101 Unique Blog Post Ideas to Grab
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As you probably know I not only blog here on SEO 2!
I also write for client blogs.
For years I pitched a dozen or more ideas to a select few blogs on a monthly basis.
Usually I sold around half of the ideas or even more of them.
I used other – additional – ideas for myself here on the blog. Still
so many unique blog post ideas are left unused. That’s sad!
I decided to publish my yet unwritten blog post ideas.
Unique Content Ideas That Haven’t Been Used Yet
Every one of these content ideas is as unique as I could make it.
I don’t use “headline formulas” etc. anymore.
Do you want to use one or more of them on your blog! No problem.
- I can write each of the posts for you! Starting at 200+ Euro/250+ Dollars. Just contact me now with your favorite idea!
- You can write the post yourself for 1/10 of the price and in case I like it I will link to it from this list. Just ping me!
- You can grab the idea for free and do it on your own for no charge but without additional benefits. I can’t help you then!
Here they are, 101 unique headline ideas and short summaries/teasers.
Choose your favorites or get inspired to find your won ideas!
Write to onreact at onreact.com to reserve your article ideas.
1. The Best Present for Busy Web Professionals and Their Families
The best things in life are free. Over the years I’ve learned how true that is.
Birthdays and Christmas are always a good reminder of that.
In some years I’ve given or received expensive presents. In others business was bad so I was too broke to buy presents at all without a credit card.
The older I get the more I realize that “being present” is the best present. How to prepare the gift of spending time together.
2. Localization Best Practices or Hello World! is Not Available in Your Country
It’s astounding how many websites fail at localization that is showing the right language or site to the appropriate audience. For example I live in Germany.
I use an English-language browser. Nonetheless I get served German translations of sites. Luckily I speak German.
What about tourists, expatriates or even traveling personnel? A select few sites get it right though: examples (KLM, Patagonia etc.)
3. Optimization for a Web Without Sites
In the near future the already ongoing process of making websites less important may become mainstream.
Data will be asked for and presented on Google and by other gatekeepers. Visitors won’t even see your site.
Does it make sense at all? How can you improve your chances of getting found without giving away everything to third parties?
4. Earning Links by Practicing Generosity
It’s not only on Christmas. Generosity is a very popular means of making people like you.
While you can’t buy friendship giving is the first step of a budding relationship.
Earning links on the Web can be often attributed to various kinds of generosity.
What can you give away to make people reciprocate by linking to you?
5. Wide-Spread Website Problems + Life-Saving Solutions
Some website issues are so common they are like the plague.
Sometimes I downright want to cold call up webmasters and offer to help them fix things. With
- ever changing Google webmaster guidelines
- mobile usage overtaking the “desktop”
- rapidly evolving social media some sites
just get left behind due to easily solved issues. Here are some life-savers that don’t require a site redesign.
6. You Won’t Believe How SEO Restored my Faith in Humanity
While the general public is ignorant or downright hostile towards the SEO industry those in the know – that is me and at least two other guys – appreciate it.
Experts realize how modern search engine optimizers literately fix the Web one link at a time.
In fact SEO has restored my faith in humanity recently. Here are the seemingly unlikely reasons and examples why.
7. Long Term Projects: Overcoming the Obstacles
Oh my. It’s already 2 years. 2 years of writing, preparing and promoting my upcoming ebook. It almost seems to be vaporware.
I was used to the instant gratification of social media prior to this large scale project.
Thus I had to develop some strategies to stay on track and overcome the obstacle course a long term project can put in your way.
8. There is No Race On the Web – Nobody Knows You’re a Dog
With news of race relations in the US getting worse again despite a “black” president I’d like to tell the story of my early Internet days.
It was when nobody knew I was a dog like a popular saying from the late nineties goes.
You can still succeed on the Web by not flaunting your skin color, gender, nationality and other personal aspects prone to get discriminated against.
9. Google’s New Mobile Testing Tool Lies
For the first time in a while I was glad that Google came up with a solution for a problem I was dealing with: testing sites on mobile.
I was indeed the first person to share the “Mobile-Friendly Test” tool.
Sadly the tool lies to you. It doesn’t truly assess how a site really works on mobile. Here’s why.
10. Are You Really Popular or Just Famous?
On the Web you can get quickly your 15 minutes of fame.
Ridiculing people for example or spreading viral “FAIL” videos will get you quickly out there. Yet
fame does not equal popularity.
Just because everybody knows you doesn’t mean you’re equally likable and popular.
Popularity sells more than fame.
11. Google Wants to See You Naked
Google changed its official technical guidelines and now requires full access to your CSS and JavaScript files. What does that mean?
Google wants to see you naked to check whether you have something to hide – just like the TSA on US airports.
Yes, even in case you haven’t done anything wrong this may be bad news for you.
12. Advanced SEO is Not About Complexity but Advancing in the Right Direction
A large marketing publication formerly known for its SEO expertise has come up with some pretty complicated pieces of onpage SEO advice.
After reading a few “advanced SEO” articles I got increasingly confused.
I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that I was time traveling to the distant past.
When people were obsessing about keyword density or PageRank sculpting.
Those were two of the most lamentable aberrations of the early search engine optimization industry. How to advance in the right direction?
13. Brand Message Optimization for Meaningless Businesses
Storytelling has become a widely used best practice with progressive businesses in recent years.
Yet just telling a random story is not enough.
You need to formulate and optimize your brand message beyond a catchy slogan:
telling stories without a meaning doesn’t suffice.
14. How to Write Appealing not Appalling Articles
It seems the art of writing is the last thing business publishers consider when blogging or otherwise creating content.
They sound like print brochures from the eighties, full of corporate lingo and bland arrogance.
Some corporations can get away with it, most businesses have to write for humans. How exactly?
15. Why Business Success is NOT About Money
I was surprised to find out that Rand Fishkin of Moz, one of the most successful entrepreneurs in my industry has been dealing with ongoing
- stress
- anxiety
- depression.
I rather suspected it’s burn out but I’m not a psychologist.
This is for me another proof that business success is not about money.
You need to be able to sleep well, eat healthy, spend time with family, friends etc.
Most importantly it’s about satisfaction. How do you achieve that?
16. Simple Hacks to Convert Static Websites to Responsive Design
I’m proud of myself. In an attempt to convert my decade old custom coded static website I have been able to find out
how to change most key aspects to responsive design with pretty simple means.
Here are some of the easy to implement the hacks I used so that you don’t have to redesign your whole site.
17. Will Web Push Outperform Feeds and Email for Publishers?
Usually I don’t believe the hype like Public Enemy.
Yet sometimes I spot a disruptive technology that’s likely to change the future quite early even without the tech pundits to lead the way.
Web Push seems to be such a paradigm shift.
It could easily replace feeds and email marketing for publishers. A closer look.
18. Three Excellent Analytics Tools You Probably Don’t Know Yet
Most people try to stay in the comfort zone of their Google Analytics software despite the sometimes
- flawed data
- feature creep
- complex UX
- scary privacy connotations.
There are plenty of alternatives around with 3 new ones you probably haven’t heard of yet:
Heap, Pt Engine, Databox
19. Are Google’s 200 Ranking Signals a Myth?
An intriguing article over at Moz argues that there are no 200 Google ranking factors.
Or if there are they are more like 10k of them.
Moz argues that we can’t know Google ranking factors so ideally we shut up altogether and don’t tell people what they could be.
Is it better to leave people in the dark about likely ranking signals to protect Google’ trade secrets like Eric Schmidt argues?
Can we educate the masses on ranking signals without knowing them for sure?
How to spread the knowledge without encouraging shortcuts?
20. Is Opportunism Necessary in SEO to Succeed?
When you listen to SEO practitioners you get the impression that no matter whether they are “white hat” or “black hat” all they do is opportunistic in nature.
The only difference between white hat and black hat is that the ones play by the rules while the others don’t.
Inherently they are the same trying to surf the waves Google makes. My approach is neither nor. I have my own way. Can it work?
21. Will Google Dominate the Internet of Things and Thus Control Your Life?
On the Web we already pretty much depend on Google tools and services.
Even people like me who are wary of Google use Google search, YouTube, Gmail and other services all the time.
Now that Google is paving the way of the IoT it seems in future we will grant even more control of our lives to Google.
Will we optimize our stores, homes and life so that Google ranks us better?
22. Short Guide to Choosing Your Audience Before You Start to Blog
Your best content will fail when you show it to the wrong audience.
It might even backfire. Just imagine showing a horror movie to children.
You need to consider the people sitting in the audience first before you actually start addressing them.
You can even select your audience by choosing your words wisely.
23. Why Bloggers Are the Best Parents and How to Improve Both Skills at the Same Time
Often I was struggling with my responsibility as a parent and “work at home” blogger.
Being at home while working doesn’t mean you can be a parent at the same time.
You mostly just witness what happens.
Then I made an effort to find the actual advantages I have compared to other parents as a blogger. I came up with plenty.
24. Easy Ways to Improve Usability to Grow Your Readership
Summaries, ToC, secondary headlines among others are excellent ways to mimic high class renowned publications.
Be like the New York Times to ultimately grow your readership. You can insert them manually or even use WordPress plugins to do so in many cases.
25. Putting the ‘Link is President’ Motto into Practice
In my popular ‘Link is President’ post I explained why monarchist metaphors from 200 hundred years ago are useless to explain the inner workings of the Internet.
Now that we know how the democratic Web is governed (by links) we need to apply our knowledge and take concrete steps.
What happens with all that potentially redundant content then?
26. Anticipating the Future of Google as an Automated Content Aggregator
In recently revealed plans of the so called Google Knowledge Vault the future of search looks bleak.
In essence there will be no Google search anymore.
Instead of search Google will provide automated summaries for each query based on scraped third party content with no human oversight.
With only “16%” of those facts confirmed Google will show up rumors and gossip dressed as facts about you instead of search results like until now. How to deal with that?
27. Google- or the Dehumanization of Search
With (visible) Google Authorship dead and Google+ long gone Google seems to have given up on the added social aspects of its search offering.
The completely automated future of search is about content appropriation from other websites.
How will this “Google-” impact businesses? Google minus people equals…?
28. Google’s Brave New World
Do you want a future when one giant corporation is controlling access to the world’s information and knowledge? Probably not, yet we’re almost there.
The time to preserve at least some freedom of the Internet, the market and ultimately the people is now.
What could a future controlled by Google with all its robots, drones and self-driving cars could look like?
29. Using Reverse Image Search to Claim Links
Tools like Google’s Search by Image or TinEye Reverse Image Search allow you to find out who is using your images and get credit where it’s due.
You can even automate searching for your images.
Claiming links that are rightfully yours or getting image royalties is just a matter of outreach then.
30. The Next Frontier: The Adaptive Web
Now that responsive sites are the norm to suit users on the go web developers and search engine optimizers alike notice that it’s not enough.
The web dev community is already introducing the concept of the adaptive Web which is similar to the idea of responsive SEO I introduced a few months ago.
In other words you can refer to the context-sensitive sites.
Adapting your site to the specific user experience in place and time is the future.
31. How to Tend your Evergreen Content so That it Blooms Each Year
After more than a decade of blogging and seeing some old blogs deteriorate while refreshing others regularly I’d like to share specific insights into long-term blogging success.
In particular techniques that allow your content to turn evergreen and bloom regularly.
Of course it’s mostly about updating but how exactly?
32. Can Google Redesign the Web?
Google Web Designer, its own Helvetica/Arial version called Roboto and it’s Web Starter Kit for HTML5 web developers are just some of the initiatives by Google to redesign the Web.
Can a company run by engineers succeed at redesigning large portions of the Web?
Do we have to adapt to Google’s web design guidelines like we had to its SEO rules?
33. Meet the People who Make or Break Your Online Business
One of the most important aspects of people analytics is to find out who actually is a valuable visitor and how to make that person happy.
Of course it’s not just one, not even one type of person. It also depends on the context. Content sites are different than ecommerce sites etc.
You can’t build up an independent online business when certain types of people are not visiting you at all though.
34. How Will the Internet of Things Affect Your Business Model?
One of the oldest online hypes that never really seemed to materialize is the so called “Internet of things”.
We were promised fridges that order groceries on their own already 15+ years ago.
Now I realized that in reality we’re already dealing with the Internet of things but differently than expected.
How will IoT affect common business models?
Can we optimize sites for things not people? Do we even need sites?
35. How to Optimize Business Websites for Memorability
Recently I consulted a SEO business from Asia on how to optimize their site for branding.
One of the most important aspects of it was that people would remember the site in the first place.
Until then they had just focus on organic results and thus looked very similar to hundreds of competitors.
36. How Many Audiences Can You Cater to?
After “content shock” many people have noticed that it’s not just about the content.
It’s also or rather predominantly about who is meant to look at it and be able to digest it.
The new approach of marketers is audience building.
Sadly they make the same mistake they made with content: they want more of it instead of specifically conceiving it.
37. Content Size vs Clarity of Message
Many publishers assume that there is some holy grail of content size, may it be the trendy long-form content or the meme like one: it’s not about the size.
The clarity of message is the deciding factor whether your next piece will succeed or not.
The message has to make sense in the first place!
38. Social Media Has Killed the Search Engine Star
Search engine traffic is dwindling now globally.
where do websites get traffic now from increasingly?
Do people really search less or do they rather discover now?
39. Learning Social Media Engagement from Larry Page
Unlike Sergey Brin who admitted that it was a mistake to use Google+
Larry Page seemed to be more than ever excited about the rumored to be doomed Google social network.
Taking a closer look at how Larry Page used Google+.
Would it also work for you? You shouldn’t do it his way in most cases. Who was right after all?
40. How to Make People Stay Longer on Your Site
While most SEO is about getting new visitors via search, social media or directly the visitors who are onsite get neglected.
The only way many marketers think about visitors is to push them down the sales funnel.
Many publishers are not sale oriented. The content is their actual offer. How do you make visitors stay, click and scroll?
41. GoDaddy Offers SEO Package for 2,69$ a Month – Is the Risk Worth it?
GoDaddy, the largest web hosting company in the world offers a SEO package for a ridiculously low price.
Is GoDaddy SEO worth a try or rather potentially harmful to your business?
Dissecting the offering. Can it be so simple and cheap?
42. How Google Might Measure Your Viral Score
A newly discovered Google patent from 2011 sheds some light on how Google might determine your “viral score”.
Google can determine the probability of a content piece to get shared from your profile.
They can find out how likely your shares will spread on social networks and the Internet as a whole. A look at some of the metrics described.
43. How to Create a Successful Meme
It’s not necessary to create ultimate guides, white papers or videos to get popular on the Web.
The contrary is the case.
So called memes that spread the widest can by now even get generated with online tools.
What are the key ingredients of a successful meme? Eye-Catcher, readability, humor are some.
44. The Key Elements of a Business Website
When optimizing websites for businesses of all sizes I notice many of key elements are missing.
For example things like a clearly visible
- address
- contact data
- call to action
- motto
- value proposition
Other elements are indeed redundant and just clutter these sites: huge menus, repetitive keywords, irrelevant claims.
45. How Many SEO Experts Do You Need to Change a Light Bulb?
The perhaps most popular anti-SEO joke is the one about the “lightbulb, light bulb, bulb, lamp, light…”.
By now this type of humor seems to become reality in a different sense.
Do you need a dedicated SEO team consisting of a content writer, link builder, programmer etc. to get into the limelight?
46. The Vegan Way to Get an Audience
A vegan diet seems very limiting to most people while in reality you feel a lot better and are healthier the less meat and fewer other animal products you eat.
On the Web the two largest sources of fat and things detrimental to your well-being are Google and Facebook. They are like Mc Donald’s and Burger King.
Instead of buying fast traffic you could rely less on those fat corporations and get a healthier audience mix for your site or business as a whole.
47. Restore Your Readers’ Faith In Humanity by Dropping These Things in Headlines
What can we learn from Upworthy, Huffington Post and BuzzFeed viral headlines?
Different things can work to get people’s attention.
You don’t have to rely on repetitive and boring “Top 10 Tips” kinds of headlines most “success formulas” urge you to use.
Misleading headlines that don’t deliver are another issue.
48. Showing the Google Partner Badge Without Cheating Your Visitors
Now Google allows you to “allege a special relationship with Google“- a thing that was forbidden in their guidelines for years – by adding a Google Partner badge.
Isn’t that a conflict of interest? It’s a bit like having a doctor partner with Philip Morris.
At least we need to take a look how you can do it without misleading your visitors.
49. Can Feedly Boards Replace Google+ for Crowdsourced Social News?
The prolonged Google+ agony has left me kind of shaken.
Did I waste lots of effort and time again on another Google service just to lose my audience there again?
Where else can I engage and get my daily dose of crowdsourced news from.
When thinking about dead Google+ I received a mail from Feedly, a service I have started using a while ago for reading blogs.
Apparently Feedly added a new “boards” feature among others which makes it similar to Google+ collections and circles. Is it a viable alternative?
50. Twitter Tools that Make Sense of Your Activity and Engagement
Yes, it’s been many years that I use Twitter almost daily.
I do it on most days with the exception of weekends but sometimes I also share something on Saturday and Sunday.
I’m not the exception, other users are engaging even more more actively, on the go and after work.
Which social media tools for Twitter and beyond help you to add value to the service and engage in meaningful conversation?
51. People Oriented Optimization is Not POO
Over the years I have witnessed lots of attempts to replace or rebrand SEO/Search Engine Optimization, both the acronym and the discipline as a whole.
Why do they fail? It’s not just because of the cryptic acronyms.
In reality the obvious alternative many experts already subconsciously embrace is people oriented optimization. It’s not “POO” though.
Just take a look at all the “people” articles recently published.
52. Can You Still Get Away With Selling Links for PageRank?
There are still examples of a link sellers blatantly selling PageRank links and getting away with it while ranking perfectly well for keyphrases like [buy PR8 link].
Does Google fail to deliver on their spam fighting measures when it comes to blatant offenders while at the same time penalizing legitimate webmasters and bloggers for any petty issue?
53. How to Green Your Online Business
There are electric cars, organic food and renewable energy to name just a few trends towards a sustainable and ecologically responsible business.
The SEO industry seems to be behind the times or nobody talks about the environment.
I want to show you how I greened my SEO business without bragging about it yet. I use an ethical bank, renewable electricity, organic food from a coop etc.
54. SEO for Internet Radio Stations
I listen a lot to Internet radio but there are a lot of issues with Web based radio stations I’d like to point out.
There are some best practices to consider as well: offer mp3 streams. Show artist and song names. Don’t change stream URL.
Do not load Flash only players. Offer stream address right onsite. Update Vtuner, Reciva directory entries etc.
55. Expanding the Site Auditing Process to Meet the Demand of the Modern Web
When I devise a site audit I don’t just cover SEO in its old school or technical sense.
By now there are several key elements of a site that reach beyond SEO.
I always include branding, conversion optimization, user experience and social media integration for example.
You can even refer to those without using fancy acronyms and industry lingo.
56. Freedom of Traffic: Cutting Out the Google and Facebook Middlemen
With both Google and Facebook trying to sell you back your organic reach via ads the good old days of “free traffic” are seemingly gone.
Paying gatekeepers can’t be the only solution.
We have to reconsider and revive true sources of free traffic.
Let freedom of traffic reign again attracting brand, mail and type in visitors.
57. The Growth Hack that Really Works Without Hurting Your Site
Some of the so called growth hacking techniques are simply obnoxious. Many growth hacks ostracize visitors.
Common growth hacking techniques harm your site in the long run while the fast tracked growth may be just a mirage.
Some growth hacks really do work though. Things like what I call “instant affiliation” for example. It works like real affiliate marketing but is much simpler.
58. Attracting Mail Subscribers Without Pushing People
In recent years email marketing has made a comeback. It is also considered part of inbound marketing by now.
Sadly email marketing often leads to often annoying opt-in pop ups that overlay the site content.
This way it will make the user experience horrible. Are there ways to encourage people to subscribe without pushing them?
59. Harnessing Humor to Spread the Word
On April 1st it’s evident: hilarious and downright bizarre news spread like wildfire even in case they are completely made up and often despite people not getting the joke.
In any case humor works well to make news spread by word of mouth.
How can you use humor in your daily publishing practice to get more traction on the Web?
60. Reverse Egobait: Using Influencer Names to Get Popular on the Web
There are many examples of how a reply to a tweet by an influencer or celebrity led to a massive wave of viral spread.
This technique can even for a niche topic like search engine optimization.
I’d like to call it reverse egobait because it’s not meant to make the influencer respond but his supporters and opponents.
61. Google and Facebook Outrank You for Your Own Name – Now What?
Can you compete against the advertising giant when it comes to your own name?
Or does Google own you?
I have been outranked by Google despite optimizing my own sites for my name and not optimizing my social media account or Wikipedia for it.
How can you reclaim your name?
62. Now that Google Forbids Legit Tactics: Is ALL SEO Black Hat?
You may have wondered already: now that almost all formerly legit link building tactics like
- widgets
- infographics
- guest articles
have been forbidden by Google – does white hat SEO still exist?
Do we need to embrace black hat SEO because we’re looked upon as such anyway?
63. When is the Best Time to Publish Your Content?
Of course there is not a single time that is best to publish your content but there are several things to consider when doing it.
Many blogs fail at publishing at the right time.
It’s like showing a movie when nobody is in the cinema.
It’s not difficult once you understand your audiences.
64. How to Use Guest Blogging for Negative SEO
Now that Google at least unofficially hates guest articles for SEO you can use them for negative SEO aka hurting your competition on Google.
To prove my point I wrote a fake guest post in the name of Matt Cutts and pointed SEO (Seriously Evil Obstruction) links at his site.
65. What the Local Drug Dealers Taught Me about Inbound Marketing
I live in a hip inner city area of Berlin large numbers of tourists visit to get wasted.
They even create a lively drug market by providing a steady demand.
When I do my workout or walk the dog I meet drug dealers every day by now.
I have noticed a lot of quaintly familiar aspects of their marketing strategy. They are real inbound marketers!
66. Will Google Kill My Job?
This is the cover story of one of the largest German weeklies. It’s true:
Google grabs markets, content and bullies webmasters to an unparalleled degree.
Whose livelihoods will be endangered in the recent future?
67. Ranking on Google by Way of Pinterest
Business people love to neglect Pinterest. Google on the other hand loves Pinterest not only for image search.
I have taken a closer look at why and how some people rank on Google with their pins.
When you use Google Search by Image you mostly get Pinterest results.
How to make people spread your product images?
68. Real Life Link Building Techniques for Busy Adults
Young people socialize all the time.
As adults we have so many tasks to accomplish every day both at work and at home that socializing doesn’t happen that much anymore. It requires effort.
Now add real life link building to it and we get overwhelmed or do we?
69. What Does Google Need Scary Terminator-like Robots for?
Google was on a shopping spree of robotics companies in 2013, including scary robots made for the military. You may wonder what the strategy behind it was.
Pundits were at a loss what Google plans are. I have some of my own ideas.
No, I don’t mean Skynet despite it seeming likely.
It’s about Asimov and I,Robot like automation of course.
70. How to Learn Virality from Self-Replicating Memes
Memes are the norm on the Web today.
In the marketing arena people claim that long form content is the best while the majority proves otherwise.
Memes spread like wildfire. We can’t express everything with memes though.
Lets just learn from memes how to spread virally:
- humor
- emotions
- ease of transfer
- timeliness
- no ownership.
71. What Does SEO Mean this Year?
The SEO landscape is ever-changing and its change accelerating in recent years.
What does SEO mean today?
Is search engine optimization still what it was a year, two or five years ago? The most important changes.
Ideally you update your definition every year because otherwise you will be optimizing for a past reality that doesn’t even exist anymore.
72. Google Sabotage: 5 Ways to Get Your Competition Penalized or De-Indexed
With all the Google penalty insanity going on stronger than ever there are by now at least several ways not only to harm competing sites by to get them downright de-indexed by Google!
Here are ways to sabotage your competition on Google:
Creating duplicate content, snitching over at Google/outing, DCMA take down notice, hacking the site, pointing unnatural links at them.
73. Hands On Link Building for Manual Action Heroes
Recently Google has created a lot of manual action on the Web, mostly negative.
SEOs have been manual action heroes for a long time doing manual link building for example.
By now manual link building meets social networking to work hand in hand.
Outreach and relationship building are also common place. How to combine old and new techniques.
74. Buying Paid Links Where Google Does
Paid Links aka text link ads are against the Google Webmaster Guidelines since 2007.
Many text link brokers have gone out of business ever since.
There is still a lively black market for paid links. That’s of course risky.
On the other hand there is a simple solution how you can buy links without getting caught: buy paid links where Google buys them. Examples.
75. Creative Ways to Earn Shares & Links You Haven’t Thought of Yet
How to
- use reverse image search
- third party comments
- exposing Google
- admitting security vulnerabilities
to get links and shares.
76. Google: The New Personalized on Demand Web Portal
It’s strange how Google that replaced early Web portals like Yahoo!
It is turning into a personalized on demand Web portal!
Here’s how Google results turned into portal-like user experience nightmares:
internal links, clutter, one stop services, mix up of ads and content, huge banner ads.
77. The Slow Downturn of Facebook and What Comes Next
How the largest social network on the planet shoes signs of aging we remember from Friendster, MySpace and what people (will) use instead.
By now it’s obvious that teenagers do not use Facebook itself anymore.
They rather choose services like Instragram or WhatsApp that have been acquired by Facebook but they already move on.
78. A Global Conspiracy of Client Acquisition
This is a real life story on how people around the world “conspired” to get me my a SEO client that resides 10 minutes walking distance from my home.
People from Spain the USA and Germany were involved in this global conspiracy.
At the end of it I made a website audit for a local client I wouldn’t even have know otherwise.
79. Why and How to Add nofollow When Linking Google Sites
There is a growing discontent with Google policies.
Especially Google’s push to make all built links nofollow has evoked an unusual reaction.
Disgruntled webmasters add nofollow to Google links.
There are also many issues with links to Google services.
They often end up dead or redirected to rather offtopic pages, sites or completely new services.
What to consider when linking out to Google?
80. How to Keep Your Audience Happy
Once you get the attention of a significant number of people the next challenge is to keep those users coming back.
You want to make people happy again and again.
Introducing some successful techniques to achieve returning visitor bliss.
81. Twitter: The Formerly Only Social Networking Site not Limiting Your Reach
Both Facebook and Google+ artificially limit your access to your following and thus throttle your organic reach.
Twitter was the only social networking service that showed your updates to everybody who follows you.
Not anymore. What does this mean? Twitter has an algorithm.
How to optimize for Twitter’s current algo without spending too much time and effort on it.
82. The Best Ways to Succeed Doing Social SEO
What kinds of content do work for social SEO.
How to engage to get a lot people to react.
How to share links to get the most traction both in search and the social site itself.
You want probably believe it but some types of content get still dozens or hundreds of “likes” and shares.
Here are some examples from the wild.
83. A Plan for Earning Links from Disgruntled Customers
The venerable MediaTemple hoster was acquired by the Walmart of web hosting, Godaddy.
Many people were a bit surprised to say the least.
What are the ramifications for many Web professionals?
How could you actually benefit from such a situation to get links from disgruntled customers?
This is not a post about MediaTemple in particular but using them as an example.
Services often change in radical ways. You can take advantage of such moments.
84. How to Ostracize Google & Your Visitors Using a CDN
So called Content Delivery Networks are becoming quite popular lately to speed up a website.
They have some tricky side-effects though you need to take into account.
Are the benefits of speeding up a website using a CDN really worth it?
Can the actual side-effects outweigh them? I’m afraid they can.
85. Timing Mistakes Most Business Blog Publishers Make
Timing is key when publishing but most business bloggers still do not take it into account. Is your audience awake?
Is it in front of a screen? Does it focus on something else right now?
Du you publish work related content during the weekend or on Friday evening?
There are many mistakes you can make. How to please your audience instead.
86. Can Social Media Sites Replace Google Traffic?
With less and less traffic coming from Google many webmasters consider focusing more on social media.
Can social sites replace Google traffic? The answer is of course it depends.
There are some cases where it can, some where it can’t. How to find out for yourself.
87. Do You Still Blog or Do You Already Create Content?
Blogging is not enough these days it seems.
You have to create content according to a content strategy to support your content marketing.
Is content creation that complex already or should you relax instead?
Find out by asking the right questions. Maybe blogging will still suffice for you?
88. Simple but Hugely Effective Viral Spread Technique
Just recently I have witnessed a startup using a really simple technique to spread the news about it’s new tool coming out of beta. It was hugely effective.
This was one of the best working growth hacks I witnessed.
You earned a discount by spreading the word about them. This post is about how they did it.
89. There Are no Boring Topics Only Bad Writers
I often read advice on how to deal with boring topics. There are no really boring topics, some are just easier to write about than others.
Writing about Angelina Jolie is not a problem.
Writing beginners will have difficulties to write about drain pipes though. How to deal with “difficult” topics or write about things that aren’t popular by themselves yet.
90. The Return of Cool Domains: Why .us .is better than .me for Branding
Remember del.icio.us and the whole wave of cool Web 2.0 retro web addresses?
Startups and publishers again try to gain a competitive advantage with so called TLDs.
There are true benefits of cool sounding ambiguous top level domain names.
A closer look at .us. .me and .is and other examples.
91. Gaining Trust the Fast Way by Highlighting Credibility
Web users take a quick look at your site and move on or not.
Trust is a key factor in decision making whether to stay or go.
How can we establish trust before someone knows us?
We can by highlighting our credibility.
Here are the typical ways to make people trust us on the Web.
92. Has Inbound Marketing Gone Mainstream Already?
When reading online marketing publications you read a lot about inbound
By now the inbound trend is already mainstream
Does the majority apply these strategy?
93. Treating Blogger Outreach as a Social CRM Task
Social CRM is pretty big by now yet you rarely read about it in search publications.
You can use it for more native SEO tasks too.
Blogger Outreach is one of them.
94. Does Google Want Business Owners to Abandon Organic for Paid Search?
Looking at the slowly unfolding changes of the Google search landscape one can not ignore the fact that it gets harder each day to get attention via organic search.
More webmasters get pushed to use Google ads.
Does Google want to us to stop optimizing for organic reach? Can we still just optimize for “free” traffic?
95. Boring SEO Tasks Part Two: Performing SEO Audits, Disavowing Links etc. Without Killing Yourself
The second part of the tedious/boring SEO tasks solutions post will deal with
- performing SEO audits
- disavowing links etc.
- using playful automation e.g.
96. Using Exotic Top Level Domains for Perfect Brand Recognition
.us, .is, .me and similar domains can work well despite being “exotic” compared to .com domains. A positive examples – good.is –
Others like .ly .co etc. can be risky like the o.co example shows.
What about new and longer domain names.
Do they also make sense or just confuse people?
Another of my favorite magazines is positive.news – that also works!
97. Coining Terms to Get Branded Keywords
How you can create industry terms, product names etc.
Why? To positively influence your branding and SEO.
Making up words is easy, can be fun and has long term tangible benefits.
98. Alleviate the Pain of Interaction by Rewarding Engagement
Onsite techniques to encourage engagement, e.g. returning, clicking, commenting, sharing, debating, community building.
How to reward your visitors with attention or virtual perks so that they become more active.
It’s not just for social media. You can make it work on your own site as well.
99. How to Flush Your SEO Down the Toilet
Some SEO mistakes are so grave that you basically destroy all of your SEO efforts.
I have seen actual clients do it and can tell you how they did it.
These are sad but true stories of failure to learn from.
It would be tragic to repeat those mistakes.
Many people make them out of ignorance though.
100. The Quantum Mechanics Induced Social Media Strategy
Modern quantum physics is teaching us to view the world we have taken for granted with completely new eyes.
Quantum mechanics can teach us about the way people interact too.
How can you adapt the fantastic new techniques from quantum mechanics to online interaction?
101. 35 Reasons Why Your Website is no Longer Ranking on Google
There is an astonishing number of ranking issues you can have with Google.
Some of them have nothing to do with your site, others have nothing to do with Google and it’s solely your fault.
For the average webmaster it’s hard to even come up with an explanation for most traffic drops.
Here are some very common problems many sites face.
Writer’s Block? Let Me Help!
Do you know what writer’s block is?
Do you suffer from one or the other right now?
Find 101 content ideas above!
You haven’t found a single one you like?
I can also provide you with custom new ones, also specifically for your industry.
Just send me a message to onreact at onreact.com
Updated: April 25th, 2018.
Updated: April 6th, 2017. I made some of the ideas more evergreen and added readability measures.
* Creative Commons image by Bernhardt Latzko