One of the ways I use to increase my website’s search engine
rankings is using guest posts. Guest posting is the process of writing and
publishing an article on someone else’s blog. You are not part of the team and
often just posting occasionally to share your knowledge on certain topics. I
have a blog on my website where I share useful information with people. I also
contribute to external blogs and I would link back to related articles on my
own blog. This method allows you to build backlinks while contributing to other
people’s blogs. There are 3 ways that guest posting can help increase your website’s
traffic:
Search Engine
Rankings
This is the first and most obvious way; posting guest posts
on other people’s blogs and linking back to your blog’s content would build
backlinks for your website which will improve your search engine rankings. Organic
traffic (traffic from search engines) is one of the best ways to generate
traffic because you only need to put in the work once and you will constantly
get traffic.
Build relationships
with other blogs
Other blogs require content and if you can contribute
something useful to their blog, they don’t mind helping out your blog as well.
This is the same as networking with other people. You are building
relationships with other bloggers and they will be able to help you build an
online presence. A large amount of online conversations come from bloggers,
especially on social media like Facebook and Twitter. By becoming friends with
these bloggers, you are effectively growing your influence in the social media
world and this will help your own website grow.
Interacting with new
people
Guest posting introduces you to new people because you are
posting on established community and you will be able to interact with their
audiences. For large blogs, it is common for the audience to leave blog
comments about the topic and you will be able to interact with these people who
may end up becoming fans of your own blog. Try to add value to the discuss and
interact with these people and you will see a positive return on investment.
However, do not try to sell your products and if you do promote your products,
make it natural. Only mention it in your content if its related to the topic or
leave a link in your biography. You don’t want to annoy other people because
this will make you famous for the wrong reasons.
The important thing for guest posting is linking to relevant
content. I allow other people to make guest posts on my website as well as I
want new perspectives on topics, and this gives my blog more engaging content
which will benefit both my blog and the guest posters. At the end of the day,
if you add value to other people’s blog, it will benefit you too.
With so
many inspirational stories from people who started a blog and became rich and
famous in no-time, it’s only natural to want to do the same thing. Sadly, where
there are dozens of stories about success, there are thousands of stories about
failure. How do you make sure that your blogging
experience is a pleasant one, with a minimum amount of stress and
fear? Follow these tips, and you’ll see that starting a blog can be a fun and
exciting process.
1. Have
an idea
It’s not
enough to simply want to start a blog. This is a great first step but you also
should have a topic to write about. First, it should be something you’re
interested in. You wouldn’t want to force yourself to produce at least a few
lines every time you decide to write a post, would you? Secondly, it
should be something other people can be interested in, too. Ask yourself, are
there people who’re just as passionate about this as you are? Of course, your
style of writing can be so fascinating that it will make your readers
interested in anything. Still, it helps to know from the start that you’ll
write about something people are concerned about.
2. Choose
a blogging platform
Now that
you know what you’ll share with your audience, you need to figure out where
you’re going to do that. There are many platforms out there; most bloggers,
however, recommend going for WordPress. It’s very easy to use, it has a lot of
layouts that you can use, your readers will be able to interact with you
without having any difficulties, and these are just three of its many
advantages. At this stage, you’ll also need to choose between a free
platform and hosting. A free blog sounds tempting but it won’t allow you to
create your personal domain name, you’ll have many limitations when it comes to
uploading your content and, most importantly, you won’t even own your blog. It
sounds weird but everything you write will belong to the owner of the platform
you’re using, and they might decide to delete your blog if they don’t like it.
That’s not something you want to happen, so it’s best to go for
self-hosting.
3. Think
of a catchy domain name
Remember
that a domain name will be your blog’s address on the internet, so think
carefully when you’re choosing it. Let the name be something personal, relevant
to your topic, but also memorable. Obviously, it has to be completely original
and not owned by anyone else. It can be very tricky to come up with a great
name but don’t go with the first idea that jumps into your head. Keep
brainstorming, and you’ll find what you’re looking for.
4. Design
your blog
It’s
crucial to have interesting content on your blog, but a good design plays a big
role as well. Having a great design is the first step towards attracting a new
audience when you’re just starting. It should reflect your personality and go
well with the blog’s main topic. It also should be easy to navigate because if
it isn’t, people aren’t very likely to stay on your
blog.
5. Don’t
go into blogging for the money
This is
arguably the most important tip. If you start a blog focusing exclusively on
the money that you’ll earn, you probably won’t be able to enjoy this process
that much. You’ll constantly be under a lot of stress because you aren’t making
any money or aren’t making enough. Go into blogging because you have
something you want to share with the world; because there’s a topic that you’re
really interested in, and you think that others might be interested to hear you
talk about it. It’s ironic but, having this philosophy, you’ll start earning
more money more quickly. And you’ll have so much fun while you’re writing posts
and interacting with your audience that money won’t be your primary goal.
Following
these tips will help you build a successful blog but if you still have any
questions about starting a blog, leave us a comment below and we are happy to
help you.
You may be very happy when someone contacts you on your
website requesting for a quote for your Web Design service with a budget of $5,000
to $10,000. This shows that your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) efforts has
paid off. However, you should be very careful when random people contact you
online requesting for your services. We recently received multiple Web Design
requests that looks very odd and we knew that something wasn’t quite right. We
all know that there are lots of online scams, so we need to be very careful
when selling services online. As an international Web Design company, we serve
customers from all around the world and it can sometimes difficult to
differentiate between legitimate customers and scammers, when you can’t meet up
with them due to location limitations. In this article, we will provide you
with tips on how to identify potential scammers who may request your services.
How the Scam works?
These scams are called the Third-Party Transfer Scam, also
known as the Payment Reversal Scam. Before we let you know how the scam works,
we would like you to take a look at the first email we received from the
scammer:
“My wife has small scale business which i want to turn into large scale business now it located in MI and the company is based on importing and exporting of Agriculture products such as Kola Nut, Gacillia Nut and Cocoa so i need a best of the best layout design for it. Can you handle that for me ?. so i need you to check out this site but i need something more perfect than this if its possible .https://agroamerica.com/en/…. the site would only be informational, so i need you to give me an estimate based on the site i gave you to check out, the estimate should include hosting and i want the same page as the site i gave you to check out and i have a private project consultant, he has the text content and the logos for the site.
Note:
1. She want the same number of pages with the example site i gave you to check excluding videos and blogs.
2. She want only English language
3. She doesn’t have a domain yet but she want the domain name as yourtopfarmproduce.com
4. you will be updating the site for my wife.
5. The private project consultant is also working on how to provide the images, logos and content for the site.
6. Her budget is $5000 to $10000”
Firstly, you can already see a few odd things about this
email. The first thing is this person claims to be from MI, I am assuming Michigan,
USA? However, his English is very poor, has bad grammar and it doesn’t sound
like someone from USA. Interestingly, we were on Google Analytics when he used
our contact form and we found out that this person was actually from Nigeria. When
we looked at their name online, there was actually someone with the same name from
Michigan, USA so they are pretending to be someone else. For privacy reasons,
we won’t mention names in this article.
Another weird thing is that all they want is to copy another
website and there are very little requirements. The reason is because they want
to send you the money quickly so they are giving you very basic requirements.
So now lets go into how the scam works. As you can see with
the scammer, he has a very large budget and also a private consultant. The private
consultant is actually the scammer himself. When you give him a quote, he will
just accept your quote and then he will pay you more than your quoted amount.
He will then make up very lame excuses like he is too busy to pay his private
consultant so he sends you extra money so that you can transfer the money to
the private consultant on behalf of him. The truth is that the scammer is using
a stolen credit card to pay you so when the actual owner of the credit card
requests a chargeback, they will take back all the money that the scammer paid
for the quote and you ended up losing money equivalent to the private
consultant’s charge.
How to spot and prevent these scams?
Here are some tips to help you spot and prevent these scams:
Use Contact Form: We
use WordPress’s Contact Form 7 on our website and one feature that we use is the
tracking of the sender’s IP address. As I mentioned earlier, the scammer was pretending
to be someone from the United States but they were located in Nigeria. Check their
IP address to see if they are actually from the location they claim to be in. If
you are collecting IP addresses, make sure that you are GDPR compliant.
Poor English: Maybe
they are a legitimate customer and English is not their first language but I
would be a little bit more careful if they English is poor, especially if they
claim to be from an English speaking country.
Google their message:
If you are unsure if they are a legitimate customer, google their message. A
lot of scammers are using the same template message to request web designs. If
you find a similar message online, do not reply to their message.
Bank Transfer: Chargeback
scams are very common for PayPal and Credit Card payments but you cannot
request chargebacks from bank transfers so receiving payment using bank
transfer is one way of preventing these scams. If you are a CryptoCurrency fan
like us, you can also accept that as a form of payment as there are also no
chargebacks available.
Multiple Messages: A few weeks after our Agriculture product web design request, we received another one:
“I just open a new elementary school which I run now and I need a website for my school to grow, So I need you to go through this example link site: https://www.birmingham.k12.mi.us/beverly, but I need something more perfect than this if possible, I will like you to get back to me with an estimate and the estimate should include hosting and I want you to understand I want the same page as the example site I gave you to check and I want only English language and I want you to know you will be updating the site for me. I want the site up and running before end of November and also I don’t have a domain name yet and i will prefer: Marilynhyneselementerysch.net. My budget is $5000-12000 for the web design, I have a private project consultant, she has the text content and the logos for the site with the image artwork, so please go ahead and check the example website and get back to me with an estimate cost also I will like to know if you are the owner or the manager and do you accept credit card and check as payment. Thank you”
Again, there is a high budget and another private
consultant. Interestingly, this time, they message us the same message twice
within 3 hours. If they send the same message multiple times then it must be a
scam.
Never Pay a third party on behalf of a client: Never ever pay a third party on behalf of a client. If the client sends you extra money for you to pay on behalf of them, reject the request and refund them the extra money. If they make a fuss about it, refund them in full and reject the project. It is not worth taking the risk.
We hope that this article can help you prevent being victims of scams. These scammers are not just targeting web designers but also graphics designers and other digital agencies so be very careful! Thankfully, we didn’t fall into this trap as we knew something was very odd since receiving the first email. If you receive similar emails, feel free to post them in the comments below as this can help other people identify these scams.