When it comes to your blog SEO, which type of domain is the best option? We've taken a look.

Where you host your blog relative to your main site is one of the more important decisions involved with setting up a blog. If you get the decision wrong, you may fail to get the hoped-for SEO benefits you have worked hard to convince your colleagues about. But, if you get it right you can almost immediately see new, incremental visits you wouldn't have attracted without the blog. [si_blog_banner_cta]

The three main blog hosting options

The three options are straightforward. Let's take some examples: 1. Subfolder - http://www.domain.com/blog e.g. http://www.econsultancy.com/blog 2. Subdomain - http://blog.domain.com e.g. http://blog.zopa.com 3. Separate domain - http://www.newdomain.com e.g.  I can't find a good example - can you?

So which is the best blog hosting option for SEO?

I often ask this question in my SEO classes and ask for…

3 key steps for fueling your performance with the latest news and information

Google Reader is long-gone as a way of keeping track of the latest developments in digital marketing. The important industry information on platform changes that we still need is out there but it is coming at us from more sources than most of us have the time to track effectively. The good news is that, with just a little planning, you can still stay on top of exactly the information that you need to fuel your own performance and also give your bosses, clients, co-workers and followers great reasons to be glad that they have you around. Gathering business information is a full-time job for me; I publish a newsletter, Who's Blogging What, that highlights important blog posts for 20,000 subscribers working in social media and online marketing. Given this, Dave Chaffey of Smart Insights thought it would be useful…

How to use a B2B blog to generate leads

Our last post on business blogging looked at seeding and distribution and how to get people to your blog. However, the end goal of a business blog (or any customer facing content asset) must be to stimulate demand and generate enquiries. In this final post of this business blogging series we look at how companies can use blogs to drive demand generation. For more information you can see our demand generation definition.

Create a compelling call-to-action

There needs to be a compelling call to action to take a visitor's fledgling interest in your business to the next level. It is commonly accepted that it takes time to build traffic to a blog, and even longer for people to interact with it. So, assuming it is almost impossible to encourage blog visitors to engage with a corporate blog, how can you keep them there and get…

Wordpress offers a host of opportunities for marketers. Here are seven essential techniques for managing your Wordpress site.

The primary goal of every online marketer should be to achieve maximum visibility for the site they’re promoting, while also facilitating an optimal conversion rate, in the most efficient way possible. To do this, many marketers have begun using robust, open source content management systems like WordPress to streamline and simplify site creation, search engine optimization, and ongoing content publishing. Wordpress is particularly popular for company blogs, but has suitable functionality and quality for other sites including SmartInsights.com! Whether you've recently made the decision to jump aboard the WordPress bandwagon, or have been using it for years, there are most likely a few tips, tricks, and principles that you may have overlooked in your haste to keep up with the fast pace of online marketing.…

A checklist for digital marketers, bloggers and writers to create content that brings traffic and turns visitors into subscribers or customers

80% of B2B marketers and 70% of B2C marketers used content marketing for their businesses last year. The number of digital marketers who use content creation and distribution in 2015 is close to 90% from total. Being a very significant part of successful marketing strategy, online content is developing and improving constantly; it's not enough for content writers to take a laptop, create a 500-word article on a particular topic, add a bright or funny image, and post it to their business blogs in hopes for great traffic and conversion rates. This tactics doesn't work anymore: top-notch content calls the shots, and online writers should abide by the rule of the game if they want to make their business more visible and recognizable online, as well as monetize their traffic. According to…

Struggling to generate ideas for your blog? Here are the tools you need

As an inbound marketer, you know how important your blog is for attracting people to your website, driving up your SEO rankings, and building trust with your target audience. You also know how difficult it can be to constantly come up with new and exciting content ideas that will both educate, entertain and convert your blog readers. In a recent survey from HubSpot and Smart Insights, we found that quantity and quality of content are top challenges for marketers. However, it doesn’t need to be an obstacle that gets in your way! In this blog post we will provide you with 10 cool (and free!) tools to help you brainstorm fresh new ideas for your blog so that you never have to run dry again.

Understanding Your Customer’s Language

The first step to creating great content that attracts the right people to your…

Examples of using social media to promote your personal blog

Blogging without social media is now the digital equivalent of stranding yourself on a desert island. To promote yourself effectively and get the results you want, you need to find and connect with people who share similar interests and goals. The best social media strategy entices people to follow the link back to your main blog and check out your main content posted there. Developing a personal brand using a blog together with social media has a slightly different approach depending on your niche and subject matter. Researching some basics about your target audience is an essential early step, and thankfully each of these social platforms has user-friendly search tools to help you. The essentials to note are average age groups and interests among the followers you want to target as potential blog readers.

Starting up a Personal Blog

The definition of 'personal' has become rather…

It's about content, style and value more than SEO

We like this infographic which has been created with newcomers to blogging in mind. It practices what it preaches by using an interesting visual style with useful recommendations rather than less useful 'facts and figures' about how to promote your blog. It recommends how to develop the right types of content and style within your blog post rather than providing SEO techniques or basic social media promotion. It can be a learning curve and take time to build up your followers, so why not learn from existing bloggers to speed up your success rate by reading further.  …

... and how to deliver on the potential of your blog

The potential benefits for a small business that blogs are vast. Along with building brand identify and improving reputations, it can also help build a loyal base of customers, increase search engine visibility in a fiercely competitive environment and lower the overall cost of marketing goods or services. However, it's common for businesses to fail to reap the rewards they were looking for when they start blogging - I've identified five below. There are some common reasons for these failings, that I've seen when working with clients, which if acknowledged can be used to turn the blog around to deliver on the benefits originally sought.

1. Lack of skills and resources

Perhaps the biggest reason why a small business blog fails is down to a lack of skills and resources. Even though the author may have extensive knowledge…

Should your CEO be blogging?

Should your CEO have a blog separate from your company’s blog? Although it does depend on sector, it’s an increasingly important question, since many CEOs are emerging (or are already well established) as the 'public face' of the organizations they lead. Richard Branson (Virgin Group), George Colony (Forrest Research), Mark Cuban (Dallas Mavericks) and Martha Heller (Heller Search Associates) are only a few of the many chief executives who have successfully taken to digital media to communicate on a more informal basis to employees, customers and other stakeholders. Many of these also run a LinkedIn blog shared via LinkedIn Pulse alongside their personal presence.

Pros and Cons of running a blog

Here’s a look at some of the pros and cons for CEOs contemplating a blog of their own:

Pros of CEO blog

These include: It gives your company a personal touch. Any effort that helps to humanize your brand should be strongly considered.…