Marcom Brief: Maximize Your Impact: Key Tips for Writing & Placing Effective Trade Magazine Articles

 By Bob Decker

Even in today's fast-paced marketing world, writing articles for trade magazines remains a timeless and effective strategy for showcasing your expertise and helping to stand out from the crowd. 

When your name appears in a respected publication from the likes of Aspencore or Future, it's about more than making a mark; it elevates you to a leading, authoritative position. And such recognition offers a level of trust and authenticity that money simply can't buy.

But there's more to writing for these publications than just gaining credibility. In this digital era, search engine optimization (SEO) is key. A well-placed article on a renowned magazine's website can turbocharge your SEO, often more than a flurry of keywords on your own website. And improved SEO is just the beginning. 

These articles can then be used as enriched content for blogs, social platforms, and digital marketing initiatives. This approach not only extends the content's reach, but also allows you to foster a valuable relationship with the magazine. Even the sales team feels the ripple effect, as they can use these pieces to demonstrate their expertise to potential customers.

However, as the boundary between genuine content and advertising begins to blur, it has become essential to differentiate between helpful content and paid promotions. Non-promotional articles – those that magazines offer for free – meet strict standards. 

They're not just sales pitches; they're designed to help readers tackle intricate problems. For example, instead of just pushing a product, such an article might delve deep into the nuances of designing a state-of-the-art DC/DC converter or crafting an IoT edge node.

To sum it up, including well-crafted articles in your marketing strategy is a great way to build trust, boost online visibility, and enhance your reputation within the industry. To help you achieve results like these, I've put together my top seven tips for placing articles that don't just get noticed but leave a lasting impression with readers. So, dive in now to unlock the true potential of this invaluable marketing strategy. 

Marcom Short: Your Annual Reminder to Update and Check the Security of Your Website and IT Systems

By Bob Decker

Just as you need to check the batteries on your smoke detectors annually, there are checks and updates you need to do on your computer, website, and other IT infrastructure. 

For example, when was the last time you checked each of the domains you own?

I recently spoke with Teresa Hardy from New Media-Designs, giving you an annual reminder of what to check for to ensure you won’t lose any valuable data, assets, or security. The new year is a perfect time to get these tasks done, or you could tie them to tax season or Daylight Savings time changes if you live in the US.  

Watch the 5-minute Marcom Short. >>

Here’s a list of the updates and checks we mentioned in the quick video:

• Does your computer operating system need updates?
• Are there software and/or applications you use that require updating?
• Check website plugins that need updating.
• For the subscription services and SAAS you pay for monthly, are you still using them? Are they useful? Are you getting a return on your investment?
• Do you have access to your Google analytics? 
• How about your hosting account? 
• Are all of the domains you own still working? I shared a story about one of his domains and how you might not even know if a domain switch takes place. 
• Make sure your data is backed up daily by either 2 different cloud backups, or an external drive that backs up regularly plus a cloud backup.
• Check to make sure your website is being automatically backed up regularly too. 

 

Are you inconsistent or out-of-date on doing these regular checks and backups for your website? Is this one of those things that never gets crossed off your long to do list? 

Give me a call at 415-409-0233 so you can start off 2024 with confidence that you are set and protected against losing your valuable data and security. 

Marcom Short: Why You Need Impactful Backlinks to Improve Your Website SEO & How to Get Them

By Bob Decker

If you’re not satisfied with your current standing on search engine results, at least part of the problem can be attributed to insufficient backlinks. 

Luckily, more high-quality backlinks are also the solution. 

Are you familiar with backlinks? They are links on someone else's website that point back to your website. But not all backlinks are created equal. 

I sat down recently with Teresa Hardy from New Media-Designs to do a deep dive on SEO backlinks, and how you can get more of the most impactful kind for improving your standing in search engine results, which is authoritative backlinks. 

Watch the 4-minute Marcom Short >>

Examples of authoritative backlinks that improve your website SEO are trade press, conference websites, and YouTube videos. We explain how to get more of each of those types, and what they will do to improve your overall marketing. 

Posting a video or contributing an article to a trade magazine is going to help raise your standing in SEO results because it's authoritative. And you don't necessarily have to have a new product story for that. You can also talk in general about how you would go about solving a common problem for your prospects. 

Do you want to know more about how to get more authoritative backlinks and boost your SEO in general? Give me a call at 415-409-0233 for a simple SEO audit and specific actions that can get you more backlinks.