on our podcast, go check it out.
And what's interesting is this increasingly urgent
tend to focus on quality rather than quantity.
- Let's see that really interesting face again.
- Mm.
- Oh yeah, really interesting. (laughs)
Because as the world gets more and more saturated
with content, to win it's not about creating
as much content as possible,
it's about creating the best content possible.
And maximising that more.
- So from here on in in this video,
we're gonna be showing you what those leading experts
use for their strategy to get hundreds of thousands
of people to their website, and tonnes and tonnes of sales.
(cash register dinging) - If not a zillion.
- A zillion gajillion sales.
So keep watching as we break this down
into nine simple steps.
- First step is keyword research.
That basically means finding a series of words
that people are actually searching for
based around what you want to blog about.
The key here is finding a keyword that you actually
have a chance of ranking for, and potentially
it might also have commercial intent.
- To do this we use tools such as Answer the Public,
and Keywords Everywhere to find potential key words.
We then test these key words against tools
like the MozBar for competitiveness,
and Google Keyword Planner
for competitiveness and search volume.
If you want us to do a video all about keyword research,
why not comment below and let us know.
- Step two is to write and awesome blog.
(Pete laughs)
Why are you laughing? (laughs)
- I don't know.
- (laughs) That wasn't even funny.
Research shows that the majority of articles
that rank on page one or get the most social shares
are a minimum of 1,500 words.
- In fact, we've even seen people write
20 to 50,000 word articles
just to rank on page one for competitive search top.
That's mental!
- That is mental.
Now, you don't necessarily need to write that much,
but your goal should always be to make it the best page
on the internet for that search term,
and Google will reward you.
This also means adding extra media into your blog.
Break it up with titles, subtitles, lists, videos,
quotes, tweetables, reach outs, graphs,
embedded Sound Clouds, Slide X, and so on.
- Step three is to optimise your blog.
Use something like the Yoast SEO plug-in for Wordpress,
which gives you like a red, amber, green system.
Make sure everything is green,
make sure you've mentioned your keywords,
make sure your keyword is in the title, in the URL,
and tags, and metadata, and image URLs,
all this kind of stuff.
Make it green.
- Make it green.
- Make Pete green.
(mechanical clicking)
- I'm green, I'm a monster.
(laughing)
Am I really like, not green, not right now.
I'm probably like
- Red. - blue right now
aren't I something?
- Oh, yeah, purple now.
'cause we said that at the same time.
- A quick tip here is to front load
your blog title with your keyword.
You are not Buzzfeed, you can't just get away
with really curious, random, wacky blog titles.
They are not gonna rank, and people don't know
what the hell you're talking about.
Make your blog titles actually make sense.
- Really wish we were Buzzfeed, though.
- I really, yeah, that'd be pretty cool.
- Step four is to optimise the page for email capture.
Five places to capture the reader's email could include,
in the next itself, at the end of the blog,
in the side bar, you might have a top bar,
or you might even have an exit intent pop-up.
I.e., when someone leaves the site,
that's when the pop-up will pop.
Not when they're reading the blog,
which can be a little bit irritating.
- It's when they're exit intends,
like the intent to exit your site,
and then it pops up like, boom!
Email!
- I explained it, - but not as aggressive.
- I explained it fine.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- Boom!
(laughing)
Boom!
- Stop booming me.
(laughing)
- You've popped up.
- A large proportion of your traffic will not
come back to your site, they will forget about you.
So capturing their email is important
so we can remind the of how awesome we are.
- Boom!
Step five is to get comments.
Get some comments and shares from your fans,
your friends, and maybe your family.
- Next door neighbour.
- Give someone a fiver, I don't know.
Get a few core people to come in and share the blog
before you promote it.
The reason is because it gives the blog
some social proof.
If new readers come to check out your blog,
and they see that it's got likes, comments, shares,
then they are twice as likely to also do the same.
Win, win!
Thank Sue B. Zimmerman for that tip.
- Step six, is to not just promote it,
but to promote the hell out of it.
Firstly, send an email to your list with a link to the blog.
These guys are way more loyal than your social following,
'cause they have opted into your list,
so they are way more likely, too, to comment first.
That was too many tos.
- Boom!
- Then promote it like crazy on social.
Repurpose it, go live about it, create some teasers for it.
Just do whatever you can to drive as much eyeballs,
as much traffic back to it as possible.
When you feel like you are probably promoting it too much,
that's when you know that you have done enough.
(Pete laughs)
Also, you could even put some ad budget behind it
to send even more traffic to it.
- Step seven is to build links to your blog.
One of the major ranking factors of Google
is still, how many links go back to that blog
from a credible source.
So yeah, try and post the link as much as possible.
But getting a link back from a high
domain authority website is best.
A cool way to do this is actually do to a guest blog
on someone else's website linking
back to your original blog article.
- For example, if you had an article on the top 10
blah blahs, then write an article for someone else
on the worst blah blahs, and put a link
on the worst blah blahs back to the best blah blahs.
- Ah.
- Make sense?
- I think so.
What's a blah blah?
- It might seem like total effort,
but if it helps you get even more traffic
from Google, then it is totally worth it.
Plus, obviously you get added exposure
from guest blogging, too.
- Then finally, when it comes to getting links
to your blog, you can do this internally
on your own website, too.
A cool tip is to go back to older blog posts,
and put a link from them to your current blog post
that you just wrote.
This is so, so easy to do, and yet hardly anyone does it.
Most people will link back to other blogs,
but not forward, you need to link forward.
- Step eight is retargeting.
You can add a pixel to your website
which helps you retarget those blog visitors
with promotional ads.
- This is absolutely crucial,
because remember as I said before,
most of your website traffic will never return.
- I said that, actually, but you can take it.
- So you need to set up some ads
to retarget the people that read your blog
and get them onto your email list so you can keep in touch.
This is called remarketing, or retargeting,
and it's often the most efficient way to do social ads.
- Step nine is to double down.
The best way to double down is to use Google Analytics
to find out which of your blogs are performing the best,
and therefore which ones you should put more effort into.
- For example if one of your blog posts
is ranking on the second page, or a little bit further down
on page one, you might wanna go in, add to it,
and try and boost it back up the rankings.
- I heard a really geeky joke the other day.
- Uh-huh?
- Uh-huh.
Where is the best place to hide a dead body?
- The page two of Google.
(rimshot crashing)
Sorry I ruined your joke.
- You ruined my punchline.
- But that was funny, I enjoyed that.
- We need to give Richard Tubb credit for that one.
- Richard Tubb, well done.
- There we go.
- An SEO expert walks into a bar, pub, tavern, hostel.
(rimshot crashing)
- I've never been to a tavern before, have you?
- Well.
So anyway, as I was saying, before the jokes.
Make sure you go back to those blogs,
re-promote them, add more content to them.
Get some quotes to them, get some links to them,
reshare them, and viola, up the ranking.
- Because Google loves it when you
update your articles all the time.
So could you get some extra tips
from some industry experts, add them to the blog,
and then ask those experts to share it?
Could you update it with some recent research
that's just been done, or maybe add
some extra resources, or some tips,
or just whatever it takes to make it more relevant.
- Awesome, we've got some more videos coming up
about blogging in a second, but if you
wanna take things further and get there faster,
then you might wanna check out what we're doing
over on andrewandpete.com/atomic
which is our awesome membership site.
- We'll put the links to that below.
I have been Andrew.
- I have been Pete.
- See you next time.
- Oo.
(upbeat music)