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Whether you’re new to link building or you’ve been chasing links for years, you already know that link building can be highly discouraging. It’s a tough job that’s often filled with disappointing results, but when you do achieve success, it’s often more rewarding than you could have ever imagined.
While there is certainly a crapshoot element to link building, there are definitely some things you can do to become a better link builder and thus increase your chances of being successful.

Track everything—How can you know if your link building efforts are paying off if you’re not tracking your results? You need to be monitoring the number of back links your content generates, the amount of traffic your pages are getting, your search rankings, the amount of social love your content gets, etc. TRACK EVERYTHING!

Learn from your mistakes—You’re going to make mistakes. It’s an unavoidable part of being a link builder. Maybe you’ll publish content that offends your target audience. Or maybe you’ll annoy people with the way you go about promoting a blog post. The key is to learn from your mistakes and be better next time.

Realize that success is never guaranteed—In link building, nothing is guaranteed. You could have the greatest piece of content the world has ever seen, but it could fail miserably. There will always be a certain unpredictable element to link building, and you just have to accept that you will have failures.

Study trending stories—What kinds of stories hit the front page of ReddIt, Digg, and other social voting websites? What links are being passed around Twitter and Facebook at a feverish pace? The more you study tending stories, the more adept you’ll become at crafting shareable content.

Build your network—When it comes to link building, there’s certainly something to be said for, “It’s not what you know but who you know.” With the right connections, you can get your content spread like wildfire across the internet. Focus on building a network of influencers who can get your content seen. Just don’t forget that you have to give (help others) if you want to receive.

Experiment with different types of linkbait—Link bait comes in all different forms—blog posts, videos, infographics, apps…you name it. Try your hand at different types of link bait to see what works best for you.

What tips would you add to this list? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Guest blogging offers a wide range of benefits that includes enhanced credibility, improved search rankings from quality back links, more website traffic, exposure to a wider audience, and so much more. But guest blogging opportunities will rarely just fall into your lap. You typically have to hunt for them, and you’ve probably found that this is easier said than done.
After years of guest blogging, I’ve learned a thing or two about uncovering great opportunities. Here are some of the ways I find more guest blogging opportunities.

• Comment regularly on blogs in your niche—If you run a blog, who are you likelier to accept a guest post from—an active member of your community who you know or someone you’ve never heard of? By becoming active on other blogs, you build familiarity with the bloggers, and whenever you decide to pitch your guest post, they’ll already know who you are. This makes them more receptive to your pitch.

• Look outside your niche for unique opportunities—While it’s a good idea to guest post on blogs in your niche, you shouldn’t limit yourself. Think outside the box. Where else could you contribute a guest post? Let’s say you’re an accountant. While you could guest post on other accounting/finance blogs, you could also contribute guest posts to all types of other blogs. For example, you may be able to submit a guest post to a lawyer’s blog, offering accounting tips for lawyers. Or you could submit a post to a LifeHacker type blog, where you give tips for being organized and productive at work. The possibilities are endless!

• Connect with bloggers on social networking sites—Remember what I said earlier about building familiarity with bloggers before pitching them? One easy way to do this is to connect with them on sites like Twitter and Facebook. Over time, you can build relationships with bloggers, increasing your chances of using them for guest posting opportunities.

• Use My Blog Guest to connect with bloggers seeking guest posts—My Blog Guest is an online community of guest bloggers. Blog owners who are looking for guest posts will let the community know what they’re looking for, and members can submit their posts and pitches. There are tons of great guest blogging opportunities for virtually every subject.

• Focus on your pitch—If you don’t have a good pitch, you’ll never get any guest blogging opportunities. When emailing a blogger to offer a guest post, you need to keep it short. Get right to the point. Let the blogger know who you are, a bit about your credentials, and what kind of post you can offer for their blog. Let them know why your post would be a good fit on their blog.

What’s your best tip for getting more guest blogging opportunities?

This just in—not every customer is going to love you. No matter how good your products and services are, you’re eventually going to have a customer that’s impossible to please. It’s just part of doing business. In the past, dissatisfied customers may tell a few friends, but now, they can hop online and put your brand on blast in front of the whole world using Facebook, Twitter, and a range of other social networking sites.

How should you respond when a customer complains about your company online?

• Address complaints quickly—The longer you drag your feet before responding, the more that anger is going to boil inside of your customer. You have to be proactive. Remember, other people are watching and waiting to see how you’re going to respond. If you don’t take care of problems in a timely manner, you could lose more customers.

• Don’t get defensive—In your eyes, your company is perfect. But the truth is that you probably do have some faults. If you immediately get overly defensive when a customer says something nasty about you online, you’re going to look bitter, unprofessional, and cocky. None of these are traits your customers will like.

• Don’t make excuses—Customers don’t want excuses. They want restitution. Don’t make excuses for your mistakes, and don’t point the finger at others. Own your company’s mistakes, fix the situation, and promise the customer to never make the same mistake again.

• Find out what you can do to make the customer happy—The good news is that most upset customers can still be won over. If you’ve made a mistake and are apologetic and eager to make things right, most customers will forgive you and give you another chance. Speak to the angry customer and ask them what exactly you can do to make the situation right. This puts the ball in their court, and it helps you find a solution for winning them back.

• Take the conversation private if necessary—If the issue isn’t something that can be solved easily, you may wish to take the conversation with the angry customer to a private place. Perhaps you can direct message them, email them, or give them a phone call. You don’t need to put the whole thing out in public for everyone to see.

• Consider asking the customer to remove the complaint once resolved—If you’re able to resolve the complaint, politely ask the customer if they would consider removing their negative post now that the issue is taken care of. In most cases, the now satisfied customer will happily oblige.

What’s your method of dealing with customer complaints online? Share your tips by leaving a comment below.

By now, you’ve undoubtedly heard some of the buzz surrounding guest blogging. Over the past couple of years, guest blogging has become one of the most popular content marketing strategies of them all. It seems like you can’t go a day without coming across someone singing the praises of guest blogging.

But maybe you’re still on the fence, or maybe you just don’t understand what makes guest blogging so beneficial.

Here are 5 great benefits you can experience when you start guest blogging.

1. Position yourself as a thought leader—Consumers do business with people and companies they trust. If you have no credibility, you’re going to have a hard time attracting business. It’s that simple. That’s why it’s your job to place yourself as an expert. By sharing your knowledge on other blogs in guest posts, you create the perception that you’re an important expert in your field.

2. Get exposure to potential customers—You can only reach so many people through your website and current marketing methods. By guest posting on other blogs, you have the chance to get noticed by portions of your target audience that you’ve never been able to reach in the past. Increasing name recognition is an important first step in building your business.

3. Build quality links back to your website—Link building is crucial for effective SEO. The more quality links you have pointed back at your website, the better your search rankings will be. In guest blogging, it’s customary for the guest author to be allowed to include a couple of links back to his or her website. Make sure you use these links wisely by including keyword-rich anchor text in links pointing to various landing pages on your website.

4. Drive traffic back to your website—Of course, the links you include do more than just help for SEO. They can also drive traffic back to your website when readers click on them. This can help you get more customers and more blog readers.

5. Network with leading bloggers and professionals in your field—Your marketing efforts are only as effective as your network. If you don’t have a strong network, you’ll have a difficult time spreading your brand message. But when you’re well networked with industry influencers, you can more easily build buzz around your brand.

Do you think guest blogging really works or is it overhyped? Let us know by leaving a comment.

There are hundreds of millions of blogs littering the web, and most of them are just that—digital litter. Let’s be honest. Most blogs suck. You can probably count the number of blogs you truly follow on one hand, maybe two if you’re really addicted to the web.
Why do most blogs suck and how can you make sure yours doesn’t? You can start by avoiding these 7 common blogging blunders.

1. Write the same content found on every other blog—I already mentioned that there are hundreds of millions of blogs out there. No matter what you’re writing about, you can be sure there are other blogs on the subject. That means you need to really focus on providing something fresh and interesting for your readers. If you’re going to tackle a topic everyone else has already written about, try to approach it from a different angle to make your post unique.

2. Never take a stand on any issue—It really annoys me when bloggers refuse to truly speak their minds. It’s your blog. Have an opinion and stand by it. Quit trying to straddle the fence. Find topics you’re passionate about, and share your honest thoughts on them. If people disagree with you, fine. At least you’ll get some kind of reaction.

3. Provide inaccurate information—If your readers can’t trust you to give correct information, they’re not going to stick around. It’s just that simple.

4. Post inconsistently—I’ve never been one of those people who believes you have to post every day if you want to build your blog up. I think it’s entirely possible to build a successful blog posting just once a week, if that’s what works for you. What’s important is that you post consistently. Set a posting schedule and stick with it, so people know when to expect new content.

5. Let ads take over your blog—Yes, you can sell advertising space on your blog to earn a little cash on the side, but when you let ads take over your blog and distract from the content, you’ve lost focus on what’s truly important to your readers.

6. Let the comments section become dominated by spammers—Every blog has to fight spammers. Spammers are always out there trying to infiltrate the comments sections on various blogs. You have to stay vigilant and have a zero tolerance spam policy. Otherwise, if your comments section gets filled with spam, no real people will bother leaving a comment.

7. Ignore your commenters—Speaking of comments, they’re an important part of blogging. You need to encourage readers to comment, and when they do comment, interact with them. This keeps them engaged, and it helps build loyalty through relationships.

What are some other blogging mistakes to avoid? Share yours by leaving a comment below.