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Blogging has become an industry in itself with many people now making full-time careers from it and companies exploiting blogs as a key way of attracting new business.

As the influence of blogs has increased, it has naturally become more competitive and more difficult to stand out from the crowd. Bloggers are investing huge amounts of time and money into their content, so simply sitting down and publishing some words you wrote in your kitchen is unlikely to cut it these days.

There are too many ways of making a blog successful to cover in one blog post, but there are certainly a more manageable set of things you can do to improve your blog’s performance in search specifically that a surprising amount of bloggers overlook.

If you have a blog that has been built off the back of a great brand and fantastic social media presence, but you haven’t paid too much attention to SEO, then this post is for you.

I’m going to share exactly what we did to more than triple a travel blog’s search traffic over a 12-month period and take them from the tens of thousands of visits per month to the hundreds of thousands.

Our work has focused on technical SEO activity rather than content production or off-site work.

It’s important to highlight that this blog already had a very good presence and lots of good things already going for it, so I wanted to break down the starting points in a bit more detail first before we get into the nitty-gritty of what accelerated the growth.

Links

The site already had a very good link profile, with a wide variety of links on strong, top-tier publications like CNN and the Independent, along with lots of links on other blogs they had built relationships with.

I’m not going to go into much detail on how to do this as it warrants its own post, but the key approaches were:

Guest Writing: Writing posts for other blogs or getting featured via interviews etc. This is very easy for bloggers with non-commercial sites and is a very scalable way to develop a good link profile.

PR: Building relationships with journalists or pitching stories to big publications that can gain you links and mentions on very powerful sites.

Other great resources on getting links for your blog:

Content

The site has been around a long time so it had accumulated lots of content which was well written and had been edited and targeted with SEO in mind.

As a result, a lot of it was ranking well and bringing traffic to the site and seemingly performing very well.

If you’re just getting started on your blogging journey then populating the site with really good, quality content should be a high priority for you.

You can read more about that at the links below:

So, as I highlighted originally, the key part of our activity that took the site from tens of thousands of visits per month, to hundreds of thousands of visits per month, was technical SEO work.

I’m going to break down all the key elements we addressed below, so if you’re sat with a blog in a similar position to what I’ve described above you can implement these actions to help unleash your blog’s traffic, too.

I’ve prioritized these in a way that I believe has had the biggest impact (with the largest impact first), but this is obviously up for discussion and we can’t be sure what influence each individual action had as these were all implemented on the same timeline.

Indexation Issues

A common issue for blogs, especially those that have been around a long time, is having lots of URLs indexed by Google that are not genuine pages and offer no value to users.

These included regular offenders for WordPress sites, such as:

Category pages.

Tag pages.

Author pages.

Archive pages.

But also:

Attachment URLs.

Strange parameter pages getting crawled and indexed.

We crawled the site and identified the patterns behind the key offenders in this area and either noindexed them or updated Search Console to stop Google crawling them.

Thin Content

The site had a huge amount of pages with extremely thin content present.

These were basically category pages with a small intro added that were clearly created with SEO in mind to target long-tail phrases.

However, it was done to such a degree that the pages were of extremely low quality and added very little value for a user landing on it.

The potential upside of this kind of page wasn’t enough to warrant the time required to add content to them, so these were either removed or noindexed.

Page Speed

When we started work the site’s page speed was extremely poor due to various fonts, large images, caching, and various other issues.

We used some plugins to help improve this, which isn’t the dream solution (building a site more efficiently from the ground up is preferable).

But for bloggers on a tight budget and with limited resources and knowledge, you can still make some significant steps forward.

Cannibalization

For some of the site’s key money phrases, there were multiple pages present that were targeting the same topic.

Google was chopping and changing between which of the pages was ranking so it was clear it was unsure which the best choice was. This is usually a good sign of content cannibalization and suggests you should merge those pages into one top quality page.

We did just that, and soon saw the ranking page settle down and ranking performance jump forward significantly and stay there consistently.

XML Sitemap

The site had a variety of sitemaps submitted in Search Console, many of which listed URLs which we did not want to be crawled, let alone indexed.

We trimmed this so the sitemaps present only listed URLs with good quality content present so it was much clearer what should be indexed and which content was most important on the site.

Aggressive Ads

Advertising is the way most bloggers make their money, so telling them to cut it down is not a popular conversation.

Page Structure

An issue we see regularly with blogs and websites in general is that header tags are used for styling rather than structure.

H1, H2, and H3 tags should be used to clearly illustrate the structure of your page so Google can map it on to the phrases it would expect to see mentioned on the topic being covered.

If your site’s headers are being used for styling then get on to your developer and get it changed so you use these elements in a more tactical and optimized way.

Internal Linking

We worked closely with the client to clean up internal links and improve how they were being used. This included:

Fixing any dead internal links that were linking to broken pages.

Fixing internal links that took users and bots through redirect chains, so the link pointed directly to the correct destination.

Adding more links to important pages throughout the site.

Link Updates

As I mentioned initially, the site had some excellent links that it had established over the years through natural approaches and some more direct efforts.

Some of these more direct efforts involved getting optimized anchor text to key money pages which had been a bit overzealous at times. We believed it was potentially causing the site to be held back from ranking for phrases in that area and for that page in particular.

There were other elements involved too, but those above were the key issues that were wide reaching and causing significant performance issues.

It’s rare to find one silver bullet with technical SEO, but if you chip away at the wide variety of issues that can impact you then you can see some serious improvements.

We also haven’t yet implemented all the recommendations we’ve suggested. One key outstanding one is implementing “hub pages” that guide people into all the key content on a topic.

In travel, this is very much destination focused, and there is a lot of search interest to gain if you create high quality pages for those hubs. This is the key focus to move on to next to help accelerate this site’s progress further, and there is a huge amount of potential in it once implemented.

So if you’re a blogger with lots of great content and links, but you haven’t yet paid any attention to your technical SEO, do it now!

Make sure you aren’t leaving significant amounts of traffic on the table – you may be sitting on huge growth potential. Time to kick into gear!

More Resources:

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In-post Images: Created by author, January 2023

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Increase Traffic To Your Blog From Search Engines – The Top 5 Tips

Increase Traffic to Your Blog from Search Engines – The Top 5 Tips

Blogs already have optimized site architecture. Most are set up with a clear navigation, where every page is set up to link back to the other main pages. They also have the inherent potential to be well-linked.

If you haven’t already submitted to blog directories, you are missing out on some great one-way links. Many of the top directories can be found on Robin Good’s Top 55 list at MasterNewMedia.org.

But before you head over there and start submitting, you should know a little about how to optimize your blog. Then your new listings can help your site get the best keyword placement in the major search engines. These are my top five tips for lucrative blog search engine optimization.

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #1: Lucrative Keyword Choices

You have a choice. You can target a general high traffic keyword you have little chance of ranking well for and get barely any traffic.

Or you can shoot for a keyword that gets a moderate level of targeted traffic resulting in more subscribers and sales. I like to call this a “lucrative keyword”.

Whatever you call them, here’s the most important thing: They may not get you the most traffic, but they often bring the most profit.

You may be surprised to learn that there isn’t always a correlation between high traffic and high sales. Many of the most profitable sites in the world get moderate traffic because their lucrative keywords result in a much higher ratio of visitors to buyers.

A recent article in Information Week stated that the highest conversion rates from search engine traffic comes from people who do four word queries.

The great thing about your blog is that it can get so well-indexed that you have the potential to show up for any number of four word phrases that are relevant to your industry.

It isn’t just the four word phrases that get converting traffic – there are two and three word phrases that can bring you traffic and sales.

Targeting your blog discussion to a two or three word phrase that has a high yield of traffic, and yet has little competition, is not a dream of past Internet days. Another recent study revealed that surprisingly high percentages of search engine queries debuted as late as 2004.

As long as there are new developments, new products, services and trends, you’ll never have a shortage of these terms if you learn how to discover them.

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #2: Keyword Placement

Your blog can be set up to repeat the keywords that you want to target just enough times to establish a theme.

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #3: Timely Posting

Instead of pinging at 15 minute intervals when your site hasn’t been updated, or even pinging after every single post, you can actually get better results if you update or ping just once during one of three sweet spots in the day. Here’s one that you can use today.

Check your web site statistics. If you’re getting spidered every two weeks or even monthly, you can increase your number of spider visits by blogging on the anniversary of the period that the spider comes to your site. It takes a bit of monitoring, but you can often predict when the date of your last spider visit was.

An even faster way is to ping at a time when the spider is reading a page that carries your update. (This is a little harder to explain, as I’ve mentioned, but I have a resource that explains this process in-depth at my site.)

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #4: Get Linked

Turn on your site feed(s) and use them to promote your blog. Robin Good’s guide can get you some great one way links.

If you sparingly include the lucrative keyword you selected in tip two in your title and description, all those link backs will contain the keyword term you most want attention for, which is often noted by the spiders as they follow the link through to your site.

Once there, if you use these and other tips to skew your blog a little more to the search-engine-friendly side, the synergistic effect is better, more profitable traffic.

Lucrative Blog SEO Tip #4: Frequent Updates

The more you post, the more food for the spider, which can cause the spider to react by splitting up its job into several visits, whereupon you have even more content, and so on, until the spider just adds you to a more frequent schedule of returns.

For example, my main site gets spidered several times daily by Google, and yet I can go a week without an update with no change in spider visits. This means my pages get indexed more often and my new pages show up faster.

Think of what that could do for the launch of your next product.

Bottom line: A few small changes to your blog can draw more search engine traffic without turning off your blog visitors. Done properly, this gives your audience more of what they were searching for in the first place.

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130 Social Sharing Sites That Boost Seo & Drive Traffic

SEO is complex, to say the least.

So, when tools come along that make the art of search engine optimization a little easier, we stand up and take notice.

Why? Because social sharing sites fuel one of the most important elements of SEO: links.

Take, for example, Pinterest.

Pinterest, one of about 130 sites we’re going to tell you about, are important for SEO.

But don’t be fooled.

Search engines are looking to these sites for more than link signals.

Start by taking a look at the 130 of our favorites we’ve gathered below.

My Top 24 Social Sites 1. Twitter

Twitter is huge.

While it might not be the first site that pops into your mind for submitting content, it has a large audience and is an efficient platform for posting.

Many people use it to post links, content, and images that they find interesting and worthy of a revisit in the future.

2. Pinterest

In its lifetime, more than 50 billion pins have appeared on Pinterest.

3. Mix

In June 2023, the popular discovery platform StumbleUpon became Mix.

Mix lets you experience the internet as curated by machine learning, editors, or publishers.

You can also tag content that you liked, in particular, to share with others.

4. Slack

Slack is a group messaging program that provides users with customizable channels in which chats can occur.

You can also create private groups, and have direct messaging.

In 2023, Slack had 12 million Slack groups.

5. Delicious

Delicious is a great booking marking site when you’re looking to build up maximum traction on your content.

6. Pocket

Appropriately named, when you put something in your Pocket, it’s there to be found later.

Users of Pocket can hold onto anything they find on the internet or through various apps.

Bonus points for the fact that once something’s in your Pocket, you don’t need an internet connection to access it.

7. Digg

Got great content?

Then it belongs to Digg.

8. Folkd

The more saves a piece gets, the higher it’s rank in their social search, which helps connect their visitors with even more quality content.

9. Reddit

What can’t be found on Reddit?

Reddit is a great tool when you’re looking to quickly promote your own content.

10. Fark

One of Fark‘s best attributes is their commitment to quality.

As a social networking news site, Fark receives mountains of submissions on a daily basis but presents only the best to their audience.

This site isn’t for wimpy, weak content.

But, if you’re ready to showcase your talent and drive traffic to your own site, Fark is the way to go.

11. BizSugar 12. Slashdot

Users of Slashdot submit and share content on gaming, cloud computing, computer hardware, security management, and more.

13. We Heart It

The site is nice to look at, easy to use, and inspirational – especially for anyone who loves great imagery.

14. Scoop.It

This site, aimed toward professionals, offers solutions for content creation, content curation, predictive analysis, and content intelligence.

Scoop.It offers two different platforms – a free version for individuals and a paid version for businesses.

15. Trendiee

For people who loved Newsvine, and were disheartened when it shut down, Trendiee offers a similar platform that’s super easy to use.

Their goal is to connect people with trending news, and it’s one that they accomplish beautifully.

16. Diigo

Educators, students, researchers, and anyone with an inquisitive mind love the features that make keeping track of their resources and sharing them easy.

Diigo is perfect for content that’s focused on statistics, analytics, or research of any industry.

17. BibSonomy

Granted, not many businesses publish scientific material as part of their marketing strategy.

18. Instagram

Instagram is for photo, video, and live video sharing.

In the 2010s, it was the fourth most downloaded mobile app.

One billion people use Instagram monthly, and 500 million use Instagram Stories daily.

On average, Instagram users spend 28 minutes on the platform daily in 2023.

19. Pearltrees

There’s a simplicity to Pearltrees that makes it a favorite among users who love to create collections of their favorite things.

Pearltrees offers functionality and a platform that makes it easy to share and gather new content.

20. DZone

Each day, thousands of developers come to the site to learn, share, and read about the latest technologies and trends in the world of software development.

21. Medium

Typically used to share personal, original stories, Larry Kim has shown just how successful Medium can be for repurposing content.

22. SlideShare

While some claim SlideShare is on its way out if you’ve created an amazing keynote or PowerPoint presentation, you’re going to want to repurpose that on SlideShare.

23. Quora

Not only a great research tool for Q&A content brainstorming, but Quora is a question-and-answer based site filled with a wide range of topics to discuss and follow.

24. Facebook Groups

A Facebook Group is a closed or open community within Facebook where users can post content ranging from links to events and questions.

As of 2023, 1.4 billion people used Facebook Groups, and there were over 10 million groups on Facebook.

69 More for Good Measure

A few of these you’ll be familiar with because they’re already insanely popular, but there’s also plenty of lesser-known sites on the list.

25. Facebook

Facebook is arguably the most popular social network in the world.

26. Flipboard

Flipboard curates the world’s stories you can focus on investing in yourself, stay informed, and get involved.

27. Feedly

Feedly is the most popular RSS blog reader with more than 15 million users and acts as a news aggregator for various web browsers and mobile devices.

28. Pinboard 29. Instapaper

Instapaper is touted as the simplest way to save and store articles for reading offline, on-the-go, anytime, anywhere.

30. Kirtsy

Kirtsy, initially a content aggregator, now allows users to submit slideshows focused on art, design, products, pins, photos, and projects.

31. LinkaGoGo

LinkaGoGo has been around since 2001.

32. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a 500 million+ member social network designed to build and engage with your professional network.

33. Disqus 34. Listly

Listly helps bloggers and publishers engage readers by viral top 10 lists created by the community.

35. Tumblr

Tumblr, the popular “microblogging” network, allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog.

36. Crazybacklink 37. Dotnetkicks

Dotnetkicks is a community-based news site edited by the community who specializes in .NET development techniques, technologies, and tools.

38. Emolinks 39. TikTok

TikTok is a video sharing service in which users share videos that are 3 to 60 seconds long.

The app is credited largely with the success of many celebrities whose reach extends beyond the app and into the mainstream.

As of publishing, TikTok boasts 800 million users.

40. PiPiNews 41. Sitejot 42. Skybacklinks

Skybacklinks is an online service that enables users to store, share, and add links across the web.

43. SocialBookmarkNow 44. SocioPost 45. TechDirt

TechDirt is an online newsblog that allows users to post their own stories.

46. Tracky

Tracky is a social collaboration and project management tool that allows anyone to socialize projects and store all of your digital “stuff.”

47. Zypid 48. MetaFilter 49. AixinDashi

50. Steemit

This is a blogging and social media website that gifts users with its cryptocurrency, STEEM, for publishing and curating content.

51. Bookmarkfeeds 52. BookmarkMaps 53. Leavemark

Leavemark launched in 2023 is an ad-free data storage and social media app that lets you save videos and photos and share them later.

The app features a time and space capsule option that allows information to be released in increments of 2 weeks, 2 months, 10 years, or when the recipient is within proximity of a given place.

There is also direct messaging, a newsfeed, and a family tree feature that allows you to preserve information for future family members.

54. Fabric

Fabric is like VH1’s Pop Up Video but in real life (IRL).

55. Vero

Vero is a social media app designed to compete with the one-two punch of Facebook and Instagram.

Instead, users select who gets to see their posts, and posts appear chronologically.

You can share suggestions for music, books, films, and more.

You can also shop within the app for any recommendations that you found particularly striking.

56. Caffeine

Caffeine is a platform that streams live content that you can interact with including gaming, sports, and music.

57. Twitch

Twitch is a video streaming service owned by Amazon.

The platform focuses primarily on live video game streaming, but also includes e-sport competitions, music broadcasts, and other forms of creative content.

As of February 2023, 3.8 million streamers had broadcasted on Twitch.

58. Houseparty

Houseparty is a group video chatting app that runs on mobile and desktop devices.

Users get updated when their friends are online and available to chat.

There are 20 million Houseparty users, as of publishing.

60. Facecast

This is a global video community that people use to share a short video, live broadcasts, and chat roulette style video chats.

61. Masterminds

Mastermind is a social media platform for coordinating goal-oriented video chats with like-minded individuals.

The aim is to benefit from each other’s shared experience, encouragement, comradery, and accountability.

62. Triller

Triller is a social media video app in which you film yourself lip-syncing, dancing, or both.

Triller’s editing algorithm then goes to work to edit your video for you based on audio and facial analyses.

63. WhatsApp

WhatsApp is an encrypted messaging service that allows you to send text and audio messages, make video and phone calls, share media, and send each other locations.

WhatsApp currently has 2 billion users worldwide.

64. Tagged

Tagged is a social discovery platform that lets you browse the profiles of any members and share tags and virtual gifts.

65. Wattpad

Wattpad is a platform that services user-generated stories.

As of 2023, Watpad has 400 million stories and over 65 million users who spend over 15 billion minutes on the app each month.

66. Badoo

Badoo is a social networking website meant to facilitate friendship, romantic relationships, or just brief conversations.

You can search based on who’s nearby, a more specific geographic search, a Tinder type feature where you swipe left or right, and you have the option of video chatting as well.

Users are verified by uploading a photo of themselves in a specific pose that’s then verified by a moderator. People can also request selfies to confirm an identity.

Since launching in 2006, Badoo has had 435 million members.

67. Bubbly

Bubbly is an app that allows users to record voice blogs upwards of 90 seconds in length to subscribe to the voice blogs of others.

Currently, you can apply voice filters, effects, and background music to the posts.

68. Cellufun 69. Classmates 70. CollegeHumor

CollegeHumor is an internet comedy company that, in addition to creating original content, allows for user-submitted videos, pictures, articles, and links.

71. Discord

Discord is an instant messaging software that allows you to communicate via text, image, video, and voice.

As of July 2023, Discord had over 250 million users.

72. GIPHY

In July of 2023, Giphy reported that it had 200 million daily users on both its app and website and around 250 million monthly active users on their site.

73. Imgur

Imgur is an image sharing community and image host.

Many popular viral images and memes are hosted by Imgur.

74. LINE

Line is a messaging service that lets users community using smartphones, tablet devices, and PCs.

Text, images, video, audio, and free VoIP calls and video conferences are all available.

Line also has a digital wallet called Line Pay, a news stream called Line Today, a video-on-demand service known as Line TV and two digital comic services known as Line Manga and Line Webtoon.

As of October 2023, 217 million people use Line.

75. LINE PLAY

Line Play is an app wherein you create a cutified avatar that serves as your alter ego.

You can then interact with other users, keep a diary, create a room for your avatar, and share your creation with your friends.

Currently, more than 70 million people use Line Play.

76. LiveJournal

LiveJournal is a social networking platform where people keep diaries. LiveJournal’s highest recorded number of users is 2.5 million.

77. MeetMe

MeetMe is a mix between a social media platform and a dating app.

Meetme works by verifying and populating your profile with data from Facebook.

You’re then shown users nearby who you have the opportunity to chat with and even arrange an in-person meeting.

In 2023, MeetMe reported that it had 100 million users.

78. MocoSpace

Inspired by Myspace, MocoSpace is a mobile social network that includes games, chat, instant messaging, eCars, and photos.

In 2008, MocoSpace reported that it has 2 million registered users and 1 billion monthly page views.

79. Myspace

Between 2005 and 2008, Myspace was the biggest social networking platform in the world, catering to over 100 million users per month.

As of 2023, MySpace had 15 million monthly visitors.

80. Open Diary

Open Diary is an online diary community similar to LiveJournal and Xanga.

81. Skype

Skype is a popular video chat software that lets users community via audio, video, or text.

You can also send images, videos, files, and more.

There’s a group chat feature as well. In March of 2023, it was reported that Skype was used by 100 million people monthly, and 40 million people daily.

82. Telegram

Telegram is a chat app available for both desktop and mobile users.

The mobile version features encryption.

You can also send photos, videos, stickers, audios, and files.

As of April 2023, Telegram has reached over 400 million monthly active users.

83. Tribe

Tribe is a social messaging app.

You can record and send messages to your friends just by holding your finger on their photo and then releasing it.

You can also create groups to send videos to several recipients at once.

Once the video is tapped and viewed, it disappears.

84. Viber

Viber is a software that allows for VoIP and instant messaging-based communications.

Users are verified by their cell phone. The app can also be used on desktops.

Viber gives users the opportunity to trade images, videos, and access to a paid international dedicated video and phone service called Viber Out.

As of 2023, Viber recorded having over a billion users.

85. Vimeo

Vimeo is a video hosting platform.

Vimeo is ad-free and instead derives its income by providing hosting plans to content producers and tools for video creation, editing, etc.

Vimeo also helps professionals connect with one another.

86. We Heart It

We Heart It is an image-based social network.

Users can collect or “heart” their favorite images, share images with friends, and organize images into collections.

As of 2023, We Heart It had over 40 million members.

87. Dropmark

Dropmark is a collaborative sharing tool.

You collect files, drag them into your browser to upload, and then share that collection with a group or individual of your choosing.

88. Droplr

Droplr allows you to take your screenshots or screen recordings, upload them to the cloud, and then share them with anyone.

89. CloudApp

CloudApp allows you to share screenshots or screen recordings.

Using its Instant Video feature, users can broadcast screen recordings instantaneously.

90. AixinDashi

AixinDashi is a social network used to promote content submitted by members.

91. Patreon

Patreon is an American membership-based platform that provides creators with the means to maintain subscription-based content.

Creators include video makers, podcasters, artists, writers, adult content creators, and more.

As of January 2023, there were 3 million patrons supporting 100,000 creators on Patreon.

92. OnlyFans

OnlyFan is a content subscription service akin to Pateron that is particularly popular in the adult entertainment industry as well as fitness experts.

Creators receive funding based on subscriptions, tips, and pay-per-view events.

As of May 2023, OnlyFan had around 450,000 content creators and 30 million registered users.

93. Substack

Substack is a platform that allows creators to have paid email newsletters.

Substack provides a content management system to create email newsletters, a way of collecting payments using Stripe, and a website that can provide free or paid-for content.

Don’t Forget the Music/Audio Social Sites 94. Datpiff

DatPiff is an online distribution platform focusing on hip-hop, rap, and R&B.

Basically, DatPiff is the modern-day equivalent of the sort of mixtapes or mix CDs fledgling artists would distribute with the hopes of having their music exposed to a larger audience.

95. Last.FM

Last.FM is a social media platform that follows the listening habits of users to create custom playlists.

Last.FM can gather data from popular music streaming apps, internet radio stations, or the user’s own desktop or mobile devices.

96. SoundCloud

SoundCloud is an audio distribution and music sharing platform.

The platform would go on to have over 175 million monthly users worldwide.

It has launched the careers of many professional and wildly successful musicians.

97. ReverbNation

ReverbNation is a website where musicians, producers, and venues collaborate and communicate.

98. Bandcamp

Bandcamp is an audio distribution platform.

Artists and labels upload their content to bandcamp, and then set how it’s sold, for how much, in what format, and can sell merch or physical media as well.

Plus, 20 Even More Niche Social Sharing Sites 99. Dribble

If you like to explore with graphic and visual design, or you have someone on your team that does, Dribble is a great spot to get some SEO backlink action.

100. Meetup

Meetup uses online groups to coordinate in-person meetings based on people’s shared interests.

In 2023, Meetup had 35 million users.

101. Weed Life

Weed Life is a social network built for cannabis enthusiasts.

102. Nextdoor

Nextdoor is a social media platform that allows you to connect with people in your neighborhood.

You have to submit your real name and address (your street name without your unit number).

It’s currently available in 11 countries.

Only other members of your neighborhood can see your posts.

As of 2023, Nextdoor has 236,000 neighborhood and 27 million active monthly users.

103. DeviantArt

DeviantArt is an online community where people share artwork, videos, and photography.

As of 2023, the site had over 26 million members and 251 million submissions.

Art can be browsed by categories such as type, operating system customization utilities, skins for applications, and more.

Users also have the option of creating groups based on suggestions, surveys, polls, blogs, and discussions.

105. CouchSurfing

CouchSurfing is a social networking platform that allows users to coordinate lodging, meetings, or join and create events.

106. RunKeeper

Runkeeper is a fitness-tracking app that uses GPS to map your workouts.

Some activities include walking, running, and cycling.

As of July 2023, Runkeeper has over 50 million users. You can share your workouts with others and the Runkeeper community as well.

107. Care2

Care2 is a social media platform that connects people based on the activist causes that they’re passionate about.

Care2 currently has over 56 million users, 2,750 nonprofit partners, has created nearly 450,000 petitions, and has accrued over 1 billion signatures.

108. eToro

eToro is a social trading platform and multi-asset brokerage company that offers financial and copy trading services.

Users are able to follow, view, and even recreate the practices of top traders on the platform.

As of June 2023, eToro has roughly 10 million users.

109. Gaia Online

Gaia Online is an anime-themed social network and forum based platform.

110. Italki

Italki is a platform that connects language learners to teachers using video chat.

Teachers earn money as freelance tutors.

111. Ravelry

Ravelry is a social networking service for people who are interested in knitting, crocheting, spinning, weaving, and other similar activities.

Users share projects, ideas, and their collections of yarns, fiber, and tools.

As of March 2023, Ravelry had almost 9 million registered users and roughly 1 million monthly active users.

112. The Dots

The Dots is a social networking program for creative professionals (writers, illustrators, videographers, etc.).

Members get to network, connect, collaborate, and be inspired by the individuals, teams, and brands that themselves have profiles.

113. Ello

Ello is a social networking platform that allows people to showcase art, photography, fashion, and web culture.

It also gives users the option to offer services and collaborations.

114. Funny or Die

Funny or Die is a comedy video platform where celebrities and users alike submit their content.

Although overwhelmed with user-submitted content, Funny or Die still offers users the opportunity to submit their own content.

115. MyHeritage

MyHeritage is a platform that allows users to create family trees, upload and browse photos, and search through over 9 billion historical records.

116. Viadeo

Viadeo is a professional social networking platform that connects business owners, entrepreneurs, and managers.

117. Yelp

Yelp is a crowdsourced review based website that provides ratings for businesses.

It is also partnered with a reservation service called Yelp Reservations.

As of June 2023, Yelp states that it has over 192 million reviews.

118. Letterboxd

Letterboxd is a social networking service that focuses on sharing reviews and adoration for film.

Users can keep a diary to track their opinions, films watched, and make lists. Users can also interact with one another.

Last But Not Least, 12 International Social Sharing Sites 119. FilmAffinity

Registered users can rate, find, and create lists of movies.

In the Spanish version of the site, it’s possible to write reviews.

In Spain, which is the platform’s country of origin, there are 3 million unique users.

120. Kuaishou

Kuaishou is a Chinese video-sharing app.

It’s known as “Snack” video in China, and “Kwai” in other markets.

Kuaishou is used to create short videos that capture the everyday experiences of its users.

As of 2023, 200 million active users can be found on Kuaishou daily.

121. Mixi

Mixi is a Japanese social networking service.

Its focus is on connecting with others based on shared interests.

Registration is confirmed using a valid Japanese cell phone number.

122. Qzone

Qzone is a social networking platform centered in China.

It lets users keep blogs, send photos, listen to music, and watch videos.

As of July 2023, it has roughly 517 million monthly active users.

123. Sina Weibo

Sina Weibo is a Chinese microblogging site akin to Tumblr. Users can upload videos and pictures for instant or extended sharing.

There’s also an instant messaging service.

In 2023, the platform reported it had over 290 million registered users.

124. Skyrock

Skyrock is a French-based social networking platform that allows users to create blogs, profiles, and instant messages with other registered members.

125. Tencent QQ

Tencent QQ, known as QQ, is an instant messaging program and web portal in China.

It provides online social games, music, shopping, microblogging, movies, and group and voice chat.

126. VK

VK is a Russian social networking platform. VK facilitates both private and public messaging, groups, public pages, and events.

With VK, you can also share and tag images, audio, and video. There are browser-based games as well.

As of August 2023, CK had 500 million accounts.

127. WeChat

WeChat is a Chinese developed platform that allows for messaging, social media, and mobile payment.

In China, the app has been called the “app for everything”. As of 2023, WeChat had roughly 1 billion active users.

128. XING

Xing is a Hamburg-based social networking site for professionals primarily focused on the German-speaking market.

As of April 2023, Xing reported that it reached 16 million members.

129. YY

YY is a Chinese based video social network with its very own virtual currency.

The currency is paid to people who create content ranging from karaoke videos to tutorials. The currency can later be exchanged for real money.

The platform also streams concerts, fashion, and sporting events. Users can chat as well. As of November 2023, YY had 157.8 million monthly active users.

130. Douban

Douban is a Chinese social networking platform that allows users to document information and create content about movies, books, TV, activities in China, and more.

Douban has 60 million registered users and 150 million unregistered visitors.

Registered users get recommendations and add them to other social networking options; unregistered users get reviews and ratings of media.

Start Driving Traffic with These Social Sharing Sites

We’ve taken a peek into the digital universe, and what we’ve discovered is that it’s immense.

Each business is one of the millions hoping to succeed online.

Digital marketing is a comprehensive strategy for success, but only if you know which tools will help you get there.

More Resources:

11 Free Tools To Generate Ideas For Your Blog

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 blog is to find out what your audience is actually searching for in the search engines. The following tools are great ways to find out the terms your potential customers are using to find you.

Google Keyword Planner

Google Suggest

UberSuggest

HubSpot Keyword Tool

Let’s dig in and see how you can use each one for content creation.

The Google Keyword Planner was launched in place of the old Google Keyword tool. It can be used to search for keyword and ad group ideas. Enter a keyword or phrase, the URL of a landing page and/or an AdWords category, and the Keyword Planner will return some potentially relevant keywords.

Knowing what your customers are searching for is the first step in creating content that gets you found. The tool also gives every possible combination of keywords that you provide it with for help generating your long-tail keywords and blog titles.

Google Suggest is a super simple and often overlooked method of finding out what people are searching for. Simply type in your keywords and Google will suggest some variations of those terms which are highly searched.

And scrolling to the bottom of the search results page will provide you with an extra helping of related searches you can use for your blog titles — magic!

UberSuggest is a free keyword suggestion tool that makes good use of Google Suggest and other suggest services. Simply type a term into the search box, choose a language and a source and UberSuggest will extract suggestions for it.

With this keyword tool you can instantly get thousands of keyword ideas from real user queries — that means real people are using these keywords in the search engines so if they’re relevant to your business, you should be ranking for it. You can use it to get ideas for your next 100 blog posts and put your ideas in an editorial calendar.

The HubSpot keyword tool helps you understand what keywords are currently attracting people to your site. It also shows you relevant keywords that you might not be currently ranking well for. This helps you understand what topics you should be addressing in your content.

Simply input your keywords to see where you rank for them, how many visits your website is getting from them, and how difficult they are to rank for.

Using Social Tools and Real-Time Trends for Idea Generation

We have selected the following social tools for you to try out for generating ideas for your content.

Google Trends

Bottlenose

SocialCrawlytics

SEOGadget’s Content Ideas Generator

Quora

Social Inbox

HubSpot’s Blog Idea Generator

Google Trends helps you identify what topics are relevant for your country. It can also show if there are seasonal trends for different topics you are writing about and what are rising terms relevant to a topic. This will help you target the right content at the right time.

SocialCrawlytics is a great tool for helping you figure out what competitor content is resonating with their audience — an audience you just may want to reach, too. It crawls a site and shows how many social shares each URL has gotten.

Quora is the social question and answer platform. It can be a great resource of ideas for your various content topics. For example, if you search for “inbound marketing” you can see the top stories and trending questions. You can also look at questions that are currently unanswered.

To kick-start your creative process, the Blog Topic Generator will come up with a week’s worth of custom topics for you — all in a matter of seconds. Using keywords you provide, the tool will come up engaging titles tailored to those terms. That way, you’re always featuring relevant, but interesting posts on your blog.

Do let us know which of these tools you prefer and others you recommend that we have missed.

How Can We Change The Traffic

Encouraging focus on conversion optimisation has to be the way forward

For many companies, driving traffic to their websites is still the ultimate goal.It’s the way they measure the strength of their brand, and the the effectiveness of their campaigns.

There’s nothing wrong with this, as long as we understand that traffic is not the holy grail and certainly not the only purpose of interactive marketing. All kinds of marketing can be used for all business goals, depending on context, and sheer visitor numbers really don’t mean anything by themselves. For transactional sites in retail, travel and financial service the conversion points are obvious and there is much more focus on conversion optimisation. But many, many businesses don’t fall into this category and they’re not tracking the many forms of conversion. All types of sites have many micro-conversions that could be measured, but often aren’t.

Four critical questions about online traffic

Traffic is good. It’s even crucial. Without visitors to your website, you’ll never sell anything through online channels. That much is self-evident.

However, so many companies invest tons for measures to generate traffic, that they lose sight of the essentials:

What percentage of my visitors is relevant for my business?

How valuable are my website and online communication for the people I’m trying to reach or attract?

What cross-channel mix is best for creating the most cost-efficient traffic?

And most importantly: what do we do with visitors once they’ve landed on our website, blog, etc.?

Conversion is a mentality

And ultimately, there is one important parameter for seeing and improving results: conversion. Everyone knows it, but businesses do not turn that knowledge into action by building a systematic conversion optimisation process.

It is obvious that optimisation of conversion is still being treated as something superfluous by many businesses, when in fact, it’s a veritable Cinderella. The daily and incremental improvement of all cross-channel marketing activities, landing pages, etc. is a question of processes and most importantly of mentality.

By excessively focusing on traffic and the short-term, people all too often forget this.

Incremental growth by continuous cross-channel and multi-dimensional optimisation

In 2010, ZenithOptimedia said that of all the money that would be spent on traffic generation, only 2 to 3% would lead to effective conversion. Imagine what it would mean for your business if it grew by just one percent month after month. The incremental impact on the bottom line after a relatively short period of time would be huge.

It is therefore, time that more thought and resources be put into increasing results through continuous analytics and conversion improvement. And there is no business that cannot improve its conversion score because it’s a comprehensive and cross-channel never ending exercise encompassing content, media mix, landing pages, call-to-actions, etc.

Measure and improve each element, always a little more: use all conversion techniques, from A/B tests and usability improvements to content customisation and the interaction channels the customer or prospect can choose from.

This is much more important and profitable than forever chasing after more traffic. Again: it may be obvious, but it’s definitely not being done enough. Want proof? I recently found some data via Bryan Eisenberg that for every 95USD businesses spend on generating traffic, they only spend…one on conversion optimisation.

Knowing that we live in an online world where online penetration is high and people are overwhelmed by information and communication, that is a shocking low number.

In the end, optimising conversion is a matter of customer-centricity. People will only take action if something is perceived valuable by them. Not working on conversion means not improving the customer experience.

So I think building on marketers understanding of the importance of knowing the customer and delivering relevant engagement devices is one approach to make the case for more focus on conversion optimisation. What do you think? How do you make the case for conversion optimisation in your company or clients?

Seo Vs. Ppc: How They Work Together To Boost Your Business

You’ve heard the age-old question: If a tree falls in the forest but nobody is around to hear it, does it really make a sound?

The same could be said for your business online: If you invest in a web presence but nobody finds your business, does your web presence even exist?

If you want your business to exist online, digital marketing is your best bet. And some of the best digital marketing strategies help you get seen by people where they’re starting most of their searches for new businesses – on search engines like Google and Bing.

Many experts might say that you need one or the other – SEO versus PPC.

But, the reality is that you need both. Here, we’ll get into the SEO versus PPC debate to understand what each strategy is, how it works, and how SEO and PPC can work together to help you get even more customers and build your web presence.

What Is SEO?

To truly understand the SEO vs. PPC debacle, let’s first chat about SEO.

SEO stands for search engine optimization and is the practice of optimizing your web presence, including your website and offsite factors, to help you rank organically on Google and other search engines for relevant searches.

For example, if you’re a vet in Columbus, OH, you want your site to rank for a search like “vet near Columbus.”

Organic is another word for “unpaid,” so these are the results that show beneath paid search results on Google and can include the Google 3-pack results, featured snippets, and the rest of the organic results listed on the page.

Search engines use an algorithm that takes a lot of factors into consideration (we’re talking hundreds) when determining which search results to show for specific queries. With SEO, you’re optimizing for those factors so you can show up for relevant searches.

SEO entails both onsite optimizations — including the content on your site and the backend structure of your site – as well as offsite SEO factors like your listings, reviews, and social media sites.

Why SEO? 6 Benefits

SEO is a beneficial marketing strategy for a number of key reasons. Here are six benefits of SEO:

SEO Increases Your Brand’s Credibility

The higher you rank on search engines like Google, and the more often searchers can see you, the more credible your business seems. This is because people trust that Google and other search engines are providing them with the best results for their searches — which is partly why many searchers don’t go past the first page of Google.

SEO Is Free(ish)

You may spend some dough by partnering with an SEO agency to optimize your website to be easily searchable but you won’t be paying for the number of visits you receive or ongoing traffic as a result of your SEO efforts.

SEO Promotes Better Site Usability

In order to have better SEO results, your website needs to be in great shape, which is why SEO and website design go hand-in-hand. So, you basically get a two-for-one with SEO because optimizing your website for search engines enables it to become more user-friendly and easier to navigate with more readable and keyword-rich content.

Site traffic generated via organic searches translates into higher conversion rates for most sites. Why? Because in order to rank in search results for queries, your site and your content has to be relevant to that search.

SEO Has Sustained Success

Once you invest in an SEO strategy, it can take anywhere from three to nine months to start seeing success. But, that success is long-lasting because you’re putting in work to optimize the foundation of your website and your web presence and then continuing to build off that foundation with additional strategies.

So, it could take three months to start seeing some of your pages rank on Google, but you can continue ranking with minimal effort for many more months.

SEO Success is Self-Perpetuating

Once you start to rank high on search engines, it’s easier to continue ranking high and for other pages you publish to improve their rank. The better your rank, the more traffic you get, and the more traffic you get, the better your rank.

Related: See how your online presence stacks up with our website grader.

What Is PPC?

Next up, let’s talk about PPC.

Related: We discuss the differences between SEO vs SEM here.

Why PPC? 5 Benefits

There’s a reason so many businesses run PPC campaigns. It’s a highly successful marketing strategy for a lot of reasons.

PPC Gets You on Top of Results PPC Has a Controllable Cost

Although PPC costs money, you’re completely in control of how much it costs. Your PPC cost will never exceed the budget you set at the beginning of your campaign, so you always know how much you’ll be spending for your PPC.

PPC Gives Quick Results PPC Is Highly Targeted PPC Is Easily Measured

Image Source

3 Ways SEO & PPC Work Together

Now that you understand the differences between SEO and PPC plus the benefits of each, let’s talk now about why the conversation shouldn’t be SEO versus PPC but rather SEO plus PPC.

Here are three huge ways SEO and PPC work together to help your business:

A Combined SEO + PPC Strategy Boosts Results

We already know that running a marketing strategy that encompasses multiple tactics is your best bet at reaching consumers across the web. So it’s no surprise that running SEO and PPC together can boost your results.

An SEO + PPC Strategy Gives You More Chances of Getting Seen

As mobile search becomes more popular, organic results are getting forced further and further down the small screen’s page. PPC gives you more real estate on the page so you have a better chance of attracting searchers to your site.

But that doesn’t mean you can discount organic results, either. In desktop or tablet search results, Google My Business listings appear on the right-hand side of search results and also impact how you appear in Google Maps results. Plus, Google often uses information pulled from websites to flesh out its featured snippets.

After searching “leaky faucet repair Columbus,” I received this featured snippet as a result.

Running a combined strategy that includes both PPC and SEO gives you a better chance of appearing multiple times on a single search results page for relevant searches.

Running SEO + PPC Gives You More Marketing Data

You might not always be able to see results like that, but if you’re working on a combined approach, there are opportunities to execute on trends that you’re seeing from your campaigns based on the comprehensive marketing data you’re able to collect from each strategy.

Throw Out the SEO Vs. PPC Debate & Get Started with Both Stephanie Heitman

Stephanie is the Associate Director of Content for LocaliQ and WordStream. She has over 10 years of experience in content and social media marketing and loves writing about all things digital marketing. When she’s not researching the latest and greatest marketing news and updates, she’s probably watching reality TV with her husband, reading, or playing with her two pups.