How To Make Money Online

Use Lucrative Amazon Categories - Affiliate Tips for Beginners

Who uses Amazon as an affiliate, may have already noticed that not every product category is equally lucrative

How you can earn more with the selection of the right product categories, you will learn in my entry-level tip. Lucrative Amazon categories offer higher commissions and other benefits

I give practical tips and examples

Problematic categories on Amazon

But let's first come to the problematic categories on Amazon. It's true that Amazon has different percentage commissions

And that was aggravated by a change in pay in early March

For some of the categories, the brokered sales are now divided into directly qualified purchases and indirectly qualified purchases. The difference is whether a user who clicks on an Amazon affiliate link on our affiliate website buys exactly the product or product from the same category. If so, then there are higher commissions, if not, then there is a very low commission of only 1.5%

Many affiliates complain because of this change less revenue. This is partly because they are active in the product categories affected by the change. In addition, it is a disadvantage if you have many different types of visitors and also thematically set too broad

Here it is better if there is a clear content focus and the people who come to their own affiliate website, also want to buy exactly the type of product that is presented there

An example is my adventure-Brettspiele.de website. There it comes, not surprisingly, to board games. And only for board games. The proportion of directly qualified purchases is correspondingly high. In May this was 95%, so I benefited from the provision change in the Toys category. In May my toy commission was 5.9%, while before the change it was fixed at 5%

Use Lucrative Amazon Categories

But not in every category is this always the case. There are simply categories, the lump sum less commission

So there are only 1% commission in the categories "TV and home theater", as well as "smartphones and mobile phones". Yes, they are popular categories, but on the one hand, you really have to generate a lot of sales in order to earn good revenue with 1% commission. On the other hand, these product categories are quite competitive and there are many affiliate websites in this area

One way to do it better is to select a category that does not have this new rule and that will give you a very good commissions. These include the categories "Books", "Car & Motorcycle", "Musical Instruments", "Baby Articles", "Pet Products" and others. There are e.g. always 7% commission. There you are on the safe side

Of course, it is impossible to predict whether there will be any further changes to the commission structure in the future. Therefore, one should include other factors for lucrative Amazon categories

As written above you should be very focused to pick the right readers. These should already bring a purchase interest. It helps if the products have no need for explanation. Watches are e.g. such a category. There are some peculiarities, but a clock is not necessary to explain. Such products are often bought online

Practical tips

To get the highest commissions from Amazon, you should link directly to the individual products that interest the user, and not just general link to the homepage or categories. This ensures that more directly qualified purchases take place

In addition, it pays to go into product categories that are emotionally charged. Here people are not so rational when shopping and like to spend more. These are e.g. Topics like hobby, pets and love

It is also worthwhile to rely on products that are poorly comparable online. So, as a user, you quickly compared the price of a video game online. This applies, for example also for electronics of famous brands. It is better to promote other products, such as aquariums, furniture, clothing, garden sheds and the like, where you can not easily compare prices online

cheap vs. cheap expensive products

So there are many lucrative Amazon categories, you just have to get it right. But there are always major differences of opinion when it comes to promoting cheap or expensive products

Of course, cheaper products are more easily bought online. Since the purchase threshold is quite low. But you have to give it quite a lot, so it's worth it. Every single commission is low

On the other hand, expensive products pay a rather high commission per sale. There is significantly less sales

I have quite good experiences with niche website with high-price products made, but for the entry I would prefer personally cheaper products between 50 and 200 euros recommend

Conclusion

There are many lucrative Amazon product categories with high commissions, but you should also pay attention to a few other factors. Especially the new commission structure offers opportunities, but also pitfalls

Use Round-Up Articles for More Revenues - Affiliate Tips for Beginners

How you can use your round-up article to generate more revenue, you'll learn in my today's article

Of course, I first go into what round-up articles are and how you create them

In addition, I show examples of my own blogs and affiliate websites and describe my experiences

More revenue can be generated in different ways. So you can, for example attract more visitors to their own website, which then usually automatically ensures more sales

But you can also build more confidence by not only making recommendations yourself, but other experts as well. This is where the round-up article comes in

It is, so to speak, a group interview in which you interview several people on a topic. So you could ask several podcasters, which microphone they use and why. The answers are then packaged in an article and published this

The advantage of this is that you do not advertise your own products here, but leave it to third parties who have a certain amount of confidence and who are also much more independent

This is how you implement a round-up article

To put a round-up article into practice requires a bit of effort. The first thing to do is to think about the topic you want to write such an article for. Do you have An affiliate website about kitchen appliances, so you could invite various food bloggers or food tubers to such a round-up article

You then make yourself a list of eligible people and their contact information (especially e-mail

Now, it's about thinking up questions that you could ask these people. You should make sure that these questions are not too complex, but easy to answer. The less effort the answer makes, the more the questions will be answered. In addition, I have the experience that you should ask no more than 2 questions. If you write 20 people and answer 10, then you have 20 answers, which is more than sufficient

So the questions could be sent to the food bloggers or food tubers, e.g. ring

What is your favorite kitchen appliance

What is your favorite food

Here you can see that only one question is product related and the other is more emotional. That too has proven in my experience. It is enough if the respondents name a specific product in a question that can then be linked later by affiliate link

If you have sent all the emails with the questions, where you should briefly introduce yourself and his websites in the mail (and not necessarily mention big that you have an affiliate website) and of course should offer a link, then it is waiting. Gradually, a few answers will roll in. After 2-3 weeks you can and should check back friendly, but then you should also be good

Create a round-up article

Now it's time to create the actual round-up article. Gather the individual answers of the participants and build them one after the other into an article

I still have information about the person / channel built in, and usually a screenshot of the website or the YouTube channel. Of course, I also build a link there

Further positive effects

So far, such round-up articles have always attracted many readers. This works especially well if you can move relatively well-known bloggers, creators, podcasters, etc. to join

The higher traffic then causes many to click on the recommended products and increase their own affiliate revenue. And in my experience permanently, as these round-up articles also get some backlinks and rank well

In addition, I have established interesting contacts that have helped me in the future again and again

Last but not least, the confidence in the own affiliate website increases naturally by such articles, if reasonably well-known persons contribute there content

Affiliate website without cookies - how it works

The topic "cookies and privacy" I've already discussed here in the blog. A recent ECJ judgment has now made the situation worse and the upcoming ePrivacy regulation still casts its shadow

It may well be that you can no longer set cookies in the future without the active consent of visitors

What exceptions there are and how you can earn good money with his affiliate website even without cookies, you will learn in my today's article

Note

Of course, the following hints and tips are only my personal opinion and describe my approach. I do not guarantee that you will be on the legally safe side. Nobody can guarantee that

Does Affiliate Marketing work without cookies

Here is basically the first question, whether Affiliate Marketing works without cookies at all

Many affiliate programs use cookies to identify which customer has been sent to the store from which affiliate. Only then can a remuneration be paid to the affiliate

To set such a cookie with the users, there are 2 possibilities

The cookie is already set on the affiliate website and the online store then recognizes from which affiliate that person came

The cookie is first set in the online shop. The visitor was "sent" to the shop with a special affiliate link containing the ID of the affiliate as a parameter

Without cookies, affiliate marketing will not work, because at least in the shop itself, the shop owner must be able to "track" the user. After all, it may well be that the user puts something in the shopping cart, then looks at 5 other products and so on, before he makes a purchase. At this point, however, the shop must still be able to recognize from which affiliate the customer was sent

You will see whether cookies are no longer necessary in affiliate marketing. There are already technologies that could replace the cookie, but nothing has been enforced yet

In my comments but you can also recognize that you can operate an affiliate website without cookies. And so I have collected many own experiences in the last year

Why not use cookies

Before I get to how to do without cookies on their own website, I go to the question of why you should even waive cookies

Data protection in the EU and thus also in Germany is getting tougher. It is in itself nice that more emphasis is put on the protection of the data, even if one may be quite divided about some measures. But it is clear that the requirements for website operators are also increasing

Many lawyers today already believe that every cookie requires an opt-in, ie the prior consent of the user. Although the DS-GVO provides, in addition to the consent, other possibilities, e.g. the consideration of "legitimate interests" and the fulfillment of contracts, but nevertheless the development goes well that nothing works without a consent

The current Rechtsspechung is there also quite rigorous and so the ECJ has recently allowed the Facebook button only with previous opt-in. Many a lawyer believes it is now clear that every cookie requires an opt-in

In any case, there should be an opt-out, so that you can deactivate the cookie setting in retrospect. But that is not so easy to implement in Affiliate Marketing. It is laborious and difficult to control. How do you want to make sure it always works? Therefore, I see opt-outs quite susceptible to problems and thus, e.g. also for warnings

In addition, it will sooner or later come to a mandatory opt-in (keyword ePrivacy Regulation) and then I prefer to customize your own website today so that no more cookies are necessary. What happens in the shops, I honestly do not care, so I do not have to worry anymore

Incidentally, statistics tracking is also a privacy issue. As soon as personal data is collected in order to "track" individual users, an opt-in will probably sooner or later be unavoidable

Cool advertising without cookies and tracking

If you install Amazon product images directly via the Amazon code (site stripe), no cookies are set, but the user's IP is sent to the Amazon servers. This is a tracking possible and so you would have to get a first consent here

But there are some Amazon plugins that allow beautiful ads without cookies and tracking

Personally, I prefer the plugin AAWP, which I use everywhere. This brings various pretty advertising without cookies and prevents, for example. also IP tracking through an integrated proxy

My experiences

I've been running my affiliate websites for more than a year without cookies and tracking. Apart from the VG word cookie

During this time, I have not been able to detect a decline in revenue, everything is going as usual. The visitor numbers according to Statify are also correct

Due to the radical expansion of cookies, these websites are now much easier to maintain and I am much more relaxed than I would have been with a complex opt-in solution. There are always changes, new documentation requirements, changes in the privacy policy and so on. All this is spared me since I simply removed the services that set cookies. I am a pragmatist and prefer less work

Here in the blog I have just run a test on Google Analytics. I use the plugin Pixelmate * to implement an opt-in for Google Analytics. There is a significant decline in visitor numbers according to Google Analytics. Statify shows, however, that this is not the case and visitor numbers are stable

This simply means that many users refuse the cookies and thus the Google Analytics statistics are worthless and many advertising materials might not work properly anymore

That's why I prefer to do without the cookie setting through affiliate advertising and Google Analytics. I'm going better with that

In addition to adding affiliate links or affiliate banners to a blog, website or pure affiliate site, product testing is another very good and powerful way to earn revenue

Why this method works so well and what you should pay attention, you will learn in this article

I also describe my own experiences with product tests

Why write product tests

Many simply include an affiliate link or an affiliate banner in their pages. That can work to a degree. However, you should see this from the eyes of the visitors and they have a certain skepticism about such advertising, which you have to overcome as an affiliate first

This can be achieved by making a so-called "pre-sell". So you "sell" the affiliate product in question, and you do not leave all the work to the online shop that you link to. For this "pre-sell" method, product tests are very good if they are well done

Product tests have the further advantage that this usually results in quite focused content, which then also ranks quite well for the specific keywords. After all, many search engine users are looking for "Test Product A" or something similar

Product testing also makes it easy to create a lot of unique content that complements the more in-depth background articles and tips that you should have

Another advantage of having a certain reach of your own website is that you get test products for free. You can not always keep it (especially with expensive electronics), but that allows you to have practical tests without investing money

But often one can keep the products as well, e.g. with me with textbooks or board games is the case

By the way, in affiliate marketing a test is often referred to as a simple review. Proper tests, such as by the Stiftung Warentest, most do not perform. They are more practical tests and

Truly test

Ideally, you should really test the reviewed products. Only putting the marketing information in the test can lead to overlooking important advantages and, above all, disadvantages. As a result, you also lose a lot of trust, which can have a negative impact on bloggers. If a review is based only on product information, that should be clearly communicated

Be honest

You should be honest. So not only list the benefits, but also the disadvantages. No product is really perfect and 100% positive reviews trigger the "alarms" for many users. And you should never pretend that you have tested a product yourself, if that is not the case

Negative product tests

This means that one should also like to publish negative tests if justified. Especially affiliates see it as superfluous work, as they are unlikely to receive commissions for a perverted product. But negative reviews increase the readers' trust. Especially on blogs and websites

Competence in testing

You should also test only those products where you have a certain reputation / competence. Because trust in the judgment of the tester is an important factor for the conversion rate. Regular readers will be able to judge this in general, but the other articles on a website or a blog together form the reputation image for the visitors. So you should not write about cosmetics in a technology blog, even if you have dealt with it. The readers will simply not grant you the competence

User reviews

The previous point also makes it clear that one should mention one's own aptitude / competence in a test. This can be done by describing your own professional background or through field reports

Show solutions

One should test the product with the eyes of the readers. The concerns and wishes of the readers are another important conversion factor that should be used. If readers feel understood with their problems and they come up with a solution, that usually works very well. So you should avoid pure fact-dropping and bring a certain emotional touch

Interesting content

It is also important that a product test is not too boring. In addition to a certain brevity, but contains the most important information, you should also loosen the article. You can do that with your own experiences, with videos and photos, by testing several products etc

Other opinions

The opinion of others can also be included in the product test. However, that should look really authentic and not look for thoughtful opinions. The latter should not be done

The structure of a product test article follows the following basic scheme

introduction

In the beginning the 5 W's should become clear: what, why, who, how and when. After reading the first paragraph, the reader should know exactly what this article is about, who wrote it, and so on. You should always consider the problems and concerns that the product may eliminate

details

The main part is then about the actual test. This should be detailed and not primarily based on features, but on the wishes and problems of the user. Also, a pros and cons list fits in well here

Conclusion

In the end comes a crisp conclusion and a clear statement Buy recommendation Yes or No

The new Amazon Product Advertising API 5 - New features, plugins and issues
There is news on Amazon. The Amazon Product Advertising API, which is still active, will not be available for much longer. The new version 5 is in the starting blocks

What this API really is about and what benefits the new version brings, I explain below
But I also look at possible problems and things to watch out for
What is the Amazon Product Advertising API
The API (Application Programming Interface) allows access via an interface to product data, e.g. a shop. This is also the case with Amazon, so you do not have to go to the actual website, but for example. can read out the price of a product via the API

For this you can program something yourself or use an Amazon plugin, such as AAWP. This makes it very easy to retrieve product data, but also bestseller lists and more
Most affiliate programs require an API key to use the API. This is also the case with Amazon
What's in the API Version 5
Amazon has been working on a new version of its own Product Advertising API for quite some time. With the version 5 come some changes

There are several new features, such as better queries about offers, more information about Prime, free shipping, etc., a better product search, access to worldwide products and much more

So far, I do not see any really great innovations that change everything, but much will definitely be improved and optimized. So far, there have always been problems with the query of prices of individual products and I hope that belongs to the new API of the past

However, it is important that HTTPS is now absolutely necessary. So you have to change your affiliate website to SSL encryption before you can use API version 5
careful in the conversion
On a small affiliate website I have ever installed the new AAWP version (3.9), which uses the API version 5

It is important to note that only current API keys can be used. Anyone who has created his API access data via the Amazon Web Services (AWS) before September 2017 must now switch to new keys

In the PartnerNet backend under "Tools> Product Advertising API" you find the possibility to migrate your previous key. To do this you simply have to click on "Switch" and thus move from AWS directly to the PartnetNet. You will have to enter the new API access data into the settings of the Amazon plug-in you are using
When is the new Amazon API release coming
Originally, the API version 4 should be turned off on 31.10.2019. Since only shortly before the version 5 had been announced, there was no real transitional period

Developers were already involved before. Most Amazon plugins already support version 5 of the API, but some do not. You should check that

Now Amazon has postponed the shutdown date for the API version 4 but backwards, since one has probably encountered some problems with large users. I would have been surprised if everything would have worked smoothly in such a short time

And especially as there are still limitations and problems with the new API, which many affiliates should not like, the shutdown of the API 4 is probably only in early 2020. Amazon will certainly announce a new date

Conclusion
I think it's good that Amazon continues to develop the Product Advertising API. This shows very clearly that one stands behind the own partner program. I'm also looking forward to using new features or just integrating more reliable data from Amazon

But of course I hope that when you turn off version 4, the new version works completely and includes all the features. Well wait

16 tips for easy and fast backlinks

There are a lot of factors for a good search engine ranking and backlinks are definitely one of them today

Those who want to appear as far ahead of Google as possible need, among other things, a lot of good backlinks, ie links from other blogs and websites

Today I would like to introduce 16 tips on how to get quick and easy backlinks

I'll talk about best practices and my own experiences as a longtime blogger

Many roads lead to Rome

There are, of course, a variety of ways to get backlinks from other blogs. But not all are simple and doable for any blogger

The following 16 methods have proven to be the most effective for me in the past. Effective in this context means as little effort as possible at the lowest possible cost

16 tips for easy and fast backlinks

I have used the following tips myself in the past to create new backlinks for new as well as existing blogs

Of course, there is no guarantee that these tips will work for every blog. But the individual requirements are just too different. But you should try and test what works well for you

High quality items

The basis for many backlinks are high-quality and interesting articles, which are not available anywhere else in this kind. Tutorials, tutorials, Top10 lists and other good quality articles are also linked to other bloggers and website operators

Ask yourself what you would link to other blogs and then write such an article

Social web

But the high-quality articles are only one side of the coin. If nobody knows about it, nobody can set a backlink

Share your very good articles on social networks like Facebook or Twitter. Pinterest is also a very good platform if you create a suitable graphic for it

It's best to include the voting / sharing buttons of the various social websites in your blog (for example, using the Shariff Wrapper plugin to protect your privacy) so that sharing your article is even easier

Round-up article

Getting other bloggers and website owners on board is a great way to get many simple and fast backlinks

In a round-up article, the answers of some other experts in your own niche are summarized on a specific question, thus providing a highly interesting and worth reading contribution

In addition, the participants like to link to a round-up article on what the coveted backlinks brings

Increase RSS readership

Even though RSS feeds are not as important today as they were a few years ago, a large number of feed subscribers are also helping a lot in building backlinks

Because among the readers of RSS feeds are naturally many bloggers who use the medium RSS feed more often than regular Otto users. And the feed readers with their own blog also occasionally link to interesting articles

link exchange

I'm not a big fan of link exchange, but there are exceptions. If someone contacts me, who operates a really thematically appropriate and high-quality blog, then I like to link this

Also the indirect mutual linking is interesting. This means that I link to blog 1 of the other and get a backlink from blog 2 of the other. Then it does not look so obvious to Google for link exchange

Do not start begging for links. There has to be a win / win situation for both bloggers. I always wonder what people expect me to email a link exchange request for "self-employed in the net", even though their blog is just 2 weeks old

Linkbait

Special articles that are only there to generate backlinks are called linkbaits

A while ago, I noticed again such a linkbait. Since someone has criticized dozens of blogs and their content. This of course attracts attention and some of the affected blogs, will probably have written about it, including backlink. So Linkbaits are especially attentive (positive or negative) and thus receive many backlinks

However, one should be careful here, not just to provoke, for the sake of provoking. Since you can get in trouble quickly, which prevents later cooperation or the like

In addition, one should stay honest with the Linkbaits and not make it like many current online media and deceive the readers with the headlines or even lie

News

The first person to report certain things usually gets many backlinks. For example, I have written in the past about new online tools on selbstaendig-im-netz.de or reported on newly announced board games on my blog 

Through direct contact with the developers and publishers, I was able to do this as one of the first blogs. As a result, such news then get some backlinks

Comments

If you yourself want to stay up to date, you will inevitably read yourself many blogs. At least I feel that way

It is a good idea to comment there as well. Sometimes there is also a decent backlink (without nofollow) and you will notice many high-quality comments. Both the other readers, as well as the blog owner, which may lead to further cooperation

Of course, comment backlinks are not very high quality, but these too are part of a normal backlink profile

interviews

For me, interviews have proven to be very efficient. Other bloggers and website owners like attention. So if you ask if you can interview someone, you often get a positive feedback

The preparation of the questions is then usually done relatively quickly and from the interview partner you get hopentlicht extensive and interesting answers

And of course the interviewees then like to link to the interview and share it on the social web

required directories

They exist, the high-quality directories. If you are looking for the thematically high-quality directories in your industry, you can get thematically matching and high-quality backlinks with relatively little effort

However, many online directories have been neglected in recent years or little underpowered by Google. Here you should look very carefully

Regional backlinks

Also regional backlinks are quite easy to get. Usually have your own city, your own club, local companies, etc. own link lists

A nice request for a backlink is often met there, especially if you have a personal contact or a consideration, as well as a backlink, offers

Private backlinks

Partners, joy, acquaintances, etc. you should just ask if they can not put a link to their own blog. This is often not a problem with many social profiles and so you have the first important backlinks

In addition, one or the other friends and acquaintances operate one or the other website, which is also a good source for a first backlink

guest Article

Anyone who manages to accommodate a guest article on a popular blog usually gets a lot of attention as well as a valuable backlink

But it is necessary that you have already really high quality content in your own blog. In addition, one should really invest a lot of work in the guest article and deliver a very good article.

Post download

A very effective way to get backlinks is by offering a free download. Be it an eBook, a checklist, a WordPress theme, a tool, a WordPress plugin or whatever

Especially such free offers usually attract many backlinks, because people love something like that. I often see that ordinary blog articles are offered as a PDF download and are therefore much more interesting for many users

Write about others

It has always been very effective for me to write about other blogs, websites and people. For example, my earnings reports, in which I list the monthly earnings of other blogs, always brought me new backlinks

Who writes about others, which arouses attention with the "afflicted" and many like to link such articles therefore gladly

Self-link

My most important advice is always that you yourself should not be afraid of linking. Anyone who links to other blogs and websites will not only delight their readers, but will also get back many links

Even with backlinks, it is a give and take

Not always just Facebook - use other social networks for more traffic
It's not so easy to get new visitors excited about your own blog content. There are a lot of other blogs and articles out there that are also fighting for attention. Not to mention the social web

Since you have to come up with something special. That's what today's article is about. I give tips for particularly interesting articles and share my own experiences in this regard with you

In addition, I link examples and comment on how these articles have brought me more visitors
Interesting insights for more visitors
"What's not out there on the internet
This could be something to think about when looking for an idea for a new blog article. But most people are wrong about that, because there is still a lot of room for interesting and readable content

It is important that you do not stay on the surface and do not just do what others do. Instead, it is important to publish content that potential readers will not find elsewhere in this form

This can e.g. interesting insights that are at stake today
For beginners, a lot is interesting
You often think that something is not so interesting for others, because you have to deal with it every day. But that is not the case. Especially for beginners, almost everything interesting, what experienced people in the industry make interesting

Therefore, it is worthwhile to give insights that are relatively normal for one, but something special for others. In this way, you also set yourself apart from the competition and create unique content

Examples, examples, examples
I myself use this method since the start of my first big blog and am thus very successful. The very idea of ​​the blog was basically shaped by the insight into my own independence
Since I hardly had any free time as a founder, but wanted to start a blog, I had decided to blog about my own self-employment as a web designer. Above all, I wrote about my own experiences, mistakes, insights, etc

This was very well received, as I not only spread gray theory, but also provided unique insights that other founders found very interesting and still find

To this day I always try to offer exactly these insights. Be it when I write about the sources of revenue of my niche websites or the revenue of other bloggers

Likewise, my niche page challenge has been coming up for years now. Every week for six months, I am tackling a task of setting up a new niche website. In doing so, I give many insights into my work as a self-employed person, my everyday life and the concrete implementation of a new website

So in the last challenge, I helped set up my new microphone and podcast tips website and regularly reported on my actions, issues, achievements and results. This challenge is very well received, because it provides insights into the implementation of a website that you will not find anywhere else

Special insights attract visitors
Therefore, I strongly recommend that you look at what insights would be interesting for the readers of your blog

You should not simply copy other blogs and their articles, as this is nothing special then. But of course you can be inspired by other blogs, especially from other topics. Even blogs from English-speaking countries are often a good source for creative ideas to provide interesting insights

As you look at each article to see what interesting insights you can offer to readers, you are on the right path to more visitors

Automated Social Sharing - Tips, Plugins and Services

The social web offers bloggers good opportunities to attract more attention and get more traffic with social sharing.

However, it takes time to log in to Facebook, Twitter and Co. manually and share new articles.

What possibilities there is to automate the social sharing and whether that is recommended, I describe below. I also go into my own experiences and give plugin tips

Automated social sharing

As a blogger one should use the possibility to create own profiles on Facebook, Twitter and co. And to promote their own articles there. If you have built up a certain number of fans or followers, not only ensures direct traffic, but the fans often share their own articles, so you also their fans and followers reached and builds up a greater range.

The result is additional users who visit their own blog and you always get a few new backlinks.

But the problem is that it takes time to go to each social networking site after each article, and to manually share the article there. It is certainly feasible, but additional effort is still.

One way to avoid this in social sharing is to automatically post content in your own social media profiles.

advantages

The most important advantage of an automated publication of blog articles in various social networks is certainly the time savings. Anyone who visits 3, 4 or more social networks after each article spends some time with it. Anyone who publishes several articles every day will feel this even stronger. Here an automated publication saves a lot of time.

The automatic publication is also possible with older articles, which ensures that the own article archive gets more attention and also that can have a very positive effect on the number of visitors.

disadvantage

However, there are also disadvantages in automating social sharing. Thus it is not possible with an automation to individually address the aspects of individual networks. It is e.g. always the same headline or the same description used.

Likewise, this does not make it the most important thing to do in social networks: communicating with fans and followers.

If you overdo it and publish your own articles too often, it can annoy one or the other follower.

Plugins and services

To automate the social sharing of new and older articles you have 2 options.

On the one hand one can use plugins, which are e.g. mostly available for free for WordPress. The Revive Old Post plugin enables new and older articles to be published on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. There are many setting options, such as the time between the publications.

By contrast, the WP to Twitter plug-in only looks at current articles and posts them automatically on Twitter. The plugin Microblog Poster, which publishes new blog articles on various social networks, including microblogging services such as Tumblr, also works automatically.

I have already introduced interesting plugins for older articles here on Blogprojekt.de.

An alternative to such plugins are special online services that perform automatic publishing. A well-known option is ifttt.com, where you can link various services together, including your own blog and e. G. Twitter.

Or dlvrit.com, where you simply enter an RSS feed and then new articles are published on Twitter, Facebook and Co.

You should try one or the other plugin or one of the featured services to find out what works best for your own purposes.

My experiences with social sharing

I already tried out the plugins as well as the services myself and gained different experiences.

So I find it interesting to automatically share older articles, but this only makes sense on websites and blogs where content does not become obsolete. In some blogs, some of the articles will eventually be out of date and I would then no longer promote them on my social network profiles.

Current articles, on the other hand, work pretty well in automatic publishing, and it's often okay to automatically include the title. Mostly I use this anyway and do not write something new for publishing in social networks.

Nevertheless, I would use the automation only for side projects and not necessarily the main blog. Otherwise the disadvantage of the lack of communication with the fans and followers becomes too noticeable.

How do you do this? Do you automate your social network releases or do you do it all manually?

Yoast SEO - The most popular SEO plugin for WordPress

The WordPress plugin Yoast SEO is one of the most popular and millions of WordPress blogs in use

Why so many bloggers in search engine optimization on Yoast SEO set, what features makes the plugin just for beginners and what I think of it, you will learn in this article

I appreciate your feedback on the Yoast SEO plugin, alternative suggestions and opinions

Yoast SEO - What exactly does the plugin do

Without search engine optimization it is not possible anymore and therefore there are many SEO plugins for WordPress

Yoast SEO is the most popular SEO plugin in the official directory. This is partly due to the many features included. The plugin offers e.g. various basic settings to improve the search engine optimization of WordPress

Much to the success of the plugin also contributed the special text analysis, which is quite unique. While writing an article or a page you get hints from Yoast SEO and concrete tips for improvement

Important functions of the Yoast SEO plugin

Yoast SEO offers a lot of smaller and bigger features to improve search engine optimization

Most well known, the plugin is safe for its content & SEO analysis directly in the editor. As you write, the plugin analyzes various factors and gives practical tips. In this way one can improve the text from SEO view clearly

Not everything has to be green. Instead, you should turn on your own brain at the individual points and judge whether it makes sense or not. Nevertheless, this analysis helps to ensure that you do not forget anything important

Furthermore, you can use title and meta description as a template to enable consistent meta-statements

The snippet preview shows how the item in question will look in the search results. That too helps with the optimization

Important articles can be defined as Cornerstone content and, during the later optimization, they can be looked after intensively.

The integrated text link counter displays the internal incoming and outgoing links. In this way you can link important articles internally even better, which is very good for the SEO

There is some attitude for the social media area. For Facebook and Pinterest you can add the Open Graph Meta data and of course the Twitter Card Meta data

There is the possibility to change the title and description of articles in a mass processing quickly and easily

In addition, there are RSS Feed preference options, various Webmaster Tools integration, a Sitemap Generator, breadcrump options, Canonical URLs, and more

Yoast SEO offers very extensive settings and possibilities to improve search engine optimization for your own WordPress blog. The nice thing is that the default settings of the plugin are very good and you have to adapt as a beginner little

Why is Yoast SEO so popular

With over 173 million downloads and more than 5 million active installations, Yoast SEO is one of the most popular plugins in the free WordPress plugin directory

I have also had very good experiences with Yoast SEO. The plugin just works well and offers everything I want. The content analysis with the SEO tips is unique and for beginners, as well as for experienced bloggers very helpful

The usability in the plugin is well resolved and there are explanations for all settings. Unfortunately, there are still a few places where the German translation is missing

All in all, it does not surprise me why the plugin is so popular

Do you really need the plugin

If you use WordPress, you should also use an SEO plugin, because by default, WordPress is not very well optimized for Google

Of course, it does not have to be Yoast SEO because there are many other good SEO plugin. But Yoast SEO is really good. The functionality is great, because it saves you some other plugins. In addition, it is very beginner friendly and the support is good

I use it on almost all my blogs and am very satisfied with it. I currently have no need to look for another SEO plugin

Updates and Support

The good support I have already mentioned, where you have to say that in the forum is also very busy. Nevertheless, the developers are behind and try to help all users

There are also regular updates with optimizations and new features. Sometimes it may be a few too many updates, but better than none.

The support for premium plugin users is of course faster, but you can not blame developers. It's great, which is all here in this free plugin

There is also a large community where you can get answers and help

Yoast SEO Premium Plugin

As mentioned briefly above, there is a premium version of this plugin. In contrast to other examples you do not need them, because the free version already offers tons of features

The premium version costs for one year updates and premium support 79 euros and extends some features to professional features. After the year you have to extend the license to receive updates

So you can use it to optimize an article on multiple keywords, but what you usually do not need. There are suggestions for the internal links and the content analysis shows the most used keywords

There is a redirect manager and advanced export options. There is also an update reminder for important articles to update the content

The premium version also includes enhancements for News SEO, Video SEO, Local SEO and WooCommerce SEO. That too, in my experience, is not necessarily necessary for ordinary bloggers

Tips to find many new article ideas

That's why today I present a total of 10 tips on how to regularly come up with interesting new article ideas

There are enough article ideas out there

There are really enough ideas for new posts. You just have to get some attention. Anyone who works cramped to find a new article idea, usually has no success. That's why it's important to keep an eye out for new ideas on a daily basis

Over the years, I have become accustomed to constantly looking for new article approaches. But not actively according to the motto "I'm looking for some great ideas", but passively. So I have no extra identification phase or a brainstorming in the classical sense.

Instead, I am always unconsciously in the "alarm" during my normal working day and during my free time. So when I come across something interesting, which I can handle in an article, I nortier me that. But you have to train yourself, and it helps a lot if you are just very interested in your own blog topic

Below I have 22 tips for you together

My recommendations for bloggers

So you can find article ideas

Below I list a number of tips on how to find new and interesting article ideas. The order of the tips is rather random

The best you start with 2-3 tips to implement and internalize. Gradually, you can then use even more tips

These tips should ideally turn you into flesh after a period of time. You should then no longer have to think about it, but it should happen by itself

However, you must also look, which tips you and which are not. Not every tip is suitable for everyone

Think

First, you should learn to think for yourself. Which articles would you like to read yourself or would you like to read as one started one yourself? Which headline would you click on Facebook and Twitter immediately

Anyone who approaches new post ideas like this will make an important point: new articles should be interesting and worth reading. What you would not read yourself, others will not read

Therefore, it is very important that you are interested in burning your own blog topic. Only in this way can one empathize with the readers

Read blogs

Most bloggers also read other blogs. This is important, but you should not just consume them, but read other blogs with open eyes

Which topics are covered? What was not treated as detailed as you would have liked? Where do you have a different opinion? How can you transfer this to your own industry

From other blogs I receive a lot of article inspiration without copying anything

Find search keywords

If you monitor your blog with a statistics tool (for example, Google Analytics) (which you should definitely do), you can usually also look up which search terms your readers have used to find one

This will mostly be the case via Google.de. If you look at the search terms, you usually come up with ideas for new blog posts. Possibly. Then you come to other related terms, where you also want to be listed in Google

Or you look at the top search terms and write about it to other articles

Evaluate internal blog search

Article ideas in the blog searchBut also in the blog itself is much sought by the users. A search function will hopefully have your blog

With the WordPress Plugin Search Meter you can check which search terms have been entered into your own blog search field and how many results have been found

Especially for interesting keywords that have led to no result in the blog, you should write new articles

Join Facebook groups

If you regularly visit matching groups on Facebook or in certain Facebook profiles, you will find article ideas abound

Of course, there are the most popular articles interesting (number of likes and shares), as it also gives a sense of whether a particular topic meets interest or not

Of course it pays off to visit special groups and profiles that deal with your own blog topic. However, one should also occasionally look beyond one's own nose. This is how to get really creative article ideas

Answer comments and email requests

Reader feedback is very useful. Certain questions from your readers may point to potentially interesting articles

Therefore, you should keep in touch with your own readers, answer comments and show them that you read and take them seriously

Affiliate Marketing

From time to time browsing through affiliate networks can be quite informative. The affiliate programs listed there not only provide a lot of inspiration, they also increase the sense of what can be profitable

And there are enough blogs that want to at least recover the expenses. Affiliate marketing is very well suited for this

Analyze AdSense ads

If you have Google AdSense in your own blog, you should look at these ads yourself every now and then. There are sometimes suggestions for new articles, be it from a positive or negative point of view

But please do not click on the AdSense ads, because Google views such "self-clicks" as a scam and you can fly out of the AdSense program

Visit forums and communities

One thing is done in forums on certain topic areas, there are problems being talked about. Here users describe common problems and often get help

Sign up for a forum that covers your topic. You do not even have to post actively. Just by reading along you will get many article ideas

However, posting and answering questions directly does not hurt. So you establish yourself as an expert on specific topics and get back more traffic to your blog