Great SEO isn’t really a standalone practice anymore. In fact, it’s really difficult to seperate search engine optimization from social media and content marketing, because these three factors form the pillar of a modern inbound marketing strategy. Keyword research and optimization can improve the performance of your SEO blog posts in search, while social media shares send a clear message to Google that your content is quality. You won’t get far without the putting effort into all three legs of the contemporary marketing triad!

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Not convinced you need to optimize your blog for SEO?

89% of modern consumers use search engines to make purchase decisions, and 75% of search users never click beyond the first page of search results. Your website needs to rank well in Google, Bing, and Yahoo to capture the attention of your future customers. Fortunately, publishing fresh content regularly is one of the best ways to build positive SEO for your business.

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Sales people are in the business of convincing others. It may surprise you, but marketers are as well. HubSpot’s Ginny Soskey writes that it’s crucial to understand why “other people think and act the way you do.” In order to convert new leads, a marketer needs deep understanding of their company’s customers. You should also develop a strong knowledge of behavioral psychology principles.

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You know what the best thing about brand storytelling is?

It’s without a doubt, the one kind of content marketing that’s never going out of style. Research indicates that Facebook may soon lose its hold as the world’s most-popular social media network. The meteoric rise of trends like Snapchat indicates that the only constant is changing consumer behavior.

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Figuring out how to start a blog isn’t the hard part. Creating a content strategy, an editorial calendar, and writing your first post aren’t for the faint-of-heart, but many bloggers find that growing an audience is their biggest challenge. It isn’t easy, but I’ve succeeded at growing traffic to a new blog 1000% a month for 9 consecutive months with some pretty scrappy content creation and promotion tactics. And the benefits of improved blog traffic are pretty clear:

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Are list posts part of your content marketing strategy?

If they’re not, they definitely should be! List posts are the second most-shared form of content, after infographics. They’re easy-to-digest for readers, and have an instant viral quality. That doesn’t mean you can sit down to pen the perfect list post without effort, though. There are tactics you can use to improve your content’s performance. Here is some of the latest data to improve your approach:

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How long does it really take to create content? Reports vary, but many experts claim they work on an article for anywhere between 2 hours and several days. Are people on the quicker side creating low-quality stuff? Not necessarily – they’ve probably just mastered the art of productivity. I’ve been creating web content professionally since late 2010. On a typical day, I write anywhere between 2,000-3,500 words of really great stuff. I’ve learned more than a few tricks to speed myself up during my years at the keyboard. I’ve decided to provide you all with unprecedented, exclusive access into how I get it all done and save time blogging on a daily basis:

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SEO as we know it is actually gone forever. The most recent Hummingbird update to Google’s search algorithm was a final nail in the coffin of an industry that had been in decline since the major Panda update in 2011 that affected as many as 30% of all search results. Are you dubious, or worried that our position is extreme?

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There is only a 16% chance someone will actually read your entire blog article.

Staggering, isn’t it? Research on how modern consumers engage with information online has found that while 79% of page visitors will skim the information, only 16% will consume every word. Formatting your articles appropriately is key to success at business blogging.

Still, you need to avoid mistakes under review in this article at any cost. Remember that poor text formatting pushes off your visitors…

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Does your content work?

If you’re anything like most copywriters, the answer is “well, sometimes.” Sometimes we watch our posts earn viral social sharing. Other times, we struggle to gain any engagement in the comments or on social media. What makes the world’s best content objectively good?

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