<short hockey reference, bear with me, it won’t last long!>

The Leafs lost again last night.  They are down 3-1 in the series.   No matter how loud I yelled at my TV, it didn’t seem to help.  They still lost.  But they aren’t going to give up.  After missing the playoffs the last 9 years, they don’t want to go home in the first round.  So, they’ll regroup and they’ll get back out on the ice tomorrow night.  Even after that heartbreaking loss in Overtime last night, they still have to get back up on their skates and give it their all in the next game.

Isn’t that what we do on a regular basis with our websites, social media and marketing campaigns?  We try something and it doesn’t go our way, so we pick up and go at it again.  It’s the only way to succeed.

The past couple years so many people have taken a hit in rankings and traffic due to Panda and Penguin.  Some have packed it in and moved on, others are still fighting the fight to take back their share of traffic.

I’ve written a lot about what you can do with on-page SEO to help recover from Panda and Penguin.  For those still battling for their positions and traffic, let’s talk a little about what you can do with your off-page SEO.

It all starts with a great message.  With content overload, your content really needs to be compelling to stand out and grab people’s attention.  So sit down and think about what you have to say, think about why people will care about what you have to say and then capture all of the important details in a Word doc.  That will act as your outline to ensure you cover the key points.

As you write up the content, be sure to make it clear and easy to understand but also try to have a little fun with it.  Inject personality.  Include opinions and “take away” information for people.  Anyone can regurgitate facts.  You want your readers to connect with your content.  They should feel they learned something, or looked at something in a new and different way.  They should laugh, or get mad or want to share it with their friends and family and colleagues.  It should inspire action.

Tall order for one piece of content, eh?  It sure is! But it’s what it takes to stand out amongst all the noise out there.

You can perfect your tone and style as you go but just getting a little creative and stepping out of your comfort zone.

One tip I share with clients is to record themselves as they talk about their product or service or industry.  When they record and play it back, they realize they are able to talk with passion and excitement and humor and they have opinions and insights.  They realize how much they know and how compelling and convincing they can be!

But when they sit down to write, they freeze up and aren’t able to share those wonderful thoughts.  It takes some practice but some of it is just mind games.  Allow yourself to just free flow and capture the details mixed with some insight and don’t judge your work.  Don’t think about the fact that other people will read it.  Just get it all down.  Trick your brain into shutting off that critical voice and just “speak on paper”.  You can always edit it later and polish it up.

And remember, you don’t need to be the best writer; you just need to be authentic and offer information of value.

Bad writers can still produce good information. So as long as the information is there, you’ll do fine at the start and you can continue to work on improving the delivery.

So, after you’ve labored away on your content,  you need to spread the word.  You want people to read and react.

There are certainly enough places to share your content: Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, plus bookmarking sites and you can share your images on Pinterest and Instagram.

So get busy, get your content out there.  Ask for retweets and likes and shares (remember to reciprocate and help spread content that you read and like!).

You’ll build some natural links and some social juice and you’ll also drive traffic to your site.

It may sound like a lot of work and initially it may be.  But it’s worth the effort and you should be able to get into a groove with it and speed things up.

Also, remember size doesn’t matter when it comes to content.  It doesn’t have to be long to be good.  It should be just long enough to say what you need to say and not any longer!

Stay tuned for a post on ensuring you have your social media profiles set up for maximum results.