Below are some ways to use your blog’s niche to your advantage, maintain post consistency and package posts to be shared. This is a list of tricks to making your post one to be read out of millions.

1. Write blog posts about what you know.

Your post should be built on a foundation of what you’re good at and what drew visitors to your site in the first place. A particular theme, topic or voice that readers can learn to expect and will eventually come back for should be made with readers in mind and based on the specificity of your function on the web.

What are you doing here and why should readers care? Do you manage a business blog? What type of business and exactly what aspects of it? Narrow the subjects of posts so you can delve deeply into your niche and offer readers specific information that they might only ever find through your site.

2. Stick to you your blog niche.

When you write a post in accordance to your niche, it becomes easier for you to create content tailored to your blog’s readers, which increases that post’s sharing potential in the long run. The opposite becomes true when bloggers lack a topic or stringing theme among posts and publish them on a variety of subjects.

When that’s the case, each post may only appeal to a portion of your readers, which results in fewer readers getting through a post and even fewer of those readers actually sharing it with others.

3. Make it pretty, and be a little strategic.

A post is always more successful when accompanied by a related image that makes it seem more credible to readers and provides increased potential for backlinks. Posts should also be broken up with logical line breaks that help to maintain your readers’ interest, even through long pieces, and appear the most visually pleasing.

Be sure and utilize your social media outlets! Google +, LinkedIn and Pinterest work wonders for our Design Blog. For instance Pinterest drives 32% of this blogs traffic with our custom images and free giveaways.  — Matt Valvano

Similarly, consider utilizing a website statistics service like Google Analytics to monitor your blog’s traffic and understand which posts are most successful and why. Note that the universally best times to post are on Monday and Thursdays, and usually between 7 and 9am.

The post How to Write an Effective Blog Post appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

We needed a way to intrigue business owners to become our core group of social media followers. Then it struck me! Even though it was Superbowl Sunday, drinking can wait — I just conceptualized our new Social Media campaign!

Our New Social Media Business Campaign Giveaway

Our new Social Media campaign involves giving away print collateral for FREE! We would love to run offer more giveaways for your business that could include: indoor/outdoor print banners, window stickers, flyers, card-stock/vinyl posters and so on. Considering this is Ideas and Pixels first Social Media campaign attempt, we are starting small by giving away 500 Premium Free Business Cards. If this campaign takes off you can be sure that we will offer larger prints, like our $850 vinyl indoor/outdoor banners!

Now with our new campaign running and how excited I am to watch the Superbowl, well actually to start drinking, here are all of the files I used to make this campaign! Feel free to use as you please, build your own marketing campaign or use on your website website — Heck here is the actual Photoshop file I designed!

What You Will Get From This Free Download

• Two RAW photos of a guy holding a business card (AKA Myself)
• A man holding a blank business card free
• PSD File of a man holding a blank business card and this social media campaign files!

Resource Links

Special thanks to Veodesign for designing some incredible simple Social Media icons for our campaign. Want to use the icons as we have? Visit his website by clicking here!

Even more thanks to wpLike2Get for building a simple sharing plugin that was easy to use and add to our blog. Now I won’t miss my Superbowl party! Download this plugin by clicking here!

Enjoy!

The post Free Person Holding Blank Business Card Download appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

Needless to say I was beyond flabbergasted with the price that they tossed out.

Their videography company wanted to charge them a couple hundred dollars to convert a VOB file into a AVI, MPEG, or any file that would allow my client to add this commercial to their YouTube account. I mean come on guys, that is like us telling a client that it will cost them a few hundred dollars to re-size one image on a website. This does have me wondering if am I in the wrong career or were these guys trying to swindle one of my clients? I will let you choose, but I think you will agree with the second suggestion.

I yelled through the phone, “In the name of all mighty, provided me the video file and watch the magic pour off of my fingertips!” I may or may not have exaggerated the prior comment, “I shall convert this VOB file into one that is usable for YouTube and beyond the realms.”

Clock starts now 5:35PM on a cold Tuesday night.

How To Convert a VOB File in to a MPEG

All you have to do is remove the VOB and add MPEG (If this does not work try AVI, WMV or so on until one of the codex allows it to work). A message may spring up stating that you may loose some quality, but I saw no quality loss that was worth a couple hundred dollars.

Open Your Hacked VOB File Into After Effects

With the VOB file converted/hacked and opened in After Effects, feel free to edit as needed. Once you are finished or if you did not have any edits, you can now run the render queue, saving it as a AVI, MPEG, WMV or any format that will work in YouTube. Click here for the supported file list.

Make sure you turn on the Audio Output. I forgot this the first time I shot it through the render queue. (Ha!)

Personally, I saved it as a AVI file because I was worried about loosing quality with converting the VOB file. The video turned out great after I properly re-rendered and saved it as a AVI file!

Upload Your Converted VOB Video File On YouTube

Don’t forget to add all of the bells and whistles for your YouTube’s SEO. We will go into detail with YouTube SEO in a few weeks!

Clock stops at 5:49PM on a cold, Tuesday night ~ Now with a beer in hand, Cheers!

Oh and I forgot to mention that I wrote this blog post while the video was uploading. Lesson learned, if your videographer states that it will cost you a few hundred dollars to convert a file, laugh!

Here is the YouTube Video I Converted The VOB file For:

Sharing a little link love for our client, Med Mart and there new Cincinnati Electric Scooters section. This video was not shot or edited by Ideas and Pixels.

The post How To Open A VOB File In After Effects And Convert For YouTube appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

To hear a lot of its users talk about it, Facebook seems to have an online reputation for changing itself more often than the rest of us change our socks. While not all change is good (regardless of who is doing it), the jury’s out on this latest innovation, the Facebook Graph Search. “What on Earth does that even mean?” you ask. “Graph Search? Does it enable you to search for graphs, or something?” You would think so, but no.

But fear not, gentle reader. Here’s everything you need to know about the Facebook Graph Search.

Facebook Searches Based On Meaning

Unlike a traditional search engine, which conducts searches based on matching keywords, Graph Search is an internal search system that matches groups of words . For instance, you can enter queries such as “Single Lutheran women who enjoy R.E.M. and skeet-shooting”, or ‘My Friends in Bermuda who like cross-dressing and eating artichokes.” So, if you have any cross-dressing friends in Bermuda who like artichokes, they’ll all come up in the results. Lucky you!

So basically, instead of conducting searches on, say, Google based on a keyword, you do a search on Facebook that incorporates the keyword AND phrases. The system is fairly smart, too. Putting in a phrase like “Friends who enjoy grave-robbing”, will result in “Friends who like grave-robbing” appearing over your search results.

Facebook Internal Vs. External Search

Although Graph Search is a feature that operates within the parameters of Facebook, there are opportunities for spillover out onto external sites. For instance, the Instant Personalization feature lets you integrate Friends’ public information into external website content. Also, Bing, which is partnered with Facebook, issues external search results if there’s insufficient results internally.

Graph Search focuses on people, places, interests, and photos. Searches can also be refined based on Facebook information from categories such as Basic Info, Work and Education, or Likes and Interests. Say what you will about “yet another Facebook change,” but this function makes it easy to do very specific searches.

Facebook Privacy Concerns 2013

There has been some concern about how user privacy is affected by Graph Search. If you pause and consider, someone could use it to search for people whose interests may be a bit on the controversial side, and then harass them. But Facebook has said that the searches operate within privacy settings that have already been set up by members. In other words, you can only search for information that’s already theoretically available to anyone (it’s the actual finding it that’s the challenge!). So if you’ve never entered that information about the Justin Beiber/My Little Ponies slash fiction that you write, fear not. Your name won’t come up.

But be advised that you cannot opt out of this function. Your best bet is to go into your Facebook privacy settings. Go to your Activity Log and clean it up. Since Graph Search lets people conduct very specific searches very easily, people who are looking for certain likes and interests to poke fun at can create a ready-made list of victims to taunt.

Like so many other tools on the Internet, Facebook’s Graph Search has the potential of:

• A.) Making Searches Easier on Facebook
• B.) Being Abused by Facebook Trolls and Cretins
• C.) Eating Up Even More of Your FreeTime
• D.) Updating Numerous Privacy Settings
• F.) All of the Above

But love it or hate it, it’s here to stay. Unless, of course, things change again.

Sign Up For Facebook Graph Search Today!

The post Everything You Wanted To Know About Facebook Graph Search 2013 appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

Keep in mind 80% of the backlinks to your website should always be your brand name or url.

1.) Keyword links and domains are relevant, but only have a small impact

These two factors are considered as the losers because presence of the keywords in domain or URL has lost its relevance. This affects the back links when it comes to plain text keyword links. So gone are those days of hard keyword optimization. Google now emphasizes on natural link profiles. Hard keyword can have negative effect because Google updates its algorithms which devalue the bad links. The keyword would be inserted in the content in a natural way.

2.) Social signals will be working well with better rankings

Studies show that the sites having large number of shares, likes, tweets and+1s stands at the top in search results. This means that social media continues to increase because the content is shared often on these social networking sites and hence affects the ranking in positive way.

3.) Quality content is always important

Content factors affects ranking in the same way as in 2012 but the difference is that it has now been upgraded. The websites having higher rankings, found to have more texts and more media integrations as compared to 2012. An excellent internal link structure appears to be more important in 2013. Quality content is the content which is informative, solves the problems of audience, have relevant links and have definite proximity and density of keywords.

4.) The measure and quality of back links

Back links continues to the important SEO metric. It has been found that not only measure of the back links matter for ranking but quality of them also matters. Therefore, you should try to make as many back links as possible but keeping in mind quality reason. In other words, you must get the links on quality websites. Some more factors which play a role in analysis of back links are:

• Balanced mix of follow and no follow links
• Multi word anchor texts
• Quality of link source (not necessarily page rank, but the Page Rank Quality)
• 80/20 rule for backlinks (80% of backlinks should be your brand name while only 20% focused keywords)

5.) On-page SEO factors

The on page factors matters a lot in websites ranking on search engines and this will continue in 2013. Certain on page factors are important and would be considered for achieving favorable ranking. Web pages would be designed after the search engines algorithms for effective Internet Marketing and to meet the search engines criteria. Therefore on page factors are considered to be an important prerequisite for higher ranking in search engine results pages.

Summary: The above mentioned are the factors which we have analyzed and consider them relevant. The site having higher ranking follows the above features where as the websites with lower ranking do not have or have less of these features. Remember change is the name of the SEO game and you need to stay current!

The post 5 Factors affecting SEO rankings in 2013 appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

5 content marketing strategies to boost up the blog traffic:

Write Keyword Optimized Posts For A Blog

This is the basic strategy to boost up the traffic on your blog. If you write the keyword optimized content for your blog, then it would bring more traffic to your site and will help to increase the ranking on the search engines. You need to perform the two steps to set up your blog for this strategy. The first and the foremost step is to write the a blog post of high quality and the content should be keyword- optimized, then place or publish it on your own blog. The second step is that, write the similar article with optimized keywords and submit that article to other blog or article directory. This article must be linked to the blog post only, not with the home page of your blog.

Utilize Relevant Guest Post Blogging

There are millions of blogs which will accept your posts. But do you want to write the posts or articles for all of them? Of course not. Therefore, you have to be very selective while posting your article. You must select or choose a high quality blog or website for posting your article. If you place it on the high quality website or blog, then it will bring more traffic to your site. You must select those high quality blogs which relates your theme of business. In other words, it must be relevant according to your niche. The link which you place in these high quality blogs will be considered as authority links and will value more in search engines.

Share Infographic

Recently, most of the bloggers have adopted this strategy. Sharing infographics is becoming a trend to attract more traffic. Infographics is made from two words info + graphics where info means information and graphics means images. Therefore, infographics is representing the information in the form of images. It not only makes it interesting for the readers but also spread like a viral across the web, such as Pinterest.

Learn why you should use Pinterst infographic marketing, for your business. This is why sharing infographics is becoming the latest tends in content marketing as it has a potential to become viral and expanding your SEO reach!

Viral Video Marketing

Successful businesses are based on solving the problems of customers. The easiest way to sort out their problems is to provide the solution to their problem on you tube. It will be easier for the user also to understand as he can see the video along with the solution. By being active in the you tube, you can build and attract the audience there. You will get the additional traffic from the you tube; if you upload this you tube video on your website.

Create And Distribute Free e-Books

Write the e-book and offer it on the website for free. To save your time, you can also compile the related posts from blog into e-book. It will not only bring you more traffic but will make you as a trustworthy source for extracting information.

Summary: Content marketing is gaining popularity and brings traffic to your site or blog, if done in a proper way. Besides bringing the traffic to your site, it builds credibility and will establish you as a trustworthy source of information in Internet Marketing.

The post 5 Content Marketing Strategies to Gain Traffic appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

That’s probably to be expected. After all, every freelancer has a different set of skills and level of proficiency. Whether you’re a web designer or programmer, or both, some of us are better than others. While experience is relative, ability is not. Ability is a key component in the formula of establishing the perfect fee structure for you.

Another factor is the rate of delivery. If you can push out quality work at a faster pace than the average freelancer, you should charge for it. Clients will always want their projects “done yesterday”. If you’re able to meet their needs, which otherwise would stretch another freelancer thin, you’re justified in asking for more.

The greatest factor is simply your current reserve of work. If you have ten projects lined up, complete with signed contracts and starting dates, you can afford to raise your prices. You’re a hot commodity. This is the basic law of supply and demand — it’s the very thing that dictates the price of everything you buy, from movie tickets to gasoline. Why should your services be any different? Be sure to only raise your prices in small $10/hour increments as you test the waters, or you’ll never pinpoint the rate that works perfectly for you. If you raise them too much, trust me, you will know. If the frequency of new work starts to greatly slow, adjust accordingly.

New Rule: Charging A Lot Can Be More Positive Than You Think

Finally, some basic rules to remember. The less you charge, the cheaper your clients will be. If you find a potential client negotiating your prices lower before you even discuss the project, you must let them go — that’s not who you want to work with. Another thing worth remembering is that most corporate clients will translate your hourly rate into some measure of skill. The companies with money want to spend more of said money on your services, because when business goes macro, money often does produce more favorable outcomes. Basically, they think that the more they pay, the better work they’ll get. Target these clients. Give them those high prices they want (part of any business is customer service, right?). Try to feel comfort knowing that while you sit worrying about your rate being too high — about scaring clients away — that, to some, your prices may actually be too low. There’s always a flip side.

Of course, there are a myriad of other factors that you should consider when settling on your hourly rate. Just don’t complicate it — that’s what made you read this article in the first place. No one can tell you what to charge, and nor should they. You know the type of work you can produce, and you should be able to think critically enough to decide what it is worth.

The post How Much Should I Charge My Clients For Web Design / Programming? appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

Reflecting On Your Website

We often lose sight of what the initial goal of our website was, months after the website has been launched and has become commonplace. It’s important to reflect on your website from time to time. With some brief consideration, most business owners will find their website can be improved in at least a few ways quite easily. There are a few things that you can do to ensure your website is performing to it’s greatest potential, some even without the help of a developer.

Collect More Of Your Customer’s Data

The most successful websites are the ones that use clear call-to-actions and data forms to collect as much information as possible about potential customers. Making sure your website has a contact form that’s easy to find is the first step. Many companies go further, doing things like asking for the visitor’s name and email address before showing pricing, or using services like HubSpot to track IP addresses of business and individuals.

Get Listed On The Large Business Search Directories

One of the easiest ways to get to the top of Google is to create a Google Places (now integrated into Google Plus) account for your business. This method is especially effective for local businesses, but some larger brands will also find value. Place accounts are like online storefronts, offering those searching for your company everything from your business’ hours, to your office location and phone number. And the best part is that Bing and Yahoo both offer similar listing sites, allowing you to gain visibility and quality backlinks at the same time.

Don’t Forget Bing

Many pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns forget about Bing entirely. Instead, they pump all of their marketing budgets right into Google Adwords (also known as “putting all your eggs in one basket”). What they don’t realize is that Google Adwords only reaches around 75% of web users. Bing advertising is a much more cost-effective use of your advertising budget, because the competition is much lower than on Adwords and per-click costs are almost always less expensive. Not to mention, Bing is a part of a major affiliate network including Yahoo and Ask.com — some of the smaller search engines — giving you much more reach for your buck. A combination of 75% Adwords, 25% Bing marketing allocation usually does the trick.

The post When’s The Last Time You Reflected On Your Website? appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

The other day, I had just clocked over twelve hours in the shop, and I went to post a status update to see if anyone wanted to go throw one back with me — and out of nowhere, a new emoticon option popped up!

It seems that Facebook has selected my profile as a candidate to test this new feature. Of course the first thing I did was spam everyone with all types of emoticons, and then proceed to wrote this blog post — which is to say, I never left work!

The user can actively share what they’re thinking, doing and so much more — without using words, but by conveying “tone” to an overall boring sentence. Then, you can hover over the abbreviation, and you are able to “Like” that interest, if you wish to stay up to date on it.

Could This Be Facebook’s New Revenue Outlet?

Mashable’s Samantha Murphy goes into more detail about these crafty icons. She is 100% correct that this should open up a new ad revenue for the company.

I foresee businesses wanting to build their brand into these icon sets, and have Facebook’s billions of users share their identity that way. As of right now, Facebook is just trying new concepts with their design and attempting not to clutter it — a challenging task for sure.

Needless to say, this is the best thing about web design — trial and error!

Could this Facebook’s new tactic to share business profiles? What are your thoughts?

I believe this could very easily parlay into a huge revenue increase for Facebook, but only if they can craft a way to allow business to share their brands’ logos, as icons.

New pay-per-click (PPC) outlets could be enticing for avid Facebook users to follow and “Like” brands.

The post Express Yourself With The New Facebook Emoticons appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.

Google’s Got Our Back (With Disavow)

Knowing who’s linking to you is one thing, but doing something about it is something else entirely. Luckily for us, Google took care of the problem with last year with a new addition to their Webmaster platform called Google Webmaster Disavow. Like many Google products, it’s very self descriptive — the tool disavows incoming links that you from “counting” towards your final Page Rank score. And even more like other Google products, it’s very intuitive to use.

Removing Bad Incoming Links For Google

Before you get started, it’s important to mention that you might not actually need to do this. If you only have a few bad inbound links coming in here and there, you’re probably fine. But if it becomes a pattern &mdash with or without your consent &mdash then you should take action. Google doesn’t care about bad site links as much as it cares about maintaining the integrity of the web. If it detects a shady link-building strategy, it can mean a substantial hit to your web traffic and visibility, not to mention eventual blacklisting.

To begin, navigate your browser over to https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/disavow-links-main

. If you haven’t yet bad a Webmaster account, first go to and create one before you get started.

Once there, the instructions are very easy to follow, although the first page is somewhat misleading, which may cause some confusion.

It seems like it’s asking you to select a site from the dropdown to disavow, but it actually wants you to select a Webmaster profile associated with your Google account to add this disavow command to. Select the correct Webmaster domain profile, then hit “Disavow Links”.

The second page is again somewhat ambiguous, but to put it simply, it’s just a confirmation page. Hit the “Disavow Links” button once again to continue.

Finally, you will be prompted to submit a text file (.txt) with the URL’s that you would like Google to ignore when calculating your PageRank. Use any text editor to create this, and be sure to put only one URL per line. Once you’re finished, save, then upload your document. If it uploads correctly, it should be added to the “Disavowed Sites” list. Great work — you’re done!

The post How To Remove Bad Inbound Links With Google Disavow appeared first on Ideas and Pixels.