There’s no other way to say it – Starting a company is tough, and venturing into entrepreneurship is not intended for the faint-hearted.

Entrepreneurship offers boundless potential for those who tender absolute belief in it and live by its norms. At the same time, however, it is also a way of living that can rework the entire course of your life.

An extremely fine line that separates success and failure in the field of business and Entrepreneurship offers no way around it – you either head in the right direction or not.

So what defines success if there are so many variables that can lead to failure impacting revenue, confidence, and even moral strength?

No one’s ever born an expert. Before you learn how to run, you need to learn to walk and how many times have you fallen down before you took your very first steps?

We’ve compiled a list of entrepreneurs who were initially struck down by questionable decisions. Having understood and rectified them, they are now successful entrepreneurs. Don’t you want to be one too?

There isn’t any success Manthra for an ideal entrepreneur experience. And by this article, we try to represent the strength every person needs to possess in turning defeats into victory – “The Entrepreneur Mindset”.

1.    Leo Laporte- Founder TWiT Networks

Leo Laporte had initially struggled over the course of starting the company. He developed a range of skills in multiple respects and tried to do everything on his own, which even you would be under the decision right now. This ultimately ended with him having a lot more on his plate and not finding enough time to actually run his business.

But after hiring a business partner and successful delegation of duties, he was finally able to manage the business and finally obtain a profitable turnover.

Effective leadership is when you take in your workforce into a single entity that works effectively towards a commonly manifested objective.

 

“Deleted Twitter and Facebook from all my mobile devices and it feels so good!
I just dont need the drama” 

 

2.  Rand Fishkin – CEO of Moz, Co-Founder of Inbound.org

Rand was initially fond of only “big-bang” projects, ones that had a development time of more than a few years. Although a few of them clicked right away, as time went by unexpected delays caused them to shelve many of them, which took a profound toll on their revenue.

He says that “Missing something you budget and plan for by more than a year is really bad news in the startup world.”

“Best way to sell something: don’t sell anything.
Earn the awareness, respect, and trust of those who might buy.”

 

 3.  Sandi MacPherson – Editor-in-Chief, Quibb

Sandi went almost 6 months developing a product that believe it or not, she thought she wouldn’t even use quite often. Making a product that isn’t sold brings resounding losses in money, time, and most importantly your company’s stature in the market.

Every CEO needs a distinct understanding of the market understanding the trends of sales with a fair share of experience in investing in the right opportunity.

“The welcome email is your best opportunity to develop a relationship with
someone who’s already interested in your product..”

 

4.  Dharmesh Shah – Co-Founder and CTO, HubSpot

Having successfully built a software company with $10million+ revenue, Dharmesh went on ride his luck by being a parallel entrepreneur by building a different startup. That proved to be more bane than a boon for him. His initial team felt left abandoned while the new one couldn’t gather enough revenue in the market.

Startups require a lot of effort to stay successful in the market with everyone trying to better their competitors. It’s a full time- consuming job that requires your complete and vigorous passion.

“Sleep is that time you’re working on startup problems with you eyes closed.”

 

5.  Hiten Shah, Co-Founder at KISSmetrics

Hiten Shah spent close to a million dollars on a web hosting company, by perfecting in all respects. However, the company failed in being a genuine crowd-puller leading to a heavy loss of revenue.

However, by focusing on the needs of the customer together with analyzing growth potential Hiten was able to co-found two highly successful analytic companies –KISSmetrics and Crazy Egg.

Starting a company with simply the initial urge will only lead you in the opposite direction. Entrepreneurship is all about choosing the smartest way to work.

 

“In my experience, human problems are the biggest threat to a company’s well-being, and it usually happens when there’s office politics, you’re too distant from your team, or you’re way too involved (two extremes).”

 

6. David Lucatch, founder and CEO of Yappn Corp.

The initial years of Yappn Corp. were filled with the struggle for David Lucatch. However, nothing was proving to be heading in the right direction.  Failure tends to leave a mark on oneself that can only be confounded by success.

David Lucatch continued persevering and after a few months, Yappn started gaining remarkable market share.

 

“During these trying times, I poured all my energy and focus into doing whatever it took to succeed and leading my team by example.”

 

7.  Derek Sivers – Founder of CD Baby

Derek Sivers had a rather confronting experience in the past with his employees who staged a mutiny to get rid of him. They were focused primarily on benefits rather than cliental.

However, only in the future did he realize he could easily have prevented an occurrence that impacted the culture of the organization.

His words – “Fire the rotten apple in your bunch immediately”.

 

“Don’t be on your deathbed someday, having squandered your one chance at life, full of regret because you pursued little distractions instead of big dreams.”

 

8.  Fred Smith – CEO, FedEx Express

FedEx was able to build its business model revolutionized the shipping industry but before its success, Fred Smith’s college professor disagreed to it and he even received a poor grade on an assignment where he pitched the idea for the company. No one remembers the professor, but now everyone remembers Fred.

“Leaders get out in front and stay there by raising the standards by which they judge themselves—and by which they are willing to be judged.”

 

9.  Leo Babauta – Best-selling author

Leo toiled at a dead-end job he hated for a long period of time and attributes it to “the fear of failure and lack of belief”.

Finally, his venture into blog writing has now made him a bestselling author and now he says, “Knowing what I know now, I’d have started a decade earlier.”

Starting late indeed is the worst-case scenario. Attributing fear to fuel your desire can certainly drive you to maintain your goal of being a successful entrepreneur.

 

 “Doing a huge number of things doesn’t mean you’re getting anything meaningful done.”

 

10. Jeff Bezos- CEO, Amazon

Before Amazon became a household name, Jeff had several failed ideas- one of which was an auction website, zShops that failed miserably. However, he repurposed the idea into what would eventually become the Amazon Marketplace.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears; paired with countless sacrifices, pains and losses is what a startup is made of. Market Validation is vital because you won’t get investors if you don’t know your numbers. Your idea is your brainchild, so stick to it even when all the odds are against you.

Each and every one of these entrepreneurs you saw above is human. They take failure as stepping stones to success without losing an ounce of self-belief. Their positive reaction to defeats is what allows us to label the term “successful” before their designation as Entrepreneurs.

“We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.”

“There Is Nothing In This World To Fear, But Change.”

WRONG!

Change is necessary. Change is beneficial.

CHANGE IS THE FUTURE.

Why do we say all this? We live in a world that undergoes drastic transitions with each ticking second.

In business, you need to stay updated and in line with the latest trends. To stay on top, you need to embrace change ahead of your competition. We know, to stay on top you need to stay updated. Why?

SEO’S have changed the digital marketing strategies ever since renowned search engines like YAHOO, Google, Bing, etc. changed their algorithms to favour a much more AI perspective.

Google’s announcement of the use of Rank Brain, as their artificial intelligence system aids in finding pages that don’t have the exact keywords mentioned in the search query.

In short, multiple factors now determine SERP, which makes the conventional ones such as keyword density, linking, and various other norms outdated.

CHANGE, get it? They did, so why can’t you?

Yet, not everyone stays updated and some prefer relying on age-old SEO tactics that were once or sometimes never a success. Hence, they falter from what was once a successful venture during one time, to an abysmal debacle.

The reputed British Broadcast Corporation, BBC was slapped with a penalty in the year 2013 for having unnatural links pointing towards a particular webpage.

In February 2011, Forbes.com was caught in the act of selling links on its own website, without a second thought of adding ‘no follow’ attribute.

 

You certainly don’t want that, do you?

 

Wrong SEO strategies prove to be a bane than a boon, and rightly so, they need to be avoided at all costs.

So which ones are outdated; how do you know which ones to stay away from and if there’s a diamond in the haystack, should you embrace them? Will it actually helpful?

 

 1. Plagiarism:

There’s this huge misnomer in everyone’s mind that replicating the traits of successful companies or anything for that matter, guarantees success.

Nope.

While it’s good to owe inspiration from either the structure of the page or even the contextual combinations, blatant plagiarism is a huge demeanour.

No one wants to see the same thing twice.

Visitors who notice them jump to the conclusion that the webpage (propagating it to the business itself) isn’t inventive enough, and lacks knowledge, and prone to neglect.

 

 2. 3^rd party “Paid” Links

What are you actually paying for?

Matt Cutts says “The vast majority of the time things are incredibly clear: people are paying money outright for links.”

“Ninety-nine percent of the time it’s abundantly clear that these are links that are being bought and paid and sold and all that sort of stuff.”

Not only is it like taking the easiest route, these links may possess a stagnant structure that may have been replicated countless times.

Google and various other search engines have always been on the lookout for such stagnancy and they remove quite a few of them too.

Google banned Google Japan from buying paid links.

Now isn’t that enough to stop you?

 

3. Keyword Stuffing :

It’s one of the oldest tricks in the box still underuse. Not for anything good, at least.

So obviously, for your content to be recognized by the search engine the keywords need to stand out. Everyone knows that.

But stuffing a hundred keywords or so into it?

Not only is it unnatural, but it also hinders a certain level of user-friendliness, making it a     viable technique to actually lose customers than anything more. Search Engines don’t like it either and you even stand the chance of being penalized and possibly banned.

It might’ve worked in the past when things were very simple but now, both the search engine algorithm and the visitor’s mindset are different.

How different?

Enough to not fall prey to gimmickry.

 

4. Bots, Spam, Ads, and ClickBaits :

A deadly dozen, to say the least.

Gone were the days when all the content on the web were tailor-made to the needs of the business or the website, and a writer painstakingly sits and writes each and every portion of the text.

With automation and artificial bots come not only the luxuries of having loads of contents prepared by the minute, but also a multitude of problems associated with it.

Why?  Even they go crazy sometimes.

If a certain word repeats all over the content or maybe a similar structure elsewhere was already there, something could smell fishy.

Even if people may miss that, Search Engines do not and it may incur penalties or even less traffic than expected.

Clickbaits take use of flashy yet misleading headlines that would seem to be inviting to the visitor’s eye, particularly to gain traffic through visiting the links and even unknowingly sharing them.

There’s nothing much to say about ads and spam either. Who loves them? Want to make extra money? Improve the content and not resort to stuff like these.

 

5. Cloaking:

Cloaking is merely “sophisticated hiding”.

It’s like presenting a rigged version of the actual webpage such that it satisfies the algorithm of the search engine and hence can be called upon when the visitor searches for the particular keyword.

Doorway pages, there are called which are specially optimized for specific keywords. The page altogether may be entirely different, and may even serve another purpose probably with even questionable content.

Google has banned Cloaking of any form, need I say more?

British Motor Works (BMW) was penalized for cloaking in 2006.

 

6. Article Spinners :

Similar to spam, they were created to produce variants of the same keyword, to establish an alternate version of the same page.

This in turn gave rise to numerous low-quality articles and Search Engine algorithms like Google Hummingbird got updated to further filter out unnecessary variants.

 

7. Spam Comments

Most of the blogs and websites have a dedicated comments section that allows users to post their views on the corresponding content.

However, this was prone to misuse since a lot of bloggers put website links as well, along with the comments – a genuinely false move to induce traffic.

More or less- SPAM.

 

8. Automated Link Building:

Marketers took use of generic software that built links that were embedded in blogs, comments sections, forums etc. They would mostly be redirected to numerous articles that were generally very poorly written.

An ultimate time waster, especially since they might seem to contain information we think we might actually need but often end up as a huge disappointment.

Rap Genius, the famous lyrics-based site fell prey to Automated link building; they faced consequences from Google for allowing users to post links alongside lyrics content resulting in an unnatural hike in traffic.

 

9. Interlinking Websites :

The wrong thing here would be striking the perfect balance between what’s useful and what’s abuse.

Many websites require interlinking them with others for a steady flow of information and even to redirect the user according to their wish.

The problem lies in its misuse. In most cases, arrays of unwanted websites are interlinked of which none might be relevant.

The Google AI has the skill to notice patterns within interlinking spam for its use and it efficiently curbs the rise in low content irrelevant links.

 

10. Short /Thin form Content:

Most of the websites used to get away with this technique where a short word pertaining to nothing specific other than the use of the same word 2-3 times would allow search traffic for their site.

The content may be unrelated to the topic and may not even have other words at all.

 

11. Link and Article Directories :

The Panda Update for Google’s AI bought to a close, the misuse of these directories which basically allowed websites to be categorized based on the needs of the user.

However, misuse crept in especially due to the simplicity of installing the software which powers them, allowing them to create multiple irrelevant links.

Article Directories were even worse.  They were rewritten and became bloated with low-quality content.

 

12. Exact Match Domains :

Matching the domain with the exact keyword phrase allowed microsites such as these to rank up higher than the actual domain for multiple days.

 

13. Paid/ Spammy Guest Blogging

This went out of hand mainly due to its uncontrollable nature.

 

While guest articles were featured on multiple websites, these “guests” took shape of marketers who posted links of completely unrelated subjects along with the content.

A wide flurry of such tactics furthered the need to retrospectively control the content before posting it on the website, and with AI alterations they were taken to their traditional grassroots, favoring the actual content developers.

 

 14. Online Press Releases :

Wannabe website services mimic real journalists by shooting out online press releases with the desire to be scraped up by other websites to induce traffic for their own venture.

Not only is it a genuine time waster, but these releases would also be sold out by sub-standard websites with less visibility that doesn’t offer anything to the client sites which buy them as well.

 

It’s a known fact that Google loathes to confirm any kind of its search engine updates, so it’s always a guess-and-play strategy until there’s an official announcement.

While dealing with SEO marketing, there are some things about which Google has been constant throughout all of its updates, like, spammy links, low-quality content, keyword stuffing, over-optimized anchor text, etc.

Although page content quality is a necessity to remain on the web now, that’s not going to give you page rankings unless you build quality links.

Google’s webmaster guideline is getting strict day by day and this why you need to change your game-plan if you want to stay longer in the game.

Google’s search engine updates have now even started to look after things like the mobile-friendliness of your site, and the fact that improving UX will also increase your page rankings says a lot about how

Google is making it hard for SEO to work on. You need to put in efforts to get in page rankings through other ways too.

As we’re witnessing revolutionizing changes in the mobile industry day by day, mobile phones are proving sufficient in all forms when the user is away from his desk.

The web is now rapidly being optimized for the mobile view, and you should do it too before you start losing mobile users. Just by keeping few factors in mind you can increase your customer to a wide extent, increase your page speed, fix mobile-friendly errors present on your site.

Figure 1:

 

However, the Google updates have never stopped the search engine marketers from developing ways to rank up their pages. Link building is coming up as the most important skill in SEO and that’s why you need to master it now. In this post, I’ll be going in brief through all the possible link-building strategies one should know by now.

 

What are the most effective link-building strategies of 2017?

 

1. Create Linkable Assets

Content Marketing is the new Link Building!

This is one of the oldest techniques being used even before SEO came into being. No content is perfect and you can always approach your audience with better, fresh, and updated content.

Come up with content that would appeal to your audience so that you could generate links.

Pretend you’re an online seller of body-building supplements, for example. For your business, a typical linkable asset could be something like a blog post about 10 side effects to be aware of while taking supplements.

Clearly, it offers valuable insight to your readers and displays your concern towards them without getting too self-promoting. You might as well catch the attention of other websites when they come across your post and if your content is great, that they will gladly post it on their website.

Resource guides, infographics, tutorials, visual content, etc. can serve as linkable assets that fetch you the quality links you want for building a great link profile.

 

2. “Ask the Experts”, Panels, Interviews

Whatever industry you belong to, you can always create these types of posts. Frankly speaking, experts love to be featured on the web because even they need to create an audience for themselves and set up a reputation. With these, you are helping them as much as you’re benefitting yourself.

The first task in the line would be to structure a list of experts in your field of business.

According to their level of comfort-ability, you can outline a panel discussion, interviews, “ask the experts, or an expert round-up on any particular issue.

Sketch ideas for content, and then put together the group of experts suitable to answer the topics in your content.

The primary benefit from these posts is that you’re getting multiple links instantly because all the experts will share your post on their websites, which will again give you immediate access to their audience.

Once you are ready with your content, always make a clear plan about how to promote your post later. Remember these are busy people you will be dealing with, so keep in mind that you might have to remind them a few times before they take action on your content.

 

3. Unlinked Brand Mentions

There must’ve been times where you’d forgotten to give a link back while mentioning a particular product/service in your posts.

And chances are that if you have been online for some time, there could be many other websites that might have mentioned you in a post or article and forgotten to give a link, there’s simply no reason why you shouldn’t have a link back.

You can always use tools like Google Alerts, Mention.com, and Moz to keep a track of such unaccredited mentions. You can reach out to the website or individual whenever you get an alert for your mentions and turn those mentions into links. If you keep doing this for a good period of time, these mentions can cumulate into a massive boost to your page.

 

4. Broken Link Building

There must be pages on your website which you’d have taken down or have shifted to a different URL. While you’re aware of this, it could be possible that there must be sites that’d be still linking to your older links; which are now 404 probably, if I’m not mistaken.

Since users are getting a 404 now, you’re losing them within clicks.  Use tools like Ahrefs, Moz to find those broken links on your website and, send the updated link to the webmasters.

Another technique you could also do is, find broken links of your competitors by scanning their websites in Ahrefs. Since those pages are long dead, you could probably rebuild similar pages on your website and reach out to people who are still linking to those old dead pages, with your fresh and updated pages on similar content.

You will be surprised to notice, how many people will happy to replace those old links with yours, and thank you for it.

 

5. Snatch Links from Lower Quality Content

This is one of the steps from the Skyscraper Technique, which I’ll tell you about later in the post. When you’re out there searching for ways to build links, it’s often right under the nose.

If you’re aware of the competitors in your field, go through the posts where they’ve been mentioned on the internet. When you go through the content, try to spot instances where you think you’ve got a better content on your blog/website.

Let’s say you’re browsing blog posts about how to make soap at home, and you end up on a super boring 400-word blog post about the soap industry and whatnot. If you already have a crazy insane post on this exact topic, ping the webmaster and pitch your content.

Since you have a better and thorough resource they’ll definitely link to your post, because they have clearly demonstrated a liking for such posts in the past, and you are only offering them something better.

 

6. Create Educational Resources

Backlinks from .edu domains are a serious ranking boost, right? Well, it’s not that hard to get them as it sounds.

Educational resources result in high-quality links all the time. Tutorials, extensive how-to guides, manuals or other contents that teach students something valuable instead of promoting your brand are very well appreciated and prove valuable to the users at the same time.

These days most universities have resource pages, with links to different sites, for their students and faculties.

Pretend you’re an event planner, for example. You could structure an insightful guide explaining the dos and don’ts while organizing a small-scale event/fest in the University.

Then pitch your content to the universities and spread the guide among students. If the university lists it in their resources, there you have earned yourself an .edu link, and most importantly you’ll end up getting tons of new audience and potential clients for your business – Thanks to your newfound glory!

 

7. Scholarship Opportunities

It must be clear by now how important Edu links are in terms of boosting your page rankings. Although it might not be clear how to get it, it is easier than the normal convention. If you can create something to which universities might like to link, you’re golden.

Here’s how it works: Build a page on your website describing the scholarship (like this one), with necessary information like where to apply, etc. When you’re ready with the scholarship page, it’s time to find the Universities that usually Link to Scholarships.

You can manually search or use inurl:.edu “scholarships” as well. When you come across a scholarship page that seems like a good fit, approach them with your requirement list for the scholarship. Do not forget to give them an estimate of the # of scholarships you have.

 

8. Visual Assets

Visual assets like images, diagrams, infographics, charts, and other visual-oriented pieces of content are proven ways to gain attention from your users. Mostly it is because visual content is easier to grasp as they produce quick info on the topic.

Visuals assets are really easy to link to. For example, when you publish a graph on your site, you get a link anytime someone shares that graph on their site. This powerful “share my infographic and link to me when you do” relationship simply doesn’t go well for text-based content.

 

9. List Posts

List posts, or listicals, are a numbered list of techniques, tips, reasons, myths…or just anything on a particular topic. Again, list posts are liked by users as well as bloggers.

List posts have come across as on the most valuable assets now. In fact, after analyzing 1 million articles, it was discovered that list posts generated more backlinks than any other content formats, and even outperformed quizzes, videos, and infographics.

 

10. In-Depth Ultimate Guides

These in-depth ultimate guides are comprehensive resources that cover everything one should know on a given topic and a little bit extra around it. Ultimate guides have an insane amount of information in one place. This is why it is loved by the readers who are out there in search of answers.

11. Email Outreach

Link building has now moved from the comments section to personal inbox now and this is why it’s getting easier and convenient day by day. The sooner you grasp that link building is not limited to just the internet anymore, the better for you.

The first step of any email outreach is targeting the right people. And for that, you need to use tools available on Ahrefs and Buzzstream, and other websites built for SEOs. Use hunter.io or anymailfinder.com for getting the emails of your webmasters from their posts/pages.

Find the people who’d probably like to link to your post and then comes the important task. If you don’t want to end up in the trash of your target webmasters, personalize your email as much as possible, but don’t forget to lose the corporate touch. Most importantly, build scripts for email but again, don’t forget to personalize.

 

12. Resource Page Link Building

Resource pages are like yellow pages on the internet. They exist solely for the purpose of putting all the web pages on one topic in a single place. This is why they make the perfect spots for link building.

One simple way to search for resource pages would be: “Keyword” + inurl:links

The audience you gain on resource pages are genuine, primarily because this is the audience that is trying really hard to grasp the topic, and secondary there is no “buy now” button on the resource pages which makes them completely trustworthy.

 

13. The Skyscraper Technique

The Skyscraper Technique is the most awesome of all the techniques devised ever. In this technique, you can steal audience from right under the nose of your competitors. How?

 

Step 1: Find the outdated pages on your competitor’s website.

Step 2: Create updated and extensive content on these topics and outreach to the webmasters who’ve linked to the outdated posts from your competitor’s website.

Eventually, it’s content that matters, and if you’ve managed to create something better, people will link to it.

 

14. Give Testimonials

Everyone providing any kind of product/service on the web loves to display testimonials. So, if you happen to use a service/ product that you love, try sending the owners a testimonial.

Just add subtly that if they want to display the testimonial on their posts, they can do that as well. Most people would take the offer and probably boast about their new review to their Social Following as well, letting you leverage some of their followers who see your brand.

 

15. Blogger Reviews

If you’re someone dealing in a software product, consulting service, information product, or anything for that matter, you have a golden opportunity to turn that into high-quality backlinks.

There’s a simple trick here, offer your product to bloggers and in return ask them for reviews. If you’re charging a particular fee for the product, waive it off for the blogger and they’ll happily to the rest.

Keep a mild tone and talk about getting mentions on their blog, the rest is self-explanatory. Now, don’t ask them upfront about giving a link/review, which will then violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

 

16. HARO (Help A Reporter Out)

There are a million reporters looking out for sources every day and by registering on HARO. When you register yourself as a source, wait until you receive queries from your field of expertise, I’m sure there must be developments in news from your industry often.

All you need to do is, sign up as a source at Helpareporter and thereafter follow the guidelines accordingly. Once your register, you will start receiving emails from HARO with requirements from reports who are actively looking for news sources.

While providing your response to reporters, you have the choice of staying anonymous but obviously, that’s not why you’re there. You will get mentions for your website once the news is published online.

It is one of the best ways to get rich backlinks from authority news sites.

 

17. Submit Your Site to Website Feedback Sites

This is totally off the board, but a source for getting links anyway. There are a lot of sites that are designed to give you feedback on everything that is there on your website.

The thing to note here is that most of these sites will give a link back to your site.

All you need to do now is send your site with a brief description of how you intend to improve it.

 

18. The Moving Man Method

As there is a number of websites growing every day on the web, there are also many websites shutting down every day. The moving man method is all about utilizing the opportunity created thereafter.

You can use Google to find out the shutdown websites by using keywords like these:

your niche + shut down

your niche + closed

your niche + not working

 

The next step would be to find the webmasters linking to these broken/closed links. Personally, I’d suggest you go for the webmasters with higher authority sites first.

When you outreach to the webmasters with an updated and possibly better replacement from your website, they should be glad about it. However, make sure that your content is really good.
Watch it in action in the video below  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVMaSvTVmGI

 

19. Guest Posting Gigs on Twitter

On Twitter, there are sites sharing guest posts on a daily basis. That’s your cue, you can reach out to them through tweets/DM and do a guest post.

Although it is a time taking process, then it is a new source of the untapped audience for you actually. If you succeed at getting few guest-post gigs, you can work around and there’s no end to possibilities.

You can always rely on Twitter to get a constant flow of such new gigs. Few examples for your Twitter hunt could be:

 “your niche” + guest post

“your niche” + guest article

“your niche” + write for us

“your niche” + guest author

 

20. Transcribe Videos

Video transcription is a very new source of building links as the video boom is still new on the web. Hence, this can be used as a flexible link building strategy. In every industry, there are experts who have established a major audience base with their video channels. On the internet today, you’ll find a good number of videos uploaded daily, varying from Webinars, Presentations, Tutorials, Q&A’s,Hangouts or Vlogs (video blogs). You can always associate with these video-makers and generate new traffic and audience for yourself.

Video transcription is another way to make link-worthy content because you are getting original content directly from experts in your field. You can also aquiret links by associating with them as they always provide transcription with their video.

Here’s how to do it: First, search on YouTube for key experts/bloggers, and find videos without transcriptions and ping them that you’d like to make transcriptions. Send them when you’ve it done.

It also helps you stand out from the rest of your competitors as you’re helping the influencers. Whatever relationships you build this way will last longer and give you a permanent audience. You get a targeted audience on your page when influencers share your transcripts.

 

21. Hacking Quora

In recent years, Quora has emerged as a last-end solution platform for everyone on the web. There is major traffic on Quora of people looking for answers to every sort of thing and this is the untapped audience you have right there in front of you.

Here’s how to get referral traffic from Quora:

Look for the threads getting maximum traffic on Quora, using Ahrefs. Put in keywords of your niche and find out relevant threads with good traffic and high rankings. Publish answers to these threads with traffic. You’ll find high-traffic questions with low-quality answers or even without any answers.

The most important factor here is that Quora lets you reference sources in the answers and hence it’s easier to link back to relevant websites. However, keep in mind that you do not go over the top and appear too self-promotional. There’s always the chance of getting blocked/banned from Quora if they ever suspect you constantly promoting any particular thing.

 

22. Build links with blog comments

In this technique, it’s all about utilizing the blog comments on your own blog and outline a list of prospective links.

In most of the blogging mainframes, you’ll find the name, website (if they’ve one) and email address of the commenters. Once these people have commented on your blog, it clearly indicates their liking for your stuff. So, now all you’ve to do is make a list of those commenters who own a blog themselves in the same field as you do.

Run a scrapper to collect the websites of all such prospects and check if you could find any content on their website that could relate to you. If so, start an outreach campaign to build links with their website/blog.

The key thing to keep in mind while outreaching is to personalize your outreach emails. Because always keep in mind, there is a human on the other end of your email.

 

23. “Ranking for Links” Technique

There are millions of blog posts getting published daily on the internet. Bloggers need to put references from different sources to back up their points.

How do they get these sources? On Google, right?

So there is a huge probability that your blog/website could be one of those reference pieces. All you need to do now is rank up your pages containing these pieces, “reference” terms.

Note down a list of topics/keywords from your industry with a high probability of getting cited.

You must probably have content built already on these keywords/topics. In general, these kinds of keywords/topics are usually queries or informational terms. So, first of all, make a list of such queries for your niche.

Next, run these keywords through SEO tools and find the terms with low Keyword Difficulty and high search volumes. Now, all you need to do is, just put together contents around these topics and rank up for them.

If you succeed in ranking for these kinds of “reference” terms, there are chances that you’ll get backlinks on a consistent basis from these bloggers seeking references for their own content.

 

Summing up!

The methods which I’ve mentioned above are tried and tested and are backed up with various case studies. However, in the field of SEO, keep in mind that there are a lot of factors contributing to your page rankings. Even while link building, it is important to have a positive approach and keep attempting unless you reach the top.

Link Building is getting personalized day by day, and I cannot stress more on this. Never lose hope, if you have confidence in your page content, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t outreach to even the top players in your field. As a cautionary step, be wary of spammy links and avoid links from sites with low-trust authority lest you could get reprimanded and lose ranking.

Great! Now you’re ready to hunt. All the best!

If you’ve any doubts or suggestions, feel free to mention those in the comments.

Ever since the last Major Penguin Rollout in December 2014, the incoming requests for “How to Remove Bad Backlinks” and “How to fight manual penalty” have been on a very steep rise.

The internet was shaken once again this year on January 8, 2016, when all the main Rank Tracking Tools reported massive movements in SERP Rankings. At first, we had taken this as the Penguin 3.1 rollout, but Google later confirmed it as “Core Algorithm Update.”

As reported by SeRoundTable, Google stated that this was not a Penguin update, but no details were provided by the Search Giant to prove otherwise.

Needless to say, being in the Prime One Global Manual Penalty Recovery Team, I face dozens of requests on end from clients who are either facing Negative SEO Attacks or frustrated newcomers who are reaping the fruits of cheap SEO tactics that they indulged in the past.

In contrast to this, you can very well imagine what is the state of my inbox. It is flooded with emails that go something like this:

• How to remove bad backlinks?
• How to remove a link from a Pornographic Website?
• How to remove backlinks from a site?
• How to remove spam backlinks?
• How to find bad backlinks from Negative SEO?
• Can you send me a Link Removal Request Email Template?
• How can I remove a website from Webmaster Tools?
• How do I check for bad backlinks?
• How do I identify bad backlinks?
• And the list is endless…

Yes, I agree that my Inbox looks like a graveyard. And this is the main reason that pushed me to blog about this topic, so I can just help everyone out.

In the last two years, I have worked on fixing a lot of damage on the web. Not only have I recovered my own websites from Penguin or Manual Penalty, but I have helped over 72 Clients (pardon me if I missed someone out… eheh) in fixing and removing their bad backlinks.

So, without further ado, I would like to move directly onto the ‘Situation’ here. But, one request before reading further. I would like you to be patient with the process as it is time-consuming. It can take somewhere from months to a full year to see a recovery.

I understand that having to watch all your traffic and sales disappear overnight is a nightmare for any Internet Entrepreneur, but I assure you, that if you keep your patience, we will get through this and in a matter of months, you might actually get your website back on the track.

Just follow the process I have outlined in this Guide and trust me, there is hope for recovery. You will soon be on the route to lifting your penalty and recovering your SERP traffic.

How Important Is Link Removal?

Does Google Disavow Really Work?

Since you are already reading this guide, then I will take for granted that you have either reached me from your Inbox, or you have managed to come across this Google Link Removal or Disavow Guide through some search Engine.

Before I dive directly into how we can be “En-route to Google Penalty Recovery,” I would like to take some time out to talk about the importance of removing bad backlinks.

There was a time when Matt Cutts said:

Google is all about great content and backlinks did not impact Google Rankings. However, SEOs soon discovered that backlinks were the secret sauce to take a website to the top of Search Results for any keyword. Soon, automated link building applications like SeNUke and Xrumer and what not came into being and just destroyed the natural and beautiful process.

People stopped paying for content and started investing more money in building automated backlinks and overnight a website would be on the top of the Ranking Charts. This disturbance of equilibrium in the internet ecosystem caused a massive headache for Google since the quality of their search results was in danger. And, thus began the game of Disavowing Unnatural Backlinks, when webmasters started receiving “Unnatural Link Warnings” from Google Webmasters Tools.

Since then, Google has constantly been penalizing low profile websites and websites with unnatural backlinks, and as time passes, its algorithms are just becoming better and better at uncovering Underground Link Networks, SAPE Networks (Russian Link Farms), Private Blog Networks and other sorts of low profile or spammy link farms.

DIY Bad link Removal Service – The Disavow Gameplan

If you think that you have been hit by a manual penalty, then I am listing down a series of steps that will make you an Expert Bad link Removal Agent. There are five main steps that you need to take to fix a backlink profile:

• Recognize the Google Penalty
• Discover the bad backlinks
• Remove the bad backlinks 
• Perform link Disavow Requests
• File A Reconsideration Request to Google

In the wake of the Penguin, I saw a lot of nervous webmasters who filed a complete backlink disavow request to Google, because they were unsure of what to leave and what to retain. I understand that it is all right to be nervous, but taking such steps is not going to mend the cause. Losing all your backlink profiles will put you in a much worse condition than you would be, if you carefully follow this guide and inspect your backlinks yourself or leave the job to the pros.

Step Number 1 – Recognizing The Google Penalty (Manual / Algorithmic)

There are two forms of Penalty. One is Manual Penalty and the Other is Algorithmic Penalty. So, before you even start removing your links, you need to understand, which kind of a penalty has hit your website.

1. Manual Penalty

A manual penalty means that your website was reviewed by a Google Employee, and a manual infringement has been put in place. If you have received an email from Google Webmasters Tools (see the image below for an example), there is a high chance that you are struck by a Manual Penalty.

1. Algorithmic Penalty

If you think you have not been hit by a Manual Penalty, then you can consider doing a check with the Penguin Tool from Reconsideration.org. It is a free tool that will help you log in with your Google Analytics Account and overlay the Algorithm Updates from Google on top of your Organic Traffic over time.

This tool will also help you spot keyword-specific penalties that have only been imposed on certain over-optimized or spammed keywords.

NOTE: When you use this tool, be sure to check that only organic data source is selected in your Google Analytics Account and other Traffic from Referral Networks and Social Media are not affecting your results.

Step Number 2 – Discovering All Your Backlinks (Creating A Backlink Profile)

 To create a complete backlink profile for a Website, it is important to collect all possible backlinks from major backlink aggregators and crawlers. Start out with importing your backlinks from Google Webmasters Tools first and create an excel sheet to keep a tab on all the links that you will be eventually collecting

Getting links from Webmasters Tools:

• Go to google.com/webmasters/
• Select the Website for which you want the backlink profile
• On the left pane, you will see a Link Called “Search Traffic” click on that
• Then select the “Links to your website.”
• Under “Who Links the Most” click “More.”

You will get a complete list of Backlinks from websites that link out to you the most. Select all of them and copy them into a Tab in Excel. Call that Tab (Webmasters Tools)

Now collect Backlinks from all other Backlink Crawlers like:

1. Ahrefs
2. OpenSiteExplorer
3. MajesticSEO
4. SEMRush

Some of these solutions have a freemium option that allows you a certain number of backlinks for free. The others require a paid subscription. You can get many sellers on Fiverr that offer Backlink Profiling with the following Software, just make sure to select a vendor with a good reputation and history. Ideally, you can even get in touch with me, and I will help you create a backlink profile for your website.

Once you get all the Backlinks. Place them on individual tabs in the Excel document like I have done below.

Now once you have all the links, combine them together in a single tab Called All Backlinks. I will tell you why.

Before you have collected all the backlinks and proceed to manual inspection, you need to remove all the duplicate links that have been found by the software. So once you have copied all the connections in the All Links Tab. Select the entire link column and then Click on Data > Remove Duplicates.

Tadaaaaa! Now you have your complete backlink profile.

Save the Excel Sheet and move on to the next step.

Step Number 3 – Manually Scrutinizing Your Backlink Profile (Not as Painful as it Sounds)

Once you have summed up all the backlinks and removed the duplicates, here comes the tricky part. Don’t panic now. There is no need to panic as I am going to put together all possible ways you can understand which link is right for you and which link is bad. Alright? So, take a deep breath, and let’s get moving.

When you want to consider the authenticity of a link, these are all the things you need to check:

1. Is the website de-indexed from Google? (Perform a site:websitename.com and see if it returns any results)
2. Links from Directories
3. Links from Spammy or Poor Quality Websites
4. Links from Paid or Sponsored Posts (Paid Guest Post Websites)
5. Site-wide Links in Widgets or Footer or Header
6. Forum Backlinks
7. Blog Comment Spam Links
8. Sites that come with the same C-class IP. Use this C-class IP Checker
9. Linking pages have too many do-follow outbound links (Links without the rel=nofollow tag)

To understand more in-depth, we will use some of the same tools that we previously used to find your backlinks.

Start with MajesticSEO:

1. Check for Site-wide links quickly with this tool
2. Over Optimized Anchor Text links, or links pointing out from the same keywords too many times.
3. Are there lots of 301 Redirects pointing to your website?

Follow-up with Ahrefs:

1. A total number of links and types of links pointing from a domain. (Inspect the domain to see if it is a low-quality domain or if it has hyphens in its name or is it keyword-stuffed)
2. Is there an unusual amount of Unique Referring Domains?
3. Is there little or no anchor text diversity in the domains?
4. Were all links acquired over a short period and then stopped? Have some of the links vanished?

Don’t Jump to Conclusions Just Yet

Ask yourself these final questions before you profile a link as a bad link and proceed to removal or disavowing it.

1. Does the website have the user in mind?
2. Is the link coming from an associate brand or partner firm?
3. Does the link have the potential to pass as a referral link?
4. Is the website spammy in appearance? How is the user experience of the website?

Once you have carefully followed these steps for a single link, you can profile it as a good link and paste it into a new tab called Good Links, or in the bad tab called Bad Links. Follow the same process for all the links in your All Backlinks Tab.

Yes! You need to do that for all the links. No matter if you just have 100 Links or over 10000 Links, you need to follow this process.

Thankfully, Bruce Clay has put together a very neat infographic on the entire Link Evaluation Process.

Once you have gone through the entire list and are 100% sure about your bad backlinks, you can move on to the Link Removal Process or Link Disavow Process. I will give you a clear outline of how you can handle the process of removing bad links like an expert.

Regrettably, Google wants the webmasters to try hard really. And when I say really, I mean really-really-really work hard and put a lot of effort into the process. It would be a wise decision to document all your moves and show it to Google. This will make them understand that you want to regain your website rankings and that you are an ethical person.

Step Number 4 – Creating A Proper Documentation (Showing Google Your Hard Work)

No matter how much effort you have already done in deciphering the backlinks, all be in vain if you do not follow this step thoroughly. It is critical for the future health of your website that you document your entire process and present it to Google as Proof that you have done whatever you could or spent a lot of time to repair the damage caused to your website by those bad links.

Create A New Spread Sheet and Copy all the Bad Backlinks into it. Then make a Performa, like the one I have mentioned below in the spreadsheet. This Performa will help you keep track of your email outreach since you will be sending out tons and tons of emails very soon.

• Link From: URL Linking to your Website
• Link To: Your Website URL in Question
• Email Address of Site Owner: Address of the site Owners
• First Link Removal Request: First Email request date
• Second Link Removal Request: Second Email Request Date
• Third Link Removal Request: Third Email Request Date
• Any particular notes that you want to leave (For example – Website owner asking for payment or something)

Save Time by Writing a Customized Email Template:

Since you will be sending out a lot of emails, it would be a good idea to create a customized email template that you can use for all the outreach. When writing the email, it is critical that you maintain a very polite tone and that you do not try to bribe or show your anger to the webmaster. According to human psychology, being polite has the most success rate if you want someone to do something for you. Here are some points you should consider when writing your customized email template:

• State that you are the owner of the website and show proof of ownership of the website. Then tell them politely that you are trying to recover from a link.
• List the URL of your website in question and mention the Link from the URL along with the Anchor Text.
• Politely ask the webmaster to remove the link from their website as it might be hurting your rankings.
• Try to Personalize the Email Subject Link with their name and include as many details as possible to ensure that they open your email and take action.

Or, just customize this Link Removal Request Email Template?

Hey {Insert Name of Site Owner}

I am {insert your name here}, the owner of {insert your website URL here} and I wanted to reach out to you regarding a link(s) that is pointing to my website from your website. I would like to bring it to your notice that my website has recently been penalized by Google and to get the infraction removed, I need your cooperation with the removal of a link from your website that is pointing to my site.

Here is the link along with the anchor text:

1. List all the links along with anchor text here.

If you can kindly remove that for me, I would greatly appreciate it. As you already know that Google will not reconsider my website if I have not made an effort for removing the links myself and that is the prime reason I am reaching out to you. I will be documenting all my efforts and trying to remove all the links manually by reaching out to individual website owners.

I do not intend to in any way demean you or your website. I am just trying to be careful as it is my business website. I will not use the Disavow tool unless I absolutely have to use it, so I am expecting to receive your full cooperation in this matter. I hope you understand my problem. If you could send me an intimation after the link has been removed from your website, I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanking You,

Your’s Faithfully,

{Insert Your Name Here}

{For www.yourwebsite.com}

Various Tricks to Find Contact Information of Domain Owners

Now that your email template is ready, it is time to quickly list down all the contact information under respective links in the Excel Sheet that you created at the beginning of this step.

Take note that you may not find the email addresses of all website owners and some websites might just have a contact form. The contact form followed by a Social Medial Outreach to the websites should be your last resort and in such a case you should provide a link to the Contact Form page or the Social Media URL instead of the Email Address.

Here are the primary ways you can get contact information for a particular website:

1. Check the Contact US page of the respective websites or even the About us page. Sometimes the Contact Information is also provided in the Header or Footer Widgets of the websites.

2. Perform a Who.is lookup to try to find out the name and email of the domain owner. This technique might not work if the owner has set the Who. details to private. In such a case, resort to other methods.

3. Use Spyonweb.com – Even though this tool might not get you the contact information of a website. But it will help you find similar owner websites by tracking the IP Address, Analytics, or Adsense Codes placed on the websites. This way you can find a related website owned by the same person and retrieve his contact information.

4. Lastly, resort to using the Contact Form or Social Media Profiles of the respective websites. It would be a plus if you can provide a screenshot of the same.

Step Number 5 – Performing The Email Outreach (Taking Action On Your Research)

Now you have the email template ready along with all the possible ways to contact the domain owners. It is time to send out personalized emails to all the domain owners to help you recover your Google Penalty.

As you send out emails and fill up contact forms, remember to document all the things that you are doing in the spreadsheet you created in Step number 4. Write down the dates when you send out the emails.

Here is a fantastic app that will help you streamline the follow-up process – Boomerang. This application will remind you about all the emails that have not received a reply back, and you can set up alerts for a week or ten days. This will help you keep track of all the webmasters who have not responded to your email so that you can contact them again after at least a week of sending out the first email. Again, remember to document the date of the follow-up emails in the spreadsheet.

It is not important to get a 100% Success rate with all our email outreach endeavors. But, what is important is to show Google that you tried hard. Leave the rest to them. Just follow karma.

Now, for the outcome of your Link Removal Email Outreach

There can be four possible outcomes to every email you send out:

1. They cooperate with you and remove the link
2. They removed the link but did not respond to your email
3. They responded by asking for money or favor in exchange for link removal
4. They took no action at all

Don’t worry about the webmasters who either did not respond to your email or blackmailed you for money. Just ignore them. Remember, documentation and filing notes in the Excel sheet is the key.

Make sure your documentation is picture perfect and that you have input the dates correctly in the respective cells along with important notes for uncooperative websites and helpful websites.

In the case of a manual penalty from Google, you will need to take more physical action to heal the damage caused to your website. A manual penalty is a sign of participation in unethical tactics for link building like comment spam, paid links or other unnatural link building strategies. Before you submit your Google Reconsideration Request, you should have made a considerable effort to remove the backlinks yourself and have a disavow.txt file ready.

Step Number 6 – Performing Link Disavow (Requesting Google to Overlook Backlinks)

When the Google Disavow Tool was first introduced in 2012, SEOs and Webmasters thought it was a boon to the Internet Community. Well, it still is, but the tool opened up a lot of doubts about, which links should be disavowed and which links should be counted.

If you think about it logically. Google is directly using the Google Webmaster’s Disavow Tool for Link Removal by crowdsourcing their spam monitoring efforts. Take into account that this step should only be performed as the last resort. That is, after all your manual link removal attempts have failed, and you are able to provide documentation for the same.

Google also warns users that this is a very advanced and risky tool if they do not know what you are doing.

Here is a direct message from the Google Webmaster Tools Disavow Links – “If you’ve done as much work as you can to remove spammy or low-quality links from the web, and are unable to make further progress on getting the links taken down, you can disavow the remaining links. In other words, you can ask Google not to take certain links into account when assessing your site.”-

I will remind you again that make sure you have done all you could and tried as hard as possible to remove as many backlinks manually as possible before doing this step. If you have taken the help of a Google Penalty Recovery Company or you have done all the steps mentioned in this guide, you are ready to begin the disavow process.

Follow these steps to the teeth if you want to create a complete disavow.txt file for Google.

This step can be broken into two parts.

1. Make a list of all possible backlinks to your website (which I am assuming you have already done if you are on this step)
2. Make a list of sites that did not cooperate with you or asked for money, or you got no response from them.

A sample Disavow.txt file will look like this:

NOTE: The Pound Symbol (#) is used to denote a comment or a note about the websites that are listed below it

#List of Websites that cooperated with me and removed all the bad links

nameofwebsite1.com

nameofwebsite2.com

…

#List of Websites that did not respond to my query

didnotrespond1.com

didnotrespond2.com

…

#List of Websites that asked for money in return for link removal

websiteaskedmoney1.com

websiteaskedmoney2.com

…

#List of URLs that certain webmasters missed who cooperated with me

missedurl1.com

missedurl2.com

…

#End of Disavow File

Handy Tip: If you want to disavow all the links from a particular domain, you can just give the line “domain: nameofdomain.com”

Handy Tip 2: Always disavow on the domain level for websites that have too many low-quality links pointing to your website. If you disavow individual URLs, you run a high risk of skipping some URLs that have your bad backlinks.

Handy Tip 3: Make sure you remove all websites with special characters that are not either alphabet, numbers or hyphens in them from the disavow tool.

Handy Tip 4: Also ensure that you do not give www. or http:// or https:// along with the domain names in the disavow file to avoid any errors during upload.

How to Upload the Disavow File in Google to Remove Bad Backlinks:   

1. Go to the Disavow Tools
2. Select the website in question from the drop-down list.
3. Click the Disavow Links Button
4. Upload your Disavow.txt file

Uploading a new Disavow.txt file will override your past file in Google Webmasters Tools. Also, be patient after you have updated the file. If you have received a manual penalty, you can usually see improvements in your website rankings in a few months. However, if you have been hit by a Penguin Algorithm, then you must wait till the next Penguin rollout to let Google Crawl the backlinks of your website again. The process can sometimes take months, so do not check with backlink software and wait patiently for Google to do its job.

Step Number 7 – To File or Not to File a Reconsideration Request (Beg for Mercy)

Everyone does not need to submit a reconsideration request. If you have been hit by an algorithmic penalty, then you do not need to file a reconsideration request. However, in case of manual action, when you receive an email as the one stated below:

Then you need to submit a reconsideration request. Few things to notice when you receive an email from Google Webmasters Tools Team:

1. A yellow caution sign means you are in trouble
2. A drastic drop in your website rankings
3. There are too many low-quality backlinks pointing to your website

Filing A Proper Reconsideration Request to Google

You will have to prove to Google that you have given your 110% to clean up your backlink profile and get as many of the backlinks manually removed as possible. I will remind you again that Google is not looking for a 100% success rate with all your manual outreach for backlink removal, it is looking for the right mindset and effort.

The most important part of filing a reconsideration is to have proof that you took action. Just by saying that you contacted 1000 webmasters, you will not be able to get your website under the radar. You will have to present to a Google Employee in a believable manner that you took action and contacted the owners not once, but thrice before you decided to file a disavow.

Even though Google has not given out many hints on what to include when submitting a reconsideration request, here is a short video of Matt Cutts giving a short pitch on what an ideal reconsideration request should be like. Take a look.

A Synopsis of the Video:

The main aim of your reconsideration request should be to convey to Google that you are sorry about the past state of your website and have read and understood the Google Quality Guidelines. You should tell them about whatever mistakes you did, whichever site owners you tried to contact and failed and what are you presently doing to improve the reputation of your website.

Here are some of the things suggested by the former head of Google Spam on what to include in a Reconsideration Request:

1. Details of contacted websites along with a copy of emails as proof.
2. Details of any hidden link network that were used by the website
3. Details of any SEO Companies that did the SEO of the website
4. Changes that were made to the website to ensure its quality was at par
5. As many details as possible can be included in a reconsideration request
6. Upload and share the document through Google Docs as most often, Google Employees do not like to click on Unknown links

Here is a Sample Google Reconsideration Email Template:

Dear Google Webspam Team,

This is a kind note in order to inform you that our website {insert URL here} was hit by a manual penalty. We are very apologetic for the inconvenience caused due to this. Furthermore, we would like to thank you for reviewing and pointing out that our website was not at par with the Google Quality Guidelines, as we were totally unaware of the fact that our SEO company was not using the right tactics.

When we received the warning from Google, we immediately contacted our SEO company {Insert name here} and asked them to provide us a detailed list of all the tasks they were performing for our website.

Upon receipt of the list of tasks, we came to know that they were indulging in wrong SEO Practices like buying paid links and blog spam commenting, and more. We have stopped hiring them now and asked them to undo the actions that they took.

We have been working ethically according to all the guidelines to remove manually all the bad backlinks that are pointing to our website. Over the last three months, we have tried getting in touch with all the webmasters who own the sites our links were found on. Attached herewith is a Google Document File that details all the steps we took during our Link Removal Outreach.

Some of the webmasters cooperated with us to remove the backlinks, while others have either remained unresponsive or have asked for money in return for link removal. We have filed a disavow.txt file to disavow all the links that we were unable to remove with our manual outreach.

We would like to assure you that we have given our 100% to ensure that we are at par with all the Google Webmaster Guidelines. We would also like to assure you that we would be careful in our future marketing efforts. We have created a new in-house team to ensure such a thing does not happen in the future.

Please do look into the following document and do the needful as we are sorry for the misdeed.

Thanking You,

Regards,

Piyush Agarwala

After you submit the reconsideration request, you need to be patient as it takes quite some time before they review and respond to your email. If your website did not get a manual penalty, then you will receive an automated email stating no spam was found on your website. If you were under a manual penalty, then the response might come somewhere between three to six weeks.

Conclusion

Rest assured that if you followed all the steps thoroughly, you would be able to see your website again in Google SERPs in a matter of a few months or after the next Penguin Update Rolls out depending on your situation.

One thing that I would like to remind you again is that you need to be really patient. The entire process can actually take months to complete, which is why we always suggest taking the help of Professional Link Removal services to aid you.

I understand that it is a very difficult process to endure this slow poison and see your sales and traffic diminish slowly. If you have done everything as we have outlined so far, you will be on the road to recovery.

I think I have substantially covered the entire topic, and you shouldn’t have any questions after this. However, I am willing to help you guys get through this tough time, so just leave your questions in the comments section below if you have any.

I wish you good luck with your website and hope that you can recover from your penalty at the earliest. God bless!

Maybe you are an Online Digital Marketer or a Blogger, Freelancer, Entrepreneur, Local Business Owner or from any other trade, but one thing will remain constant for everyone. You all need marketing. The effort and resources needed to market your products or services may be different. But, without marketing, there is no exposure and your business is bound to get stagnant at some point in time.

 “Digital Marketing in 2016 is an investment that is done for the betterment of one’s Business”

I will be talking about essential marketing strategies that are never going to die, some that are going to be more useful than ever in 2016 and some that we need to leave behind because they will not work anymore.

Successful Entrepreneurs and Business Owners spend an average of 30 minutes a day on Business Education and Self Development.

That is a form of marketing. It is time invested in understanding the changes in your Demographics, Market Place and Key Performance Indicators of your Business.

Realizing the opportunities when you intelligently utilize today’s marketing channels like Social Media to build a long-lasting, relatable and profitable relationship with your customers in an entire community of referring fans for your business, is how you can excel at marketing.

2016 Marketing Channels To Avoid At All Costs 

Vine, Foursquare and Swarm have died a silent and painless death in 2015. If you are using any of these channels, it might be a good time now to write it down and scratch these out of our routine. Blogging still remains a very important strategy. However, content with no strategy is not going to get you very far. Spend more time on planning out your content instead of randomly churning out articles for your business or getting them outsourced. Digital Marketing Trends continue to reveal that the use of Stock Images and Video footage has declined a lot last year itself. Consumers have seen it all, they want original and authentic feeds.

As Google and other email corporations become more stringent, ” sending a bunch of emails to your subscribers is not going to work either “ Instead you will need to focus on Email Automation and Personalization (more on this in the blog).

Banner Advertisements are on a decline too. There is a mobile movement going on for the past few years and the rise of smartphones is creating smarter consumers and creating more opportunities for smarter marketing. Consumers have become “banner blind”, so investing in banners is not a great idea unless you are already getting good results from a particular source.

Also, it might be high time to consider whether you need to allocate more funds to marketing your business on desktops vs. mobile environments.

THE MOBILE MOVEMENT STUDY

Over 2015, mobile search queries have skyrocketed to new heights. People search for everything from Travel Information to Product Reviews, Local Restaurants to random Trivia to become more knowledgeable.

While Word of Mouth and Display in Stores do lead to people to search for products on their smartphones…

…71% of consumers search for a product because they saw an advertisement.

4 out of 5 people take an action based on an advert they saw either on PC or on their Tablets and Phones. Mobile Advertisements are the new trend.

82% of Mobile Users notice mobile Advertisements. However, 79% of Top Advertisers still do not have a mobile-optimized website. It is more important than ever this year to provide your visitors with a good mobile experience. Don’t just check this box if you have a responsive website. It is important to check how your website functions on different browsers and different gadgets to get the most out of your time and resources spent on marketing. (You can contact me if you need help with creating a great mobile experience for your consumers).

Consumers today use a smartphone to keep updated, stay connected, for entertainment or to search for information on the go and obviously to make a smarter shopper. The shift is already happening,  Don’t miss the mobile movement.

Here’s my list of the top 15 Latest Digital Marketing Trends for 2016

1. Re-targeting,
2. Promo Marketing,
3. Google Tag Manager,
4. Email Marketing (Automation and Personalization),
5. Marketing Automation,
6. Content Marketing (with a twist),
7. Buyer Follow-up Plan,
8. Search Engine Optimization,
9. Social Selling,
10. Conversion Rate Optimization,
11. Sideway Marketing,
12. Self-development and Business Education,
13. Podcasting (You read it right, people still listen to podcasts),
14. Google Ad Words PPC,
15. and YouTube Video Marketing.

This list is in no particular order. You may or may not have even heard about some of the ways, but if you find something interesting or questionable – Let me know through the comments section.

Now since you have a fair idea of what to expect inside this blog post, let us move into the details of each of the aforementioned tactics.

#1. RE-TARGETING / RE-MARKETING

Also known as “Pesky Salesman” Marketing. Re-targeting (Re-marketing) aims at balancing branding and direct response.

Since too much direct response can lead to consumer saturation and too much branding entails brand exposure without any direct correlation to an increase in sales, Re-targeting is a form of marketing that aims to balance both aspects of branding and direct response.

Re-targeting allows you to deliver certain value in advance and be assured that there will be a follow-up regardless of any contact detail or sale acquisition.

For Re-targeting to work, you need to ensure that you have great content. As sending users to landing pages related to content has lower costs than sending them directly to a product landing page, this method has an overall lower cost per lead.

Your first priority should be to build a pixeled audience. You can do this from either Google or Facebook, both are great in their own ways. Then remarket your products to only the pixeled audience which left your landing pages without converting.

Here is a very interesting read I came across on HubSpot about retargeting ideas. If you find the resource helpful, don’t forget to bookmark their page for future reference.

RE-MARKETING STORY

Watchfinder, a premium, and pre-owned luxury watch retailer discovered that less than 1% of visitors were purchasing from their website. Since the average order value on their website was close to $3,500, the company found that buying decisions often spanned over a long period of time. Watchfinder’s challenge was to re-engage and converse with these users who had shown interest in the luxury watches to incite them to return to the website and make a purchase.

This is where re-marketing came into play. Once their remarketing campaign was properly set up and executed, they had a massive 1300% increase in ROI. Their average sales volume also increased by 13%.

Click here to read their full case study in detail.

#2. PROMO MARKETING CALENDAR

Don’t just look at the Promo Calendar as a list of days when your company blasts festive emails to all your subscribers. If planned in the right way, a Promo Marketing Calendar can help you reach your company milestones faster.

Here Are 6 Effective Ways of Using a Promotional Calendar

1. Break Larger Business Goals into Smaller Milestones
2. Create Success Checkpoints and Breach KPI’s
3. Set project Deadlines and Track progress
4. Understand How and When to Allocate Resources
5. Increase Brand Awareness Amongst Consumers
6. Increase Revenue From Your Email Marketing Lists

Keep the focus on your marketing plans first, and use the promotional calendar as a means to overcome the aforementioned objectives.

So, how can you go about creating the perfect promo calendar marketing plan?

Have you been using promo marketing for your business before? If so, take statistics of the last few years and narrow down on the promotions that worked and the promotions that failed. Once you have the list, you can focus on enhancing the promotions that worked for your business. Think of it as an immediate source for generating sales.

Write down a 12-month revenue goal that you plan on obtaining. Perfection is the key. You need to have something to work towards, but do not overlook your business milestones. Write down what you expect to achieve out of every promotion.

Now, create a list of holidays in your financial year and slot them into appropriate months. Here is an interesting resource that lists down all possible promotional holidays on the calendar. Source.

Jot down your slow and fast business months. Every business faces a down phase in the year. For example – Some businesses sell more on vacation time than others. Trying to heavy promote your business during slow months is only going to build resentment for your brand.

Categorize non-revenue and brand awareness generating goals separately.

These can be-

1. Blog Launch
2. Podcasts
3. Webinars
4. Books
5. Etc…

Keep seasonality in mind when plotting promotions since no business have even earnings all throughout the year. Always have a certainly expected figure for every promotion. That way, you can measure its success. If you fail to meet your expectations for any promotion, then carry forward the deficit to the next promotion. Keep going until the end of the year.

List all your additional requirements.

1. If you need to launch a new product/service
2. Acquire New Leads
3. Launch new campaigns
4. Create a more pixeled audience etc.

Use the Promo Calendar wisely, and incorporate other marketing tactics into it. There are endless combinations. Feel free to contact me if you need ideas on how to get started. Trying to focus on the entire calendar can be overwhelming to start with, focus on quarterly or half-yearly plans at first.

#3. GOOGLE TAG MANAGER

Imagine being able to see every single click that happens on your website??!? The Google Tag Manager not only allows you to do just that but is also very easy to set up. I am not going to show you how to set up GTM, but if you need help you can get in touch with me through the comments at the end of the post.

Refer to the Google Tag Manager as a Dashboard that helps marketers accomplish just about any goals related to marketing.  Google Tag Manager does not replace Google Analytics, but it supercharges GA to an extent that the reports provided by analytics are much more detailed and useful.

 

Though the GTM has an extensive learning curve, the time you spend on setting up GTM will eventually add up in the long run. It makes it easy to place tracking pixels and scripts on various parts of your website like specific button clicks and page views.

As a beginner, you should stick to only tags and triggers in GTM, later on, as you gain more confidence you can start accessing the advanced data layers.

Resources:

1. Learn how to use Google Tag Manager
2. What you need to know about Google Tag Manager
3. Why Google Tag Manager
4. Google Tag Manager Dashboard
   

moving onto email marketing…

#4. EMAIL MARKETING

Email Marketing is not all about blasting your subscription lists with tons of emails throughout the day. In fact, if you are doing this you are not going to get any benefits at all. Email marketing in 2016 is more about automation and personalization.

Also, pay very close attention to what you write in your emails because that is the most important piece of copy you are going to write.

Take into consideration a very hypothetical situation –

Let’s say that you send out 10,000 emails that get a 10% open rate with another 10% of readers clicking on the link and 5% of them buying your product = 5 Sales.

Now if you just aim to improve your copy to double your open and link click rate – 10,000 emails that get 20% open rate and 20% link click rate and 5% buy = 20 Sales. Which is a direct 400% increase in sales just by writing a better email copy?

Here is a very interesting resource on writing great Email Subject Lines to boost your open rates.

Take notes on some of these positive keywords that boost email CTR:

1. Exclusive
2. Free Delivery
3. Gift
4. Latest
5. New
6. Sale
7. Alert
8. News
9. Video
10. Daily
11. Weekly
12. Editor
13. Update
14. Breaking
15. Limited
16. Review

Here are some negative words that you should cut immediately from your Email Subject Lines –

1. Free
2. Only
3. Learn (Discover a new way) – *rolls eyes*
4. Report
5. Today
6. Webinar
7. Win
8. Forecast
9. Subscription
10. Discount
11. Trial
12. Facebook
13. % Off

Further Resources:

• BriteVerify Email Verification – clears junk emails from your list
• Litmus – a paid option to build mobile-able emails
• Email on Acid – simplifies email testing and analytics.
• Marapost– does analytics, but it‘s expensive.
• Visual Website Optimizer – does split testing.
• Email Marketing Examples list – just a few examples to give you a feel.

Use your emails to help your customers to work with you. Give them the information they need to interact with your brand. Use effective CTAs to incite them to take action.

Understand that change is a constant thing. If something is working today, it may not work tomorrow. Always keep testing. Your competitors are testing.

Learn new things and implement them yourself.  Test and verify yourself.

#5. MARKETING AUTOMATION

Marketing Automation refers to software that aims to automate the goals of marketing. Especially, repetitive tasks like Emails, Social Media and other common website actions. Most marketers opt for it, try to set it up and leave it unfinished because the process is very overwhelming.

In simple terms marketing automation refers to software and tactics that help companies to have a buying cycle like big eCommerce websites. This helps them to encourage better brand communication with consumers and convert stuck-on-the-fence users into reliable and repetitive buyers of the business.

Problem with Marketing Automation

Most marketers live under the impression that marketing automation orbits all the essential marketing tools necessary for the growth of a business including lead generation software. This mere delusion leaves most marketers automating the middle of the funnel without any solution to generate new leads and create new business relationships.

Marketing Automation Case Study

Sixth Division built a $3MM Coaching and Services Business in 4 Years.

How do you say?

Solely with lead generation tactics and marketing automation.

Sixth Division acquired leads through four channels, namely –

1. Facebook
2. Google
3. Live Events
4. And partners

After acquiring leads, SixthDivision invited prospects to a Webinar. At the end of the Webinar, they showcased a single product for the prospects to buy. Once converted into buyers, SixthDivision had their entire follow-up plan automated.

They sent out a Three Email Series to all buyers to schedule a consultation.

The first email was a video that introduced them to SixthDivision. This video confirmed the date of the consult and showed them what they could expect from the consult.

The second video was a simple reminder about the upcoming appointment. The Date and time were planted in three places – the Subject Line, picture and Closing Sentence.

The third email was a pre-consult message reminding them about things they should have ready before they take the call.

This simple and effective automated plan allowed them to scale their business seamlessly and grow it into a $3MM Coaching and Services business in 4 Years.

#6. CONTENT MARKETING

Content shall always be the king of the internet. Just that its ways are changing. Previously you could get away with an unplanned content strategy and still extract decent ROI out of your marketing campaigns, but now the rules of the game have changed.

As smartphones are enabling smarter users, people are becoming very particular about the kind of content they see in their news feeds. You can’t impress them with any random “tech-joe” talks. You need to have carefully researched data and plan to even invite them to click and reach your landing pages.

This calls for a twist in the tale and here is how you can go about it.

 

1. Break Your Longer posts into Shorter and Detailed Versions. Don’t give all your information away at once. This will lead to higher bounce rates on your website if you manage to get the clicks. Instead, focus on giving away beginner-friendly information in earlier blog stages and then move on to advanced information in the later stages.

The best way to go about is to publish one part every week. Unless users are really interested in whatever content you throw at them, focus on sending one informative post every week to their email. You can remind them throughout the week about your post, but avoid information overload at all costs.

2. Choose a post that worked well and enhance it. Add more information to it and update it. Once you update an old post you can publish it with a “More Information Title” or something similar and publish it again.

If you have a recurring post that can be updated periodically, make it a point to update it and republish it with a new title. Push the old content down and add the changes to the top of the post.

Google loves websites that keep updating their old posts. Sending signals that you have updated an older blog post will definitely entail more SEO benefits and traffic.

#7. EIGHT WEEK FOLLOW-UP PLAN

Starting from the moment a customer purchases their product, this is how it will look like….

 

First Week –

Focus solely on establishing a relationship with the customer. Give them a walkthrough of the product or a video guide and let them enjoy its benefits.

Second, Third and Fourth Week –

Focus solely on social proof by introducing them to other customers who have used your products. Show them testimonials on Social Websites and invite them to leave feedback themselves.

If you have an online community or forum, introduce them to it and ask other members to congratulate them on joining. Basically, establish a friendly rapport with them, not just a buyer and seller relationship.

Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Week –

Start measuring your results. They have used your product for almost a month. Now it’s time for you to reach out to them and help them document it for you. Get even more testimonials and proof of results, reward those who keep the chain alive and continue to show new people the power of your products.

By doing these little things, you can save a lot of money and invest it into other marketing channels.

Keep in mind that your motive is the encourage advocacy of your brand. There is no way those customers are going to turn against you once you have been with them for the first sixty days and they have shared their unbiased testimonials with their followers on social platforms.

The more you can get people to use your products and share their experiences. The better chances you will have at convincing newer customers and showcasing them the power of your brand and that YOUR BRAND is THE SOLUTION TO ALL THEIR PROBLEMS.

#8. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Do not forget the power of earned media. Go to the Google Adwords Tool and do a search for your industry keyword.

If you are in the Fashion Industry, try searching for “Fashion” and the average bid should show you an estimate of what the keyword is worth in terms of clicks.

Likewise, you could be from the Makeup, Self-Development, Women Care, Beauty etc industry.

Now, let’s take a keyword that is worth $0.15 cents. If you are able to rank for that keyword and get at least 5.879 visitors a day from organic traffic. You are technically saving $881.85 a day for marketers who are advertising for that keyword. Now if you take into account the yearly expenses 881.85×365 = $321875.25 yearly. Magical isn’t it?

Always try to include an industry keyword in your domain name. This makes your chances of ranking in the long term a lot easier as compared to fully branded domain names.

Remember, Copywriting is the end all and be all of the marketing. It is present everywhere. Be it a 150 Character Tweet you want to promote, or a short AdWords Advertisement, the subject line of your business email or the content that goes onto your website and blogs. Always hire quality writers and better still, train and recruit them in-house.

What Are Possible Signals to Google That Your Page Rocks?

1. The CTR on your website – a number of clicks from your homepage to other internal pages of your website shows that visitors are interested in what you are sharing with them. So craft a good copy and CTA that gets clicks into the deeper inner pages.

2. Headlines play a very crucial role. Always keep testing your headlines. Remember the thumb rule of marketing – What is working today, will not work tomorrow. Your competitors are always testing, so should you.

3. The average time people spend on your page is also a key indicator of your website’s quality. The more the average time, the better your chances of ranking shall be in the eyes of Google.

4. Scroll Rates – Consumers cannot make a purchase if they cannot see the buy button. Ensure that your website copy incites users to scroll around and doesn’t have any blocking elements or irritating popups.

5. Use original photos and videos on your website as a means of keeping people engaged with your content for a longer period of time. Use long and in-depth videos to show customers more about your product and services.

6. Last but not the least, Grammar, Quality Links, Social Shares, Relevant Images, Captions, Author Authority etc, will help visitors stay on your page for a longer duration, decrease your bounce rates and increase your overall SEO score as well.

#9. SOCIAL SELLING

Let’s not talk about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest or LinkedIn marketing separately. That is why I am putting all of these under one tab and we can call it “Social Selling.”

Before I get into the nitty-gritties of Social Selling, it is important to understand how a typical sales funnel looks like.

Lead Capture –> Sales Page –> Order Form –> Upsell –> Thank You

Don’t use social media as a platform to directly sell your products. Instead, focus on advancing the customers from one stage of the sales funnel to the other.

Brands that constantly try to sell directly to their pixeled audience increase churn and eventually burn their lists. People eventually become blind to their advertisements and promoted posts.

The aim of Social Selling should be to establish a rapport with your customers and increase purchase frequency by establishing continuity and credibility.

Use platforms like Facebook, Google+, Pinterest, Linked In and Twitter to build Likability and Trust amongst customers.

Start with Giving Value First and Establishing Credibility

Send visitors from Social Media to an Ungated Offer. It can be a Blog Post, Resources, Checklist, How-to Guide etc, but don’t ask for anything in return just about yet.

Alternatively,

You could also try sending them to a gated offer like White Paper, PDF Ebook Download etc, and try to get their emails first. Testing is the key here.

Alternatively,

You could offer them deep discounts on evergreen products, services or software. Use this technique if you are selling something that needs no introduction. For example – Digital Services like SEO, Copywriting, Explainer Video Creation etc. These services need no introduction, and there is already a heavy demand in the market for them.

The idea here is to use value first to drive traffic from Social Media to your website or platform.

Now, Embed Core Offers into Your Ungated Content

Plant an offer or propose a sale towards the middle or end of your content and try to convert them into buyers. Don’t go for your most expensive products, use cheap ones instead. The idea here is to make them swipe their cards and spend as little as a dollar towards your business. Just create a connection.

Or, Upsell Products from Deep Discounts

For every group of people who are willing to spend money to buy your products, there will be some people who can always spend more. The idea of Upsell offers is to aim at those customers and try to sell more from the 2^nd stage of the funnel because they have already shown interest in purchasing your products.

Pixel and Retarget Customers Who Left from Funnel Stage One

Customers who clicked your promoted posts and went to your website were interested in what you had to share with them. Pixel those customers who leave from this stage and re-target other products that fall into the same interest category.

INCREASING BUY FREQUENCY AND REPEAT ORDERS

 

The mathematics is simple here. More than 70% of Customers turn to Social Media for after-sales service. If they get a reply, they are most likely to purchase from you again and become stable customers. If they do not get a reply, there is a 15% chance of them not placing any orders in future.

77% of customers say that valuing their time is the best way a company can provide better customer service.

So, ensure that you reply to all social messages within 12 hours and that resolution to customer’s problems is provided within 24 hours at all costs.

Use Social Listening Tools Effectively

Statistics report that more than 50% of customers do not tag the Brand when they are talking about it on Social Media. Thankfully, you have ways to eavesdrop on their conversations on Social Media. Use it effectively, and you can reach them right in the nook of time.

• Hootsuite – an entry-level searchable tool that monitors your social media
• Mention – a mid-level tool that monitors streams – listen for keywords
• Radian6 – an enterprise-level tool to monitor social media

#10. CONVERSION RATE OPTIMIZATION

So, you are spending money on Facebook Advertisements, Google PPC, Retargeting, Offline Advertisements, Billboards etc, but have not allocated any resources on Conversion Rate Optimization?

You might be technologically challenged as an Entrepreneur, but if your I.T Department has not mentioned anything about optimizing the conversions on your website, it might be a good time to reconsider hiring the right guys.

 

Marketing is not about the number of visitors that come to your business, but it is about the number of visitors that convert into trusted and returning customers of your business.

So instead of focusing on driving new leads to your business, your focus should also be on improving the amount of “what-sticks-and-what-doesn’t” on your website. This is where Conversion Rate Optimization comes into play.

Resources:

• InstaPage – create a landing page in just 3 minutes
• Unbounce.com – build and test landing pages without I.T.

There are various tests you could be running on your website to Conversion Optimize it, here is my list of what’s really going to be on target in 2016

1. Conduct Offer Tests – like product bundling, visitor interest-targeted messaging, writing a benefits copy above the fold, offering discount coupons on website headers etc.
2. Geolocation Tests – Use of different images, wording and language according to Geolocation tests.
3. Personalization Tests – This is going to be a big one in 2016. More than 60% of marketers have called it the game-changer. It’s about personalizing who sees what and when.
4. Shopping Cart Recovery Tests and Email Reminders for Shopping Cart Abandonment
5. Button Color and Standard CTA Tests are also here to stay. (forever).
6. Lastly, do not forget to do mobile optimization tests. Mobile-Friendly Websites go way beyond the means of just responsive websites. You need to test how your website works and functions on different devices like Mobile, Phablets, Tablets, Laptops, Desktop Computers etc.
7. Also, plan different advertisements and content for different devices. For example – the banner ad you use for desktops might not gain the same traction on mobile devices. Your content strategy should differ according to the device.

#11. SIDEWAY MARKETING

When you do not have a huge marketing budget but your competition is stiff, it’s better to market your business sideways than to get into a head-on collision with your competitors (who can easily crush you).

If you already have an Email Marketing Subscriber List, try running it through Towerdata.com

As soon as you scan your list on Towerdata, the website will give you age, gender, marital status, income, zip code and more of the people on your list. You will also get an overall snapshot of your market – length of residence, home market value, presence of children, charitable donors etc,

You can also collect purchase data and interest data from Towerdata.com. Once you have all the information in front of you, you can market your products and personalize your future emails, even more, to gain more traction from the email marketing list.

Apart from giving all the above information, Towerdata.com also gives you the net worth of leads.

When I ran a list of one of my Makeup and Beauty Industry clients on Tower data, it returned that more than 50% of the leads were high net worth.

But the cost of Beauty leads acquisition = $4.52/lead

So instead of buying Beauty leads, I bought 1000 Cosmetic leads for $0.69 each = $690 investment. Guess what? Women who were interested in cosmetics are bound to be interested in the Makeup and Beauty Niche. This way I not only acquired $4552 worth of Makeup and Beauty Leads (Immediate 650% ROI), with just $690 Investment. But also knew that at least 50% of the leads would be high net worth.

Can you see how this data can be used to sideway market your business to cheaper leads and still extract more than decent ROI from it?

Take for example the Golf Industry. You can venture into the Golf Niche, but sell products like properties, luxury cars, business loans etc., to those golfers. Because people in this niche and mostly affluent and have a classy taste for everything.

The core idea is to think of what people in your market are doing when they are not doing what you are selling. Think outside the box. Do You want to sell Insurance to people? But Insurance leads would cost you a massive $10-$18 per lead. Instead, search for Dog Lovers or Dog Breeds, which you can acquire for a few cents. Once you have that in place, try to get customers into your den with cheap tripwires like (Dog Tags and Dog Care Ebooks) and then Upsell them “Pet Insurance” once they opted for your Dog Tags. See what we did there? There is a simple science behind it, and this can be implemented in each and every industry.

#12. SELF DEVELOPMENT AND BUSINESS EDUCATION

Why is Self-Development and Business Education placed in the Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2016 you ask? Why shouldn’t it be? Marketing is an investment in any form that is done with the aim to grow your business in the long run. Marketing should add value to your business, and Self Development and Business Education thus is an important part of marketing.

I will repeat myself from the Introduction – Most successful entrepreneurs and business owners spend an average of 30 minutes a day on business education and self–development. While the majority of entrepreneurs shy away from the idea of personal development, strangely because they think that the idea of being a better person is silly or stupid.

We all want to be better individuals but we resist it because somehow the idea of facing all-out internal junk scares the hell out of us and we would rather give big speeches and take less responsibility than vice versa.

What we believe in, will set the stage for everything in our lives and will also determine the course of our expertise and experience. Successful entrepreneurship requires inculcating a set of beliefs that the majority of the people do not hold. Self-Development and Business Education will arm you to be better prepared for situations that normal people cannot handle. Like how to cope with business pressure during low volume months, or how to use negative publicity that your competitors do, in your favor.

All sorts of weird human tendencies sabotage our personal success. This is the subconscious mind and is not rational. We need to change our Self-sabotaging and Success Blocking Tendencies. Self-development can teach you how to cope with the fear of added responsibility, criticism, and failure. It will also teach you how to cope with success-blocking tendencies like Laziness, Procrastination. You do not want to become this perfect godly figure, but just a better version of yourself.

Think of it like this – Every minute you spend on self-development as an Entrepreneur will take away a dollar from your marketing efforts because, you are going to be making better decisions, managing your time effectively, and learning how to deal with stress, which is a critical progress killer.

Resources:

1. Understanding personal development
2. 25 Personal Development Skills to Learn for free
3. 7 Habits of highly effective entrepreneurs

moving onto Podcasting….

#13. PODCASTING

Radio might be dead, but Podcasting is still a great form of marketing. People love media, especially if you are able to deliver it to them at their convenience. The art of direct marketing into your customer’s ears is one that needs a little bit of honing.

Finding your ideal voice is the most difficult part of Podcasting. You need to venture outside your comfort zone and find the right tone and setting for your Podcast.

Here are the basic tools that you need to start a Podcast –

• Mic (Any Good Quality USB Mic)
• GarageBand & Audacity free apps
• Call Recorder or eCamm(Mac)

Don’t aim to be a perfectionist when you first start Podcasting. Your initial Podcasts may not get as much attention as you think you deserve, but eventually, if you have the right mindset and deliver quality information, people are going to pile up and wait for you to release the next episode.

Use Podcasting as a storytelling tool. Don’t be a script nerd and read out from the paper. Just write down the points and be natural. People tend to understand when you are speaking naturally and when you are being superficial. They will lose interest if they find that you are reading from a script.

You can also invite other influencers into your Podcast and have a great discussion with them for everyone to hear. In this case, too, you need to ask the right question and avoid scripting of any sort.

You need to be consistent with your podcasts. Once you get frequent, people are going to wait for you to release the next episodes on time. If you don’t, they will get emotional and leave or think that you are just not too serious about the affair.

To find the ideal format for your Podcast, try releasing a few episodes at first and experiment in each. Then ask your audience which episodes they liked more than the others to narrow down on what’s going to work and what’s not going to work for you.

#14. GOOGLE ADWORDS PPC

 

1. Ad Messaging Enhancements

Earlier you were limited to a mere 95 Characters on PPC Ads, but now you can spice up your advertisements with a ton of Extensions and actually deliver more information to get targeted clicks.

Now, Ad Copy Writing for PPC is not just about the script. You need to carefully plan and design your advertisements, just like you craft your landing pages.

There are seven manual ad extensions to choose from. Click here to read more about them. Google has also included structured snippets, which is really cool.

 

2. Video Ads

Video Advertisements aren’t a new thing, but 2015 does seem like the year where they have been used extensively. 2016 is going to be no different. With Google incorporating the True View Video Advertisement campaign into AdWords, this trend is already on a hike.

Most marketers are adding these as the icing on the Cake, especially if their clients have a high budget.

This is an ideal time to exploit this strategy before it explodes in the near future.

3. RLSA (Remarketing List for Search Advertisements)

Though this feature was officially launched in 2013, most advertisers are still not using it. RLSA lets you effectively modify bids, search ads, keywords when past website visitors do a Google Search for products similar to yours.

You can initially review how customers are behaving on your website after clicking on your Ads. If the cost of acquisition of returning visitors is higher on your website, then you can lower the bid on search advertisements for first-time users.

Google Adwords is huge. There is more to it beyond these three important elements. But If you are starting out, focus on getting the first two points and later move on to other advanced options as you become comfortable

#15. YOUTUBE VIDEO AD MARKETING

More than 73% of Smart Phone enabled users to watch at least one video on YouTube every day. If that is not reason enough to get into Video Advertisements in 2016, then what is?

• 53% of viewers who watch a video get inspired or entertained.
• 70% of millennials use YouTube videos to learn something.
• “How-to” searches are on a hike (70%) of total searches this year.

When viewers go on YouTube to watch a video, they see an advertisement on the right-hand side or a pre-video advertisement.

Most marketers do not get into video advertising for two primary reasons –

1. Starters Block – They do not know what to do.
2. Or, they do not know how to do it.

Videos allow you to get the right advertisements in front of the right people, at the right time.

 

Start by using Open Broadcaster Software  – you can directly stream into YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch etc with CTAs and Keywords.

1. Start recording a video.
2. Use them as in-display advertisements (10 cents per viewer)
3. Link to your landing page

You can also do in-stream Ads (like the ones that play before a video, or ones that can be skipped in 5 secs).

To get the best results, your advertisements must be very engaging in the first 5 seconds.

You can also target your advertisements through videos. You can have them display on specific videos.

Use Retargeting to build lists of people who have already seen your video and get back in front of them. You can import Pixel from Facebook Campaigns and Google Adwords Campaigns. Video Advertisements are short, attention-grabbing and crisp. If you haven’t launched a video marketing campaign for your brand yet, it is time to reconsider your marketing efforts.

Closing Calls

As customers and marketers constantly evolve with the ever-changing technology, it is important for everyone to stay updated. At the end of the day, it is not about how many marketing tactics are you using for your business, but about how much you are extracting out of your marketing campaigns.

What is working today, might be considered old fashioned or outdated tomorrow. As a marketer, it is high time to understand that we cannot take anything for granted. What may have worked for us in the past, might hold no significant value today? Technology is not the only thing that is changing, our customers are evolving too and the way they choose to connect with our brands is evolving too.

“The only thing that remains constant is change.”

As you’re building your marketing plan for 2016, keep the “dying” trends in mind. Don’t count on what worked for you before but rather learn what has changed and come up with new ideas and new ways to leverage the technology at hand.

At Prime One Global, we understand that running a business can be overwhelming. On top of this, making time for self-development and staying updated with marketing tactics is not easy at all. That is why we keep updating our marketing skills in all spheres. Get in touch with me for a no-obligation, free consultation and I will have a Dedicated Marketing Manager from Prime One Global guide you on the ways you can market your business in 2016.

Have a good day!

Here is a list of Useful Resources, Tools and Software That Will Help You Become Better at Marketing Your Business

Competitor Research –

• Datanyze.com– find different tools in various industries
• BrightKite– Top product research platform for all caregivers with detailed reviews
• BuiltWith – Find out what software and plugins your competitors are using
• Compete– Competitor intelligence at its finest

 Business Management –

• QuickBooks Enterprise
• Qvinci
• Studio Cloud – Free Business Management
• NetSuite

Ecommerce + Conversion Rate Management Tools

• SixthDivision
• InfusionSoft
• Magento
• Limelight CRM
• 1AutomationWiz
• Memberium

 Keyword Research Tools

• SEMRush
• WordTracker
• FreshKey
• iSpionage
• Google Adwords Keyword Planner
• KeywordTool.io
• Google Trends
• Soovle
• VideoCents
• MerchantWords

 Competitor Intelligence and Customer Research

• SimilarWeb
• Compete
• AdBeat
• AdClarity
• BuzzSumo
• Follow.net
• Native AdBuzz
• Box of Ads
• SpyFu
• What Runs Where
• Alexa
• iSpionage
• WhosMailingWhat
• Adsviser

 Landing Page and Funnel Builders

• LeadPages
• OptimizePress
• ClickFunnels
• Thrive Content Builder
• Instapage
• Unbounce
• Adobe Muse

 Social Media Management

• BufferApp
• BufferPablo
• IFTTT
• SocialOomph
• SproutSocial
• Hootsuite

Pinterest and Instagram Marketing and Management

 Video Publishing and Editing Tools

• Wistia
• VeeRoll
• Smartzer
• Tunes to Tube
• Tubular Labs

 Analytics and Tracking Information

• HotJar – create session recordings, improve form design, heat map, surveys and form analysis.
• Google Analytics – Freemium Subscription, check traffic acquisition, Source, Referrals, Behaviors, Site Content Flow, Check Sessions by hour, Find best performing content etc.
• CrazyEgg – Best heat map, scroll mapping, understand how people from different sources interact with your website
• Grytics – Facebook Group Analytics and management. Find when members are most active, understand when to interact with them.

 Onsite Remarketing / Retargeting

• io – Social Shares, Contents, Giveaways, On-site Retargeting
• OptiMonk – Contextual exit popups, hello bar, scroll pops etc.

 Affiliate Networks

• ClickBank– largest affiliate network
• SkimLinks
• RevContent

 Live Chat Solutions

• KayakoHelpDesk (Used by Prime One Global)
• SnapEngage– Simple live chat software for easy to capture and export leads

 Website Tag Managers

• Google Tag Manager – add new code on the website without I.T
• Segment
• Tealium

 Research and Data

• StatisticBrain
• Marketing Land
• SearchEngineLand
• VerticalWebMedia
• DigitalMarketer

 Project Management

• GetFlow – turns to chat into the task
• Blossom
• Podio – for tech groups
• Slack – enables intra-company communication

 Lead Generation and Email Deliverability

• BriteVerify – verify and scan email lists
• Contest Domination – best contest running platform
• Qzzr
• LeadSift – target the right audience
• KeyHole – Tracks hashtags

 Productivity Tools

• Gliffy – for charting funnels and creating a flowchart for offers.
• com – quick mockup tool
• Grammarly – Check plagiarism and grammar in content
• Copyscape – best plagiarism checker
• Piktochart – Create beautiful graphs and infographics easily
• FreePik.com – Free vector graphics

 Quality Control and Debugging

• Bugherd – create stick notes on a webpage
• Twilio – appointment reminders
• LoadImpact – ton demand load testing for developers.

 

Feel free to get in touch with me about any of these tactics in the comments section below or you can also leave feedback on our official Facebook page. If you think I missed something out, let me know and I will add it to this post in near future.

 

The International Internet Day was the event of sending the first electronic message, which was transferred from a computer to another, back in 1969. This event occurred in California, USA. Present day, International Internet Day is also an online movement of sorts that is targeted towards spreading awareness about the importance of the Internet and Telecommunication Technology in the world.

Ever since our inception in 2008, we at Prime One Global have been unswervingly celebrating this very day on the 29^th of October at our company headquarters. We would like to cordially invite all our friends, family members, partners, clients, stake holders and well-wishers to be a part of this day and share this moment of rejoice with us.

“International Internet Day is not just another day in the Calendar. It is a special day for everyone who has access to the Internet. It is an occasion for reflecting on how critical a role the Internet plays in our daily lives.” – Kokul Krishnan, General Manager, Prime One Global

At Prime One Global, we take this day as an opportunity to raise awareness about the power vested in something that we call the World Wide Web and how critical it is to preserve and protect it from unethical use.

The internet has brought the world together and the Internet is the future. So please take the time out and stop by at the Prime One Global Headquarters in Vavuniya on 29^th October, 2016, from 4P.M. – 5 P.M.

Hope to see you there! And don’t forget to check out our event page on Facebook 🙂

Every day, more than 1 million websites go online – Do all of them attract a steady amount of traffic? No. In fact, more than 50% of these websites go out of business in the next six months, because they are unable to keep pace with the ever demanding search engine requirements.

It is hard for a website to flourish online without any search engine traffic, even if the business is providing a valuable service. There is substantial cost and effort involved in Search Engine Optimization for obvious reasons.

SEO takes a lot of time. Your website needs to get indexed, and then you need to keep updating it, do your reputation management, blogging, PR distribution, link building, social media management etc., and pray to god that your website moves up the rankings. Another big problem with newer websites is that they lack in metrics like PR (Page Rank), Trust Flow, Citation Flow, Domain Authority, Page Authority – all of which, can only be acquired over time. THIS IS WHERE PPC (Pay-Per-Click) Comes into play.

PPC through websites like Google, Bing, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn will bring targeted customers to your website based on the keywords that you select, immediately. Unlike SEO, you don’t have to wait for your website to rank first, before you start receiving any search engine traffic with PPC. Some of the best things about PPC are:

1. It is a cost effective form of marketing

2. It brings immediate results in the form of targeted customers

3. It is good for landing page testing, split testing, squeeze testing etc.

4. It can be tied up with great analytical tools to get better insight into customer models

5. A good campaign has the ability to pay for itself, time and time again

6. If a website is already ranking organically, then adding PPC ads to SERPs increases their customer retention by 89%

7. Top 3 sponsored links on Google get 43.7% clicks from search results

And lastly, PPC is a very precise form of marketing strategy that can be highly effective when executed properly because it can provide comprehensive information on cost per click and conversion rates, impressions, CTR and reach.

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HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT Pay-Per-Click Marketing Firm

The key attributes you want to check for in a good PPC Marketing Firm include:

1. Transparency – The rule of the thumb before selecting any marketing agency is to look for transparency. The marketing firm should be willing to share their expertise and information with you. You should be aware of what exactly is being done to your account and how it is being done. The lack of transparency of a firm is a clear indicator that the agents are not devoting as much time as they should to your campaigns, or they do not know what they are doing.

 

2. Expertise – PPC is a game that you get better at with more practice. So, ideally you would like to opt for a firm that has been in the industry for a very long time. The firm should be able to demonstrate some of their past case studies along with a portfolio of their past and present clients to showcase their depth of expertise in the PPC field. The PPC Agency, should at least dedicated one PPC Manager for your firm.

 

3. Control – This factor is somewhat similar to our first point. The Marketing agency should be willing to make you a part of their team, or become an extension of your business and work with your employees. You should always have the ability to retain control over your campaigns and make critical decisions based on your primary focuses, goals and in certain cases, even execute your campaigns under the supervision of the company.

When you have these basics clear, the next step is to underline a set of key questions for your ideal PPC Agency to answer about the qualified features that they will offer your firm in exchange for your money and trust.

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Interrogating your potential PPC Firm about their experience, background and approach can be extremely beneficial maneuver. Do not select a firm on the basis of their outward appearance as, “All that glitters is always not gold.”

Here is a list of questions you should ask your to-be PPC Agency to help you get a clear grip on their approach, methodologies, understanding, transparency and level of expertise you can expect from them during your partnership phase:

1. How many years has your agency been doing PPC Marketing?

2. Are there any PPC Marketing Certifications or Degrees that you have acquired?

3. Can you give us a list of Past and Present Clients for whom your agency has been managing PPC?

4. How many dedicated PPC Managers do you have in-house? Do they only focus on PPC Management or other SEO Fields as well?

5. Does your firm offer other Digital Marketing Services like Enterprise SEO, Local SEO, Social Media Management, Web Design and Development? If so, what is the ratio of employees in those sectors and PPC?

6. Will your company be proactively sharing required reports with me on a timely basis? Can I demand certain hap-hazard reports so that I know what is happening with my money?

7. Has any of your PPC Managers had an experience with working with a company in my niche?

8. Do you only offer AdWords or other PPC platforms like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Bing etc. as well?

9. Can you show me a standard PPC Report that you provide? Will I be able to ask for other metrics on demand? Can you elaborate about the various metrics, which I can inquire about?

10. Do you use any standard tools or do you use proprietary tools to manage campaigns and generate reports? If I decide to leave your PPC Management Services in near future, will I be able to transition to another company with my existing campaigns and reports?

11. Will you agree to let my in-house staffs, handle certain parts of the PPC Campaigns, while your company handles the rest? How do you typically plan to synchronize my staff?

12. How to you determine the success of a PPC Campaign? How do you plan to go about making my business achieve its goals? Will you collaborate with me to understand the requirements of my business to refine my goals and increase the ROI?

Feel free to alter these questions to suit your requirements. Once you have found the right PPC Agency for your business, it is time to move onto the planning and execution of your PPC Campaigns, which calls for the –

[call_to_action image=”” title=”” btn_title=”Click Here To Download Your FREE 2015 PPC Checklist” btn_link=”https://www.primeone.global/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/The-Extreme-Google-Adwords-Pay-Per-Click-Checklist-2015.pdf” class=””]

Click on the link above to download the checklist for Google Adwords PPC. It contains modules that will help you setup a successful campaign and monitor it daily, weekly, bi-weekly and monthly to conversion optimize your campaigns and get the best ROI possible.

Be sure to bookmark this page and keep this handy PPC checklist in your mobile device for easy access. Connect with us on our Facebook Page or leave your feedback in the comments section below if you would like us to cover a checklist on other important forms of Marketing. Have a good day!

How to Increase Website Traffic Effectively

10 Simple Free Traffic Tips You Can Use Now!

So you have your business website all geared up – a fancy web design, social media profiles, YouTube channels, crisp content on all your blogs and landing pages – what happens next? How do you plan to spread the word about your awesomeness without overspending your budget? Should you invest money into Facebook Advertisements, Paid Banners, PPC Campaigns, Sponsoring Events or other media channels just yet?

The biggest problem most entrepreneurs and start-up businesses face is “How to Generate Traffic to their Business.” Most businesses spend a lot of money into multiple advertisement channels or run quite a few paid banner ads on giant websites, thinking that it is going to bring in a lot of customers, which is a major misconception.

Now I do not want to say that this approach is entirely wrong or something. But it all boils down to the conversion ratio of these companies as compared to the amount being spent on marketing. I have specially coined a name for this kind of marketing approach taken by many companies. I call it the ‘Scatter Gun’ Marketing plan. Please don’t do it. As a Digital Marketer, I have come across many companies that are spending way more than required, to crunch small figures at the end of the month.

I have also come across some start-up companies that have awesome products/services, but can barely acquire enough money to invest in marketing their products. Honestly, it pains my heart when I see companies (w/ scattergun approach) wasting their marketing budget in the wrong channels.

MY ADVICE TO STARTUP’s and BUDDING COMPANIES

If you are freshly baked, then you should give your products some time to sink in. Do not plan overly expensive marketing activities that you can otherwise do without. Always try to use free channels of promotion, or tweak your existing media channels or existing business materials (which require minimal expenses from your end), to promote your business and increase website traffic.

GO AHEAD. TWEET THIS MESSAGE!

Irrespective of your budget for Online Marketing, Always use #FreeMarketing Techniques To #DriveTraffic before diving in Paid Adverts.

— Prime One Global Internet (@extreme_seo_net) July 16, 2015

WHAT DO I HAVE IN STORE FOR YOU?

To make the entire process of traffic generation and business exposure less expensive, I have summed up these 10 Actionable Tips To Increase Website Traffic. Most of these are free to implement, and some do not require you to spend a single dime more than what you are already spending.

WHAT MAKES THESE TIPS SO POWERFUL?

• Don’t require you to spend money, so you can start seeing better returns with zero investment,
• No technical SEO knowledge required, so you can do these without hiring experts,
• Don’t need to make professional looking videos, so you can get away with your newbie skills,
• Don’t need to spend countless hours in front of computer, so you can invest your time and energy in running your business,
• Don’t need to brainstorm new techniques for increasing website traffic, so you can rinse and repeat the ones that work best for you,
• Some of these techniques just need to be setup one time, so you do not need to reapply them in the future, ever!

So, let’s kill the hype and show you what I have in store…

1. CREATE LOCAL CONTESTS THAT BOOST YOUR REVENUE WITH MINIMAL EXPENSES

 

Yes! You read it right, the first time. I know this sort of strategy sounds old and offbeat, but marketing your business through local contests is said to drive 400% more ROI than other forms of marketing.

Take a look at some at this Local Marketing Campaign run by a company. You can read the entire case study on this website.

HubSpot reports some interesting statistics related to Local Contests through this very old Infographic –

1. New Campaigns are said to acquire a 34% audience increase than the older channels,
2. 1/3^rd of local contest entrants subscribe to email updates from companies, which fuels their lead generation capacity,
3. Mobile contests are prone to driving 8 times more traffic to your business,
4. The best duration for local contests on average is 25-60 days. Anything more than that can kill the momentum.

Now, you must be thinking that running a contest means incurring a lot of expenses and giving away costly products! However, that is not true at all.

If you have Physical goods, you can give away sample products as a prize to a few lucky winners, or you can give away your online services if your business offers digital services.

Not only will this kind of technique bring increase website traffic, but will also get you more credibility and goodwill. As a bonus, you could even get real customer testimonials, which you can put up on your website and even use for future promotions. Sound legit?

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated or connected to KickOffLabs and neither do I endorse their services. I have never used their services).

KEY TAKEAWAY – The use of social media and online contests is one of the best strategies used by companies to boost their online audience reach. Use it wisely, and do not think about making massive investments. Run small campaigns at a time.

2. DONT FUSS ABOUT GOOGLE, WHEN YOU HAVE YOUTUBE

With a striking Three Billion Searches daily, this video sharing website is the 2^nd most powerful search engine in the world, after Google. What’s best is ranking and increasing website traffic from this channel is very easy.

WHY IS YOUTUBE SO AWESOME?

Let’s keep aside the traffic that this channel receives daily, and talk about the potential of this channel in general.

1. YouTube Videos get indexed on Google faster
2. You can search for videos within the channel
3. Share videos to all popular Social Channels
4. With a few clicks it is possible to embed videos in blog posts and websites

So, what are you thinking? If you have not entered this channel as a business, then you should go ahead and do it right away.

Lifehacker lists the most useful resources for creating YouTube videos for budding Video Producers and companies.

WHAT SHOULD YOU DO?

Search on YouTube for your business or category and try to understand what people are doing and how people are doing it. Don’t copy and paste everything. Pick up bits and pieces from different videos and make your videos even more comprehensive and information-rich.

WHAT IS REQUIRED?

You will need a computer with a webcam at the least for making YouTube videos. The rest of the resources are free of cost. You don’t need any marketing budget for this strategy to work.

WHAT MORE CAN YOU EXPECT TO ACHIEVE OUT OF YOUTUBE?

I use this method a lot, however, dirty it might sound, and it’s still a free way of generating more traffic by leveraging your competitor’s traffic.

Firstly, try and make a list of all your competitors’ videos on YouTube. Now, you can do it yourself or have one of your existing staff do this work. Either way it works fine.

Create better content in terms of Blog Posts or Videos than your competitors. So for example, if they have “3 Super Simple Makeovers for Monday Brunch” you should aim to create a video that has “5 Super Simple Makeover Techniques for Monday Brunch.”

After your content is created and uploaded, you are ready to deploy this super simple traffic leaching technique by using their comments section.

This technique works best for Videos that are more than 10 minutes in length. Make it a point to watch their entire video first and give a detailed review about what they have shared in the comments section at the bottom of the page.

When you submit the reviews, subtly leave a link to “your better version” of the content. The better version can be a blog post or a video. Then ask all your in-house staff or colleagues to up-vote the comment, which will act as a catalyst.

People will appreciate the time you took to watch the video and provide a summary. Your comment will start receiving natural up votes as well, and this will make it stay on top for a very long time.

You have no idea, how much traffic this technique can generate for your business. It’s a free method and an awesome one at that. But, please do not spam the comment section of other videos with links to your website.

This will not only ruin the reputation of your business but also lower the credibility of your work.

EXTRA TIP – Use URL shortening service like Bit.ly or Goo.gl to analyze the amount of traffic your website is receiving from those comments.

KEY TAKEAWAY –YouTube makes it easy to increase website traffic. Do not ignore the channel and if you are not a tech savvy person and the idea of making simple videos from free and easy to learn software spoofs you, then you can either hire a staff or let an existing member of your team learn and handle this activity.

3. Use Hashtags Wisely To Drive a Lot of Like-minded People to Your Website

HashTags were first introduced by Twitter in 2006 and since then have been gradually adopted by all other social channels like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+ and other networks.

If you are not aware of what Hashtags are, then here is the Definition –

“(On social media sites such as Twitter) a word or phrase preceded by a hash or pound sign (#) and used to identify messages on a particular topic.”

For Example – #DigitalMarketing

Many companies and marketers have already adopted Hashtags into their social media and marketing campaigns, but still there remains a vast majority of businesses and individuals that either underestimate their power or do not know how to use hashtags correctly to generate traffic.

HOW TO USE HASHTAGS EFFECTIVELY?

1. Choose the right keywords – Proper keyword selection is not only important for Search Engine Optimization, but it also affects how your audience will interact with your business. If you are confused about how to start a Hashtag selection, you could try using this incredible Hashtag search engine – Hashatit.com

1. Launch The HashTag – Share a unique photo and message around your niche, followed by a link to your website blog or page that is relevant to the tag. Do this on all your social channels.

1. Provide Value and Engage With Audience – Make sure that the content you are trying to market is top notch. This is the cheese that will lure the mice into your den. Engage with your audience by tagging them in your posts and asking questions, raising conversations around your hashtag, etc.

1. Always Mention Relevant People – Always invite interesting and influential people into your conversation to make it more heated. TIP – Raise a controversial topic, ask a few people by using the @mention and watch how your social traffic starts flooding.

1. Use Free Analytics Tools To Track Your HashTags – I have not used many to be honest, but I surely love Topsy and Talkwalker. At Talkwalker, you can measure the impact of your hashtags by looking at a diverse range of metrics like engagement, general buzz, potential reach, sentiment, etc.

1. Feature Links To Your Website and InnerPages – And when you are using Hashtags, do not forget to highlight your websites and inner pages because your ultimate aim is increase website traffic, and about the rest, #KeepItSimpleStupid

QUICKSPROUT’s AWESOME INFOGRAPHICS ON HOW TO USE HASHTAGS –

Click on the Image to see the full post @ Quicksprout. 

KEY TAKEAWAY – Learn to use HashTags effectively. Educate your employees to use them and always try to create new or find existing and relevant HashTags for better content outreach.

4. Embedded Tweets Facilitate Instant Sharing Of Your Content

Google has recently tied with Twitter. Reference: Independent.co.uk

Do you understand what this means?

Your Tweets are now going to show up in Google search directly. Talk about a better approach to content outreach. If you are not already on Twitter, then it’s never too late to jump into the boat.

HOW CAN YOU MAKE THE BEST OF THIS SITUATION?

Use relevant #keyword and place shortened URL links to relevant pages on your website about that #keyword. Also, start embedding Tweets in your blog posts and pages to facilitate instant re-tweeting and content promotion.

Tweet Insight – According to a small survey we conducted at our office (We have around 67 In-house Staff), we found out that 95% of our employees and their connections were more prone to re-tweeting embedded tweets in posts, rather than tweet the message themselves.

Advantages of Embedded Tweets

1. Take any tweet and embed it into your website, widgets, and posts
2. Embedded tweets are interactive, thereby facilitating instant action
3. Easily enable your readers to follow-up after your CTAs
4. Over time, Google might include Embedded Tweets as a ranking signal
5. Can easily Insert Twitter searches into your Blog Timeline as well
6. Can be used to share Spontaneous customer testimonials
7. Can be used to promote Events or brand messages
8. And I am sure there are other advantages as well…

Check the original source @ Unbounce

How to Embed Tweets into Your Website?

Step 1: Find the tweet you want to embed on your site.

Step 2: Hover over the tweet and click on the (More) Link. There will be an option for Embedding Tweet, Click on it.

Step 3: Copy the code that appears on the page. This code has to be pasted in the relevant section of your website where you want to embed the Tweet.

Step 4: Once you have pasted the Embed code on your site, you are done.

Alternate Method for WordPress

You can alternatively embed the tweet with a Shortcode. Simply copy the following shortcode into your post or text widget and remember to check the URL correctly before posting. It’s really straightforward.

SHORTCODE TO DISPLAY TWEET

[Tweet https://ReplaceThisWithTweetURL]

This feature may not work for the old versions of WordPress, so make sure that you have the updated version installed on your website.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Start embedding tweets into your Blog Posts and Landing pages. Embedded customer testimonial tweets on landing pages are proven to improve conversions. Embedded Tweets might also be included in Google’s massive arsenal of ranking signals in near future.

5. Insert Trackable Link into Website Content to Increase Referral Traffic

 

9 out of 10 Clients of mine reported a significant increase in their website traffic after installing something called TYNT. It is very easy to install, check out all the features and how-to at www.tynt.com

Also, Matthew Woodward published an insane case study on Tynt:

rel=”nofollow”> How to Increase Traffic & Build Links Automatically in 60 Seconds

What Tynt does is installs a trackable link into your website so whenever any content or image is copied and pasted somewhere, and it places a link to the source page. Take a look at the picture below.

If you have got a relatively old website, then you will notice an increase in overall traffic to your site. It will also generate tons of mentions and backlinks that you would never receive otherwise.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Make sure you integrate Tynt into your website. It is free to use and even if your website is brand new, it will come in use over time. It hardly takes less than a minute to setup Tynt and this program handles bringing in hundreds of visitors to the Prime One Global blog every month.

6. Forget Spending Money on Solo Ads, Use Tried and Tested Blog Commenting

Apart from Search Engine Optimization, I invest a lot in buying media for my other businesses for traffic generation. Off late, I took inspiration from Matthew Woodward to try to the old school technique of Blog Commenting and Blogger outreach on a personal level.

What Method Do I Follow?

1. I subscribed to blogs in my Industry
2. I commented on new blog posts when they went live. I was always the first one to comment on them.
3. Shared their content and gave a no hype, crystal clear review
4. I just did things that I do at social events or corporate gatherings.

This kind of outreach apparently takes a lot more time and patience. But, the connections I have developed are priceless and worth every bit of sweat.

Now, I have asked one of my in-house colleagues to focus more on building relationships and commenting on other blogs.

Through this method, I have met a lot of awesome bloggers and businessmen. These people were more than happy to link back to my blogs and share my stuff on their social profiles, which leveraged my business to their circles, and extended circles as well.

What Should You Do?

First thing you need to do is make a separate email for this method. It should be a branded email preferably, but Gmail also works fine.

Get a branded email like [email protected].

Do a Google Search for all your important industry keywords.

Make a list of websites in the first 2 pages for all your important keywords.

By the end of the process, you should have a list of 50-60 unique sites in your industry.

Now, subscribe to each and every website one by one and use the freshly created email address. The reason I suggest you do it with a new email address is because, subscribing to some of these websites might put you into their Auto-responder list. You will be receiving tons of wanted / unwanted emails from them.

Once you subscribe to their blogs, you will receive a message whenever they write new blog posts. Always make it a point to go through their blogs and give your feedback.

Many of these fantastic bloggers and entrepreneurs will be more than interested in knowing about you and your business. Eventually, the blog commenting game will become more of an anticipatable thing.

Whenever there is fresh content on your blog, not only will those people come in to raise discussion, but they will also link to your work and share it on their social channels, without you asking them to do so.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Relationships cannot be automated. Quit automated link building, as they give you meaningless backlinks from deadbeat websites. Most of the quality sites do not auto-approve comments and getting a reference on even one of these websites is much powerful than 100 backlinks from automated software.

7. Don’t Let the Language Barrier Limit Your Business Outreach

No, I am not talking about learning new languages, nor am I talking about hiring linguists or translators to translate your website into different languages.

 

I came to know about this plug-in from Neil Patel, and I admire him for effortlessly finding these awesome techniques that help seal the deal, without carving a hole in your wallet.

This stuff is way easier than you can imagine. All you have to do is install a WordPress plug-in called Transposh and you are set.

Neil Reported a 47% Increase in Search Engine Traffic just after installing the plug-in. We use a more reliable but complicated Multi-lingual architecture on Prime One Global, but that stuff is so complicated that I cannot do it myself. We had our developers sit with a bunch of linguists to convert our website to various languages.

Download the Transposh Plug-in and Install it in your website right now.

What Transposh does is it translates your pages into other languages automatically. It opens a whole new world of traffic since your pages will start ranking for foreign search engine queries.

Note: Even though this plug-in offers support for 92 different languages, I would advise you only to select a few languages at a time to reduce the chances of errors.

Neil’s advice for Transposh – “uncheck the option that reads:

This enables auto-detection of a language used by the user as defined in the ACCEPT_LANGUAGES they send. Doing so will redirect the first page accessed in the session to the same page with the detected language.

The reason you have to uncheck that option is because the plug-in automatically sends people to a translated version when it shouldn’t. It’s not perfect…”

Rinse and repeat the Translation Process by selecting only a few languages at a time. Keep doing it till you have covered all the languages. Do not worry about translating future posts, as the plug-in will do those automatically.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Installing something as simple as a Translation Plug-in called Transposh on your website can quickly increase your website traffic by 50%. If you have not done it already, then you should do it right away.

8. Implement Long Tail Versions of Organic Keywords

This trick will only work for people who already have an established website and are receiving some traffic from the search engine. You can skip this section altogether if you have a new website.

You do not need any marketing know-how, and you do not even need to spend a lot of money for this to work. If you just do as I am saying, I can guarantee that your website’s traffic inflow will increase by at least 30%.

Use Long Tail Keywords

Who doesn’t want to rank for terms like “auto repair services” “home loan” “auto insurance” right? Even though these words are extremely powerful, they are difficult to rank for.

If you use long tail variations of the same keyword, not only will those keywords be easy to target and rank, but you will also get tons of search engine traffic for the same.

Take a look at Prime One Global’s search traffic, and then you will notice that most of the traffic we get is from search engines. And a majority of this traffic comes from long tail keywords, no kidding.

Now, what do you need to do in order to leverage Long Tail SEO?

Firstly, log into Google Webmaster Tools and go to Search Traffic -> Search Queries.

You should now come to a page with a lot of keywords that looks something like this…

Yes, these are the keywords that your visitors are typing into search engines to reach your website. So now you already know, which keywords are going to work for you right?

Now take, for example, we are ranking for the term “Enterprise SEO.” I will go ahead and type this into the Google Search. Then scroll down to the bottom of the page and you should be able to see tons of Long Tail Variations of your keyword through the “Searches related to local SEO.”

There are long tail phrases that Google will see as significant to a term that you are already ranking for. And since you are already ranking for the head keyword, it is going to be way easier for you to rank for these terms.

Just scatter these terms a few times in your primary page for the “lead keyword” and you are good to go. In a few days, you will start receiving more search engine traffic for that page.

I came to know about this strategy from Neil Patel, from Traffic and Conversion Summit 2015’s Wicked Smart Panel. He had shared two more techniques. However, it wouldn’t be fair to share all the exclusive strategies without his consent.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Make a list of the “keywords” for which you are already ranking, get long tail variations of the same through Google Related Searches and then sprinkle those keywords on the respective pages. Watch your search traffic increase in a few weeks.

9. Change Your Email Marketing Strategies

Do you own media? Do you already have a list of subscribers? Are you sending out emails to your followers?

Well, here is something that will not increase your subscriber list, but it will increase your open rates and thereby it will increase the amount of traffic you are receiving from your email campaigns.

You can also buy email marketing lists from www.directmail.com/mailinglists/. Though I have not tried them myself, there are a few people in my circle who have used them and got pretty decent results.

Take a look at these five simple email strategies –

1. Spend Some Money On Your Subject Lines

Why? Because what good is your email if it doesn’t inspire any clicks?

Subject lines are the most famous lines in your entire email. Think of it more like crafting a headline for your blog post or landing page. Standardized subject lines like “Your weekly newsletter” or “How I earned $1000” are not going to work anymore.

Take a look at these 5 ideas that will help you propel your Email Marketing Campaign:

1. Use a question in your subject line to invoke a sense of connection with your subscribers. Emails with questions in their subject are 77% more prone to being opened than ordinary subject lines.
2. Use cliffhangers in your subject lines. People love suspense. If you can use this effectively, then your subscribers will not be able to help but open your emails.

• Lists in the subject lines like, Top 10 Wedding Destinations, Top 5 Pickup Lines, etc., work great as subject lines.

1. If you want to announce something through your email, don’t let the readers open it to get the message, break the ice in the subject line itself.

WORTH READING:

10 Oddball Email Subject Line Formulas That Never Fail, by Perry Belcher

Best Email Subject Lines @ Hubspot and @Wordstream

2. Make Better Use of Your From Name

People are less susceptible to opening your emails if you have a weird ‘From the name’. Emails from unknown businesses and websites are mostly never opened by email readers.

Check the ‘From’ name, and make sure it is the name of a proper person, instead of just your company or website name. Also, make sure that the email address you are using to send these emails is not from a private free email system, it should always be from your branded domain email address.

Instead of [email protected] or [email protected], something like [email protected] will be more personal. People do not like automated emails, so even if you are automating them, always give a personal touch to your emails.

3. Time Makes A Big Difference In Email Marketing

One of the best ways to find the right time to send emails is to divide your subscribers into 3-4 equally sized lists. Then send them the same email at different time intervals.

After you do this a couple of times, you will be able to find out the 2 best time sections in a day to send your emails. Many people think that they should not send the same copy of the email to people twice. But I beg to differ here.

I think it is a good idea to send the same copy of your emails to people 2 times in a day because it is very easy for emails to get overlooked, and sometimes even if people are interested in your emails, they might just be too busy to open and read them.

4. Understand The Requirement Of Your Audience

What might be interesting to you might not be as appealing to your audience as you think. So always think twice before you send stuff to your subscribers. After all, the last thing you would want is to piss them off and make them hit the unsubscribe button.

Always take time to understand the requirement of your audience, before you start imposing your ideas on them. Comprehending the desires of your audience will play a massive role in the open rates of your email campaigns.

One of the best ways to know more about your audience is by doing short surveys. If you are confused about how to write surveys, here is an excellent blog on Hubspot.

5. Follow Your Sign-up Process To The Teeth

We can only talk about enough open rates when people start subscribing to your email list. Have you taken the time to find out how efficient your sign-up process is? Well, if you haven’t then you should do it right away.

When reviewing your sign-up process, you should always check the kind of promises you are making and ask yourself whether those are rational things that you would be able to deliver to your audience on a consistent basis.

Don’t promise something that is not true, because that will result in a lot of un-subscriptions and spam reports, which could limit you from otherwise reaching the audience that might be interested in what you have to share. Seems legit?

KEY TAKEAWAY – Maximize the potential of your email campaigns by capitalizing on things like better subject lines, personalized ‘From’ name, understanding the audience’s requirements by conducting surveys or asking them personally, and understanding the right time to send your emails.

10. Leverage Your Business Offline for Success Online

The current state of online marketing feels a bit broken. There are those old-style media guys who work with offline media channels like Radio, TV and Newspapers. Then there are those Search Engine and Social Media specialists and website techies who manage to improve the digital-sphere of a business alone.

The issues that most businesses face in their online marketing phase is that they create an invisible barrier in their mind, which tells them that online marketing has to be done online. But my question is, why don’t you ‘market’ your online business offline as well?

How is that possible?

Well, for most businesses that have physical products of services, it is quite easy to leverage the traffic to their online business through whatever reach they already have in the offline world.

For example: If you have products, then you can print 20% discount coupons on your products, which can be only redeemed through your website. You can offer a lucrative giveaway for simple answers that can only be replied to @ a particular URL.

Make sure you print your WEBSITE ADDRESS AND SOCIAL MEDIA URLS in bold in all your products, magazines, newspaper and other promotional material.

Use both sides of your business cards. On one side, you give the address, email, website URL, and other details and on the other side, give a special offer that incites people to subscribe to your blog to get updates.

The biggest advantage of this technique is that you do not need to spend a single penny other than what you are already spending to grow your audience and get more traffic to your website.

KEY TAKEAWAY – Use existing promotional materials in whatever form you have to get more traffic to your website by making use of whatever media outlets you are investing in now. Tweak them and incite people to visit your site.

 WRAPPING IT UP

So there you have it – Top 10 Actionable Tips to increase website traffic instantly. It doesn’t matter what business you are running, whether it is totally based on physical products or services or just rendering digital products or services. These tricks can work for any trade.

In order to be successful at driving traffic to your website, you need to have a concrete set of plans so let me tell you what you should do next.

1. Pick the easiest methods from the list like the Language Translation and YouTube Methods and apply them to your business. Do not procrastinate. Just get down to work or you will lose your focus.

2. Share this post amongst your family, friends and colleagues so that everyone can benefit from these free tips. Most of the strategies that we have talked out in this post do not need any major investments. So anyone can do it.

3. Once you execute some of the strategies that I have talked about in this thread, try to measure the outcome from the same and share your progress through the comments section below.

4. If you get stuck during the execution or need help with any of these tips, feel free to leave your comments below.

Traffic generation is a mind numbing topic and it can be a fairly expensive endeavor as well. There is not a single soul on the planet, who can claim to be the master of all traffic generation channels, it’s nearly impossible.

Instead of aiming to complete all the methods in this post, you should aim at completing one and mastering it and then moving onto the other methods.

Good Luck executing and have a good day!

How Regular Link Removal Is Better Than Investing 1000$ On SEO

Read This Before You Proceed

Written below is my opinion on Link Removal and I do understand that some of you may find this rather drab and time-consuming. I have also accounted for a story from the past which I find amusing because it may be an eye-opener for many webmasters who have not had the experience of getting a link removal request. This blog is for educational purposes and I believe that first-hand experience from real-life stories is a better teacher than any books or journals you will find on the Internet. If you just want to jump to the accumulation of facts, then do so by hitting Ctrl+F(Win) / Cmd+F(Mac) and searching for “The Importance of Link Removal and Backlink Audit”

I have also published my Link Removal Request Email Template and Google Reconsideration Email Template just before the conclusion.

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My tryst with Link Removal and the importance of SEO audits.

Being in the SEO Consultancy field has a lot of perks, undeniably, but there are times when there is more to a scene than meets the eye. Having handled more than 3400 clients last year I got a chance to meet and interact with lots of people from various parts of the world. Each with its own set of distinctive problems and business objectives.

Conversion-based clients, people struggling with bad reputation threats and low returns, Social media challenges and most obviously the fight for the number one position on Google and other search engines.

Just by interacting with these clients and trying to decipher their unique problems that are somehow interconnected – I feel tolerant, and every time there is a knock on the door, I am acquainted with the various possibilities for the story lurking behind it.

There have been many peculiar incidents in my consultancy life, but one such incident that refuses to leave my mind is of a friend from Australia, Lucas Donato.

It goes something like this…

It was a Sunday afternoon and I was sulking in my cabin when I received a call from Lucas. He sounded a bit agitated. Taking a moment to weigh the situation I guessed that maybe his rankings had dropped or there were rumors of another Google tyranny.  When I landed on my desk I was amused to see a very ordinary-looking email from him, which was the reason for his distress. I laughed, staring at my screen – it was a forwarded email from him, the same one that he had received earlier that evening from a fellow webmaster.

I kept staring at the screen and laughing. I understood the whole scenario. Lucas was worried because he thought there was something terribly wrong with his website profile that had made Camela want to get the links deleted.

This is the email that I sent him, followed by a call (because at times blunt text messages are not enough to pull my clients out of their distress).

Lucas was relieved after having a whole-hearted conversation with me over the phone (Sorry brother if you are reading this blog, but I know you wouldn’t mind). Many a time I recall this incident to my clients, because Lucas is a perfect example of a hardworking entrepreneur, who just like the other webmasters on the Internet, does not have profound knowledge of the stringent quality guidelines that Google keeps buffing day after day, year after year.

“Many webmasters find solace in spending thousands of dollars every month on their Internet presence. They take refuge behind massive expenditures feeling safe, only to know that their final outcome – the reason for their low bank balance (trying to rank on the SERPs) is still distant from the finish line.”

 

And in this endless marathon for Google supremacy, they take into account their Social Media Profiles and Online reputation and overlook the importance of Link Removal.

I have personally dealt with many clients who retained good rankings on the SERPs just by thoroughly auditing their backlink profile and I felt like putting it up on the blog, instead of just keeping it inside myself. I want this to be an account for all my past experiences with bad link profiles and link removal and things that I have imbibed along this journey of Search Engine Optimization.

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The Importance of Link Removal and Backlink Audit

Just like the Lucas story (read above if you haven’t), there are webmasters who splurge a lot of money on the SEO of their website, paying less attention to their backlink profile. Lucas was confident that there was nothing wrong with his On-page or Off-page SEO or with the quality of content that was constantly being placed on his websites. He was actively involved in various blogs relating to his niche and had a great network of bloggers and webmasters who would amuse themselves through his websites. But, even when you are 100% sure that nothing can go wrong, here are reasons for doing regular backlink audits (if you don’t already have the habit) that I have personally accumulated through various experiences:

1. Prevention is Better Than Cure: Of all the activities that interconnect the SEO field, having to file a disavow file to Google just after your website has been hit by a manual penalty is the most painstaking. Primarily because the damage has already been done, and it’s like putting double effort into the same thing that could have been done easily in the past to avoid all this mess and begging. Secondly because after a website is hit by a manual penalty (Penguin especially), there is no saying when it may regain its rankings ever. It can take from months to years and I know of a few people who went totally out of business and suffered great loss as they were unable to recover from the shock.

 If you know someone personally who has suffered such an experience, they will tell you better. Once you are in the pit, you are not given any logical explanation for the misdeed. There were people who had to completely disavow their entire profile because they were unsure what to keep and what to delete after getting affected. The pressure of the situation simply adds to the misery, it’s like adding salt to an already burning wound.

2. Immeasurable Trust Factor: Webmasters who maintain a clean and stout profile are susceptible to being trusted by other authorities in their field than the ones who accept citations from random sources. 

It’s simple. If you do a thorough backlink audit of your website and ensure that links to and from your website are in good shape, you will learn to trust only a few power sources instead of any rookie-level webmasters who might indulge in techniques that are not favorable by Google guidelines. Ensuring a clean profile will earn you links from trusted sources with great trust flow.

3. Today’s Good Links Maybe Tomorrows Downfall: Link attributes are not static, they are dynamic. If your website indulges in good SEO practices, a link obtained from your website by another website may act in their favor less today and more tomorrow as it grows powerful with your healthy habits. The same is the case vice versa, a good link that you or your SEO company obtained for you today may be a healthy ranking factor today but you never know what the website is going to do tomorrow. Link statistics can change from good to bad in a matter of weeks and something which boosted your ranks today may work to destroy your internet presence, inviting a penalty tomorrow. Still, need more reasons? Keep reading.

 

4. Negative SEO Tactics and Competitors: Remember your business does not only have competitors but the SEO you employed also has competitors. At times, other competitor brands or the competitors of your SEO gurus may run spammy link-building schemes to spoil the reputation of your brand or invite a penalty for your website. Yes! It might look demeaning but such things do happen and corruption is not only prevalent in the real world, as you are aware – corruption prevails where humans hide. Some websites run automated scripts that steal the website architecture and content from another website and put it on theirs (though this might not get you caught for plagiarism), but it will definitely get you penalized for attracting too many low-quality backlinks.

 

5. Links That Are Incorrectly Placed Into Website Templates: Sometimes you may acquire backlinks from trusted sources, giving you a sense of great achievement, but what if that single and powerful looking link has been placed by the webmaster in their website’s template by mistake (for example links in widgets, sidebars or footers). This will cause the link to be replicated amongst the numerous pages of the website and look like spam to various Search Engine bots. End result – irrecoverable manual penalty by Google, easily avoidable through Link Audit and Removal.

 

6. Over Optimized Keywords and Anchor Texts: There was nothing wrong with the over-optimization of keywords and anchor texts a few years back, but off late such endeavors are not being given the best of treatments from our big brother (Google). So what might have worked for you a few years back, may work against you today and this is yet another powerful reason to cleanse your link profile with proper link removal. 

I have come across websites that were penalized for over-optimization of keywords and anchor texts because they got way too many brand name anchors and website anchors from various sources. Even though the links were from authentic sources, but there is no dodging the ban hammer if even by chance your main key terms have been over-optimized. You can always request webmasters to change the

 

7. Over Optimized Images with Wrong Context: Webmasters are still careful when placing text links on their websites, but often when it comes to optimizing images they get a bit lazy. Over-optimized and wrongly customized images are easy to overlook and may invite a penalty, if there are way too many images with the same Alt Text, Alt Attribute, etc. Such petty things are easily overlooked by even the most knowledgeable Search Engine Optimizers, so casual webmasters are nowhere in this league. Not only will auditing the backlinks that you receive via images help you dodge the Google hammer, but it will also attract better organic traffic to your website from Google Image search.

 

8. Find Like-Minded People and Establish Relationships: Even though Google already has a feature called Google Alerts for this job, but there are times when an alert might not trigger because it does not fit all your criteria. This is where link maps are of great use. Performing a monthly link map will make you aware of all the websites that have unlinked you, or of the new websites that want to establish a connection with you. 

The least you can do is, go to host the website and establish a relationship with the webmaster with a polite thank you and a review of their content to which your link is related. Sometimes there may be a discussion going on about you on a different website and who else will know better about yourself, than you? You can subtly join the crowd and take part in the discussion. Not only does this show other webmasters that you are watching your link profile, but also helps establish a sense of deep trust for future business relations, as they can evolve anywhere.

 

9. Find and Repair Broken Backlinks: There is a lot of time, money, and effort that you put in to win a backlink from a website. Now, what if this link is broken or leads to a 404! Page Not Found? It is a great loss for webmasters if their organic links are pointing to dead ends, especially the powerful ones that could impact their rankings to a great extent. 

If you have a thin link profile, even getting a single broken backlink repaired could mean a lot to your online presence, whereas if you have an authoritative website with thousands of backlinks, it is best to keep them checked and repair the ones that are broken from time to time. Links can be broken for various reasons. A webmaster might have misspelled a word in the link or the page he linked to has been moved to another page and you never took time to redirect the redundant link. 90% times this is the case with broken links as administrators change the link structure of a page to suit their keyword strategy, making the link lose all its earned backlinks.

 

10. 95% Penalties Are Related To Backlinks: According to research conducted by SEO experts, over 95% of the websites are penalized by Google for their backlinks. No matter how many powerful backlinks you have. Every single low-quality backlink will work towards lowering your chance to SERP fame. If your website was penalized, or you notice a sudden drop in your rankings, it is important to make yourself updated with rel=”nofollow”> Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and also check their guidelines for link removal.

 

“If your SEO agency does not give you a monthly backlink analysis report, or they have not even suggested the idea of getting your backlink audits in the right time – 

[blockquote photo=”” author=”Piyush Agarwala” company=”Prime One Global” link=”” target=”_blank”]

My Opinion (Take it if you like): 

SEO is not merely about building backlinks, the more the better and it never will be. In fact, SEO is about a strategist mind that works around to clock to decipher Google’s next move and make an appropriate action plan to power up and retain your social and search presence even during the time of an Algorithm update. Minor fluctuations in your rankings are always possible as most everyone on the web is spending money on getting better ranks, but if you see a drastic drop in your rankings or get an Unnatural Link Warning from Google Webmasters Tool, it is time to move on to a better SEO company.

It doesn’t matter if you spend a thousand dollars on SEO every month, or if you opt for an in-house team to do your SEO work. Your SEO team should be well versed with the history of changes and be able to maintain a firm record of your backlink timeline in order to prevent a mishap from destroying your plans for the future.

[/blockquote]

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Handy Templates for Link Removal

You can rip this template exactly if you want. However, be sure to double-check the entire piece before putting any of these to use.

Considering the fact that you have your link audit report in hand, you would now want to either hand over the entire process of link removal to a professional SEO or do it yourself. I have used these templates for sending emails to Google Webmasters Tool or to fellow Webmasters for dealing with my link problems.

Email Request To Webmaster Asking Them To Delete a Link

Sub: Link Removal From Your Domain (Domain Name)

Hello (Webmaster’s Name),

I am writing this email in order to inform you that there is a particular link on your website (their website name) that is pointing to my website (your website name). The link is appearing on this URL (give URL) with this anchor text (hyperlinked text).

I recently conducted a backlink audit and my SEOs are asking me to remove the link from your domain. There is nothing to worry about it as the integrity of your website is not in question, nor will the link impact your bottom line. I just don’t want to obtain backlinks from unknown domains.

Please do not mind me asking this, as I am just playing carefully to avoid any Unnatural Link Warnings from Google. 

I expect your full cooperation in this regard. Please let me know when you receive this email and I will verify my credibility as the webmaster of (your domain name).

In case you need help removing the links, you can revert to me and I will be glad to help you.

Thanking You,

Regards,

Your Name

Reconsideration Request In case Your Website Suffered Manual Penalty

Remember one thing – there is nothing that can be hidden from Google’s eyes. So don’t overlook any of your backlinks and if a link needs to be removed or makes you question your motives, IT MUST GO! 

When filing a reconsideration request, granted that you were too late for Link Removal and are already hit by a manual penalty, you must state your message concisely and hide nothing from the all-knowing Google.

There are a few things that you must complete before filing a reconsideration request. If you are planning to put only half your effort into this, then don’t even bother. Google will overlook your reconsideration request if they see that you made a negligible effort on your end to remove the links. If you emailed a particular webmaster and they did not cooperate, then you must mention that in your disavow.txt file along with a screenshot proof for the same. All evidence should be mentioned to show that you tried to remove as many backlinks as you could “manually” before asking for reconsideration.

Here is a template that I have used for many of my penalty hit clients:

Dear Google Webspam Team,

Thank you for bearing with my reconsideration request. My website (website name) has recently received a penalty for unnatural links. Unfortunately, I was not aware that my SEOs have used the wrong tactics to hike my website in the search engines and I was not aware of low-quality backlinks and over-optimized anchor texts as such. I do remember purchasing a link package from the SEO Company (Name of Company), but I was informed that these were 100% manually written and organically obtained links. I claim full responsibility for their carelessness and I no longer employ them.

To recover from the penalty, I bought a link audit service from this company (Name of Company). After receiving the entire backlink report, I have analyzed all the backlinks along with the help of a professional and got some of the webmasters to remove my link from their website. However, as I have unintentionally become a victim of link farming schemes, there are a lot of websites that are not actively moderated. I have sent an email to all the websites and the ones that cooperated and removed my link are mentioned in the first half of the disavow.txt file.

The second half contains the list of those backlinks, whose webmasters are either uncooperative or asking me for cash payment in exchange for link removal.

The third part contains a list of those websites that are just a part of link-building schemes and are not replying to my messages. I have also been unable to find the who-is details or contact details of certain websites and even those are mentioned in the third party.

Please check the attachments for all the emails that I have sent out along with the replies from the webmasters. I believe that this is evidence enough to show that some of the webmasters are uncooperative or careless in this regard.

I have also attached the disavow.txt file that I have submitted through the Disavow Tool. Thank you for reading my request again and considering my website. I was unaware of such schemes and I believe that It will never happen again in the future.

I have really worked hard to mend the loss and this is as far as I could delve.

Thanking You,

Yours Faithfully,

Your Name (Webmaster of Website)

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Closing Calls 

So this was my take on the importance of Link Removal. Though many may disagree, I believe, especially for the old players who have been doing SEO for a long time, Link Removal can do more good than obtaining a huge number of power links. Keeping your profile clean and maintaining this healthy habit not only get you a better trust score in Google, but also in the eyes of other webmasters who do the same. 

This blog is an accumulation of all the points and facts that I have witnessed firsthand about the power of Link Removal. I do believe that I might have missed out on other important factors that don’t seem to cross my mind at the moment (let me know through the comment section below). Also, feel free to share my Email and Reconsideration templates if you found them useful. 

Have a good day!