Blogging Via Instagram

They say a picture is worth a thousand words and they are probably correct when you look at how the popular Instagram is. You can resist it all you want but visual blogging is the new blogging. Maybe you are a bit old school and like to express your opinions through words, as it is easier for you to get your point across. That however, doesn’t mean you should cut out Instagram completely from your blogging toolbox. It doesn’t mean you have to change your blogging style altogether. It simply is just another opportunity where you can build an online presence and lead new viewers to your blog. Below are some tips to help grow your blog through Instagram.

Make Sure You’re Easy To Find

People have a tendency to be lazy. So if you make it hard to navigate back to your blog they most likely won’t ever find you. Make sure all your information, including a direct link to your blog, is easy to find in your Instagram bio.

Keep It Professional

With social media being an extension of our every day life it is easy to blur the line between work and play. If you are using Instagram to push your work remember to keep it professional and not to have too many personal pictures. Unless that is what your blog is about otherwise you might consider having two accounts to keep things organized.

Don’t Overuse Hash Tags

Many people tend to overuse hash tags because they think it will make them more visible online. That may be true but it also makes you look unprofessional, a novice and desperate. Get creative with your hash tags and come up with relevant and unique ones to describe your images. This will help with encouraging like-minded people to view your blog.

Create A Hash Tag Challenge

We’ve all witnessed a host of Facebook challenges that have gone viral on our newsfeed. Instagram has been known to have more new users sign ups then Facebook and has the potential of reaching a larger amount of people. You can use this platform to generate engagement and get viewers to your blog. An example of a hash tag experiment that gained lots of attention is the #HungerChallenge which encouraged people to post photos of them living off less then five dollars a day to promote awareness for people who often go hungry. Collaborating with people helps build your presence online as well as connect you with similar minded people. This is a great way to get attention to your blog.

Don’t Buy Instagram Likes

It’s not a secret that you can now buy like and followers on all social media platforms. However I would advise against this as it is obvious, it turns real users off and it’s a waste of money. If you work hard at building your brand you will organically build loyal followers who care about what you have to offer. Buying likes for an Instagram photo from a dodgy site does nothing for you other then increase a number. In the long run it is not helpful with gaining you real viewers.

Above are just some suggestions on how to promote your blog through Instagram. It is important that you try and experiment to see what works for your viewers, as all industries are different and require different techniques. Happy snapping!

Myths Related To Seo On Wordpress.Com

If you are a diligent blogger striving hard to make a place in web blogging, naturally you will want to achieve SEO on WordPress.com. If your blog has achieved Search Engine Optimization (SEO), it means that sophisticated search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN will link your blog to a keyword when someone searches it on internet and will display it among the top 10 results. For e.g. your latest blog is on patriotism. Now if your blog has achieved SEO, it will be displayed among the top 10 results whenever anyone makes a search for the word 'patriotism'. And thus your blog will be visited by users more frequently.

To achieve SEO, you need to increase your site's SERP (Search Engine Result Page). You can accomplish this by:

Frequently updating your account and by publishing new and interesting content promoting your blog in a way that it reaches your target audience. People looking for information on a particular topic which your blog covers.

There are a number of ways and methods to increase your site's SERP ranking. But unfortunately, there exist a lot of commonly-believed myths about SEO on WordPress.com which have nothing to do with reality. Let's take a look at some of these myths and the true facts which negate these myths.

Myth No.1:

To achieve SEO, I require a plugin.

Fact:

Matt Cutts, who is the head of Google's webspam team, claims that WordPress.com is self sufficient in SEO and the users of WordPress.com only need to take care of 10-20 percent of the mechanics of SEO. The themes on WordPress.com have been composed in a way that they automatically link with search engines. Their design and composition makes it easy for search engines like Googlebot and several other search engines, to link the content and make it appear in front of a user. So no, you don't require a plugin to achieve SEO on WordPress.com.

Myth No.2:

Increased use of tags and categories in my blog post means a better chance for it to link with Google.

Fact:

Adding irrelevant tags and categories that have nothing to do with the content of your post, won't result in an increased visibility for your site on Google. Matt Cutts says, that Google doesn't blindly rely on categories and tags. It knows the context of your post from its content. Also, if a post is bombarded with TOO MANY categories and tags, it will result in its exclusion from Reader Topics pages. While adding categories and tags for your post, choose wisely and only add those tags that have the highest significance to a post. On a similar note, be more specific while adding tags. For e.g. add "nanotechnology" as a tag instead of "science".

Myth No.3:

If I am making a post about say, green tea, I should refer to the keyword and related terminologies again and again, as much as I can. This will get my post a lot of green tea-related traffic. Also, I should create multiple identical sites about green tea to get maximum traffic.

Fact:

It is good practice to inculcate correct keywords in your post and titles, period. Howbeit, overdoing it by stuffing keywords will not do any good for your SERP ranking. Also, copied material is not appreciated by Google and having multiple identical sites will be detrimental for your search ranking. Make your content appealing for human eyes, and not only to get maximum linkage with search engines.




AUTHOR BIO:
Austen Selby is currently working as a Content Editor at Key Difference. Her areas of expertise encompass business consulting, SMO, mobile technology, seo services and other technology and marketing-related topics.

SEO and SMO are Two Different Techniques

The terms Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) are often confused as being synonymous. It must be for the word 'optimization' which creates the illusion that these terms are interchangeable. This is a false trend, and both these terms are visibly different from each other with regards to their meanings. You can achieve good SEO even if you are not doing so well in the SMO department and vice versa. On the other hand, it is possible that the progress of SMO will be directly linked with the progress of SEO. To clarify things in a better way, let us see what SMO and SEO are and how they differ.

What is SEO?

SEO is the utilization of search engine results page (SERP). It is the calculated placement of frequently searched and commonly used words and phrases in the web content. These frequently searched words and phrases are called keywords and key phrases. SEO is a marketing strategy which is used to amplify site traffic, sales of the product, marketing of brand and reorganization on part of a company or a person. When a user intends to do a search on internet, he inserts the keyword or key phrase into Google, Yahoo! or MSN, which are the commonly used search engines. SERP displays a list of top 10 pages which show the highest relevance with the keyword or key phrase. In other words, the best optimized websites will be displayed as the top 10 pages. In most of the cases, the websites which make it to the top 10 displayed pages have achieved SEO.

Benefits of Achieving SEO:

Websites which achieve SEO will appear more frequently than the others and they will be more popular and better trusted among the users of internet. This is valuable for the PR of a site. The PR of a site is ranked from 1 to 10 on the logarithmic credibility scale. The PR value of a site is directly proportional to its credibility. A site with better credibility will charge more for posting ads.

Now let's take a look at SMO.

What is SMO?

SMO makes full use of all forums of social media for the marketing and publicity of web content, a product or a brand. Bookmarks, news, pictures and video sites also play a role in advertising through SMO. SMO disseminates web content on popular social media sites like Facebook, Digg, Twitter, Businesswire and Youtube. The intended use of SMO is to amplify site traffic, product and affiliate product sales and to achieve subscribers.

How to Achieve SMO?

Unlike SEO, SMO is not gained by the strategic placement of keywords and key phrases. Doing so definitely helps, but this is not the key principle for achieving SMO. Rather, it is achieved by producing eye-catching, innovative and influential web content which can grasp the attention of a user. If an audience finds the content interesting, he will share or post it. If the content gains popularity, it will appear on top social media bookmarking sites like Digg and StumbleUpon.

Cut to the chase: Despite using different strategies and techniques, both SEO and SMO are often applied simultaneously to market the same content. Using these strategies prudently will make your content popular on social media sites and will make it appear on top ranking on search engines.
Image Credit: hywards

Author Bio:

I am Jeniffer, editor at Key Difference. Am passionate about SEO services, Technology, Email Marketing Services, Mobile Application Development, Marketing Consultant, etc. I wish to share my knowledge with others and jump into blogging.