Jennifer Slegg - Search Engine Marketing Consultant |

A tag line is a critical part of any business venture, whether it is a Fortune 500 company or your personal blog. It can be used to segment you, or what your company does, better than your name or company name can do. But many blogs either don’t have a tag line or they have one that is completely ineffectual in promoting themselves and their blog. For this reason, it is important that you have a tag line.

Here are ten tips for creating (or optimizing) a tag line for your blog so that not only does it effectively do what it needs to - tell people what you do - but also is created with the greatest impact in those few words, more bang for your buck, so to speak. So if you are struggling with your tag line, here are the ten things you should consider so your tag line can be the best it can be.
Keep reading…

Anytime you look on the front page of Digg, you will often see headlines that start like “Ten ways to…” or “Top Ten Worst…”. And let’s face it, chances are pretty good that you often read these kinds of posts yourself, because they are just so appealing. The title quickly tells you what you are going to expect (such as “ten ways to do something”) and usually, they deliver. So how can you write your own top ten type of post that gets significant traffic or even a front page of Digg? Here is what you need to do to make the best top ten post ever.

Don’t overanalyze
If the ideas are flowing, just write the top points, then add your commentary for each later. You don’t want to have eight great points off the top of your head, and then lose seven of them because you were overanalyzing just how worthy the first one was and on writing the perfect description about it. So jot down snippets, keywords or quick points underneath what you are currently working on while you have them fresh in your mind, and you will be much less likely to forget one of them as you write.

How many?
Sometimes your top ten post will end up being a top twenty. My 52 easy ways to optimize your blog while on your coffee break blog post initially started as a top 25 list, then 50, then ended with 52 because I couldn’t decide what two tips to delete to make it 50. And my 10 ways to turn new blog visitors into subscribers article didn’t start out being written as a top anything list, but when I was doing my final edits, I realized working the title as a “ten ways” post would work well for readers. So if the ideas are flowing, don’t feel you have to stop because you have ten. And if you stop with nine and can’t think of anything for the tenth, give it a break then come back and reread the article from the beginning. Chances are good that you will be able to come up with one more idea to hit the magic number you are looking for.

Offer a bonus tip
Sometimes you end up with an odd sounding number of tips. If you have eleven must-have tips and you can’t bear to lose one, nor can you dream up a twelfth tip to get it up from ten tips to twelve, keep your list as a top ten and include a bonus tip instead. And as an added bonus for you, readers will like the fact they got something extra from investing in the time to read your article, in the form of that bonus tip.

Are you being social?
Many top ten types of posts end up getting Stumbled, Sphunn and Dugg regularly. So make sure you add a social submitting plugin like Sociable so that people can quickly submit your blog entries without having to jump through hoops to do it.

Link out
Make sure you are linking out to things people can find useful. I read a blog post recently where someone suggested doing specific steps on a project, yet didn’t provide links to what he was talking about. That meant I left his blog instead of spending more time on it, all because I left his blog peeved and had to search for it myself. The more links you include in your post so that your tips can be put into action, the more useful your readers will find it. And yes, that also means the more likely he or she will submit it or recommend it to others. And when you link to other sites, those people you have linked to within those blog posts then have an incentive to submit your posts to social media sites too, because they will end up getting traffic from it too.

Be creative
Don’t just do the same old, same old. Be creative or do a new spin on something that is tried and true. Instead of doing Top ten tips for ranking in Google, which has been done to death, spin it as Top Ten Ways to Get Google-Friendly Backlinks or Top Ten Tips for Getting Your Blog Into Google News.

Use Humor
Don’t be afraid to make your list amusing, rather than all straightforward and business-y. Humor helps keep the attention of your readers, and keeps it from being a dry read.

Short & Snappy
Make sure each of your tip titles is, you guessed it, short and snappy. They can even be a bit cryptic, but if a reader is quickly scanning each of your tips without reading the commentary that goes along with each, shorter is best.

Common sense
Don’t be afraid to include tips you consider common sense, because even I am surprised that people learn something from a tip I included that I considered to be extremely basic. Unless your blog targets only the experts, including a mixture of basic and advanced tips means that there is something for everyone.

Do It Again
Just because someone has already done a top list on the topic doesn’t mean you can’t do it again. As long as you aren’t just copying the tips with new commentary, definitely write your own improved version. If you want social traffic, however, wait a couple of weeks before publishing your own version. If the identical top ten subject hit the Sphinn or Digg front page yesterday, today would not be the best day to publish it because you have just greatly diminished the chances that your own version will go hot as well. So save it a couple of weeks when you have a better chance of yours going hot too.

And you guessed it, this entry didn’t start of being a “ten ways” post either, but when I finished writing and realized it was ten points, it instantly became more easily marketable as a “ten was to do something” blog post. So next time you are writing a blog post with tips, see if you can easily turn it into a “ten ways to” or “top ten ideas for” type of blog post and see how well it does socially.

If you like reading my various blogging articles here, you will want to be sure to subscribe to the ScribeFire blog, where I am guest blogging articles on all aspects of blogging, including promoting & marketing your blog. Three now four articles have been published so far:

• Critical Things All Bloggers Should Do But Probably Aren’t
  I think most of us are guilty (or have been guilty!) of at least one of these things
• Why You Should Comment on Other People’s Blogs
  For those of you who never bother commenting on other’s blogs, here is why you really should be doing it.
• 5 Strategies for Creating Killer Blog Titles
  Making sure your blog title is the best it can be is an important blogging and marketing strategy. Here are five ways to create a killer blog title.

• Why You Should Subscribe to Your Own Blog’s RSS Feed
  Seven reasons why you shouldbe subscribing to all your own RSS feeds.

ScribeFire is a Firefox addon which enables you to blog right from Firefox, so you can leave the article you are blogging about in the top of the browser, while ScribeFire opens in the bottom half of the browser with a full feature blog editor. It also has a tab for submitting to many different social media networks as well, which is handy.

You will see more of my blogging articles on ScribeFire, so be sure to subscribe to the RSS too.

It is becoming more and more important for corporations - as well as businesses of all sizes - to have a blog in today’s world where so many people own computers. But if your business has put off starting a blog for far too long, here is why you should really be blogging, and how it can be advantageous to your overall business marketing strategy.

Human face
You don’t really want people to think of your company as “big box” or “typical corporate America”. And blogging can actually put a human face to your company, since the company now has a voice it can relate to when it reads your blog. When you consider how much money companies put into creating a human face for their business, doing it with a company blog is a relatively inexpensive way to humanize your corporation.

Controlling the message
Public Relations tends to want to run far, far away from blogs. But now, more are embracing blogs as a way to control the company’s message and how they release it. You can now have a fireside chat with your company’s CEO in the format of a blog interview, where responses can be monitored. If there is a scandal or other negative publicity surrounding your company, you already have a platform ready to release information that doesn’t involve sending press releases to the media or subjecting your CEO or other employees to a press conference.

Excitement and anticipation
Companies can easily use a blog to give hints and tidbits about new product releases or services well before the actual launch so you can get people excited about what you are going to announce before you did it. Since press releases are rarely sent to announce something your company hasn’t done yet, a blog is an easy way to get the word out and build anticipation.

Fresh content
Having a blog adds new fresh original content to your site every time the blog is updated. And since this is something many corporate sites struggle with, it means you can add quality content as often as you like.

Soft selling
Now, you don’t want to do a hard sell in your company blog, but there is absolutely nothing wrong with soft selling products or services in a blog… in fact, many readers will expect it. Just don’t go overboard with every post being promotional in nature. But it can be a great way to market your products, particularly ones that people might not be as familiar with, whether lower sellers or simply new to the market.

Reminding
When you have people subscribed to your company blog, those are all people who will think of your company as a household name or brand everytime you post a new blog entry. And since blogging is such a low-cost marketing strategy compared to paid advertising, you are saving money to place your identity in front of people.

For all these reasons, corporate blogs are becoming more and more popular for companies. As long as you are approaching your blog in the right way, it can be an invaluable marketing tool. If you are strategizing and getting ready to launch a corporate blog, 20 Best Practices for Launching a Corporate Blog is a must read. And if you already have a company blog, you might find Why Your Company or Corporate Blog is Failing useful.

How many times have we hit publish on a blog and then realized we forgot to do something crucial, whether it is changing post slugs or a crucial spell check. Here is a quick checklist of what you should do before you hit publish.

Did you type what you meant?
Avoid the temptation to write and then immediately hit publish. Always go back and reread your blog entry to make sure what you had in your head actually ended out coming of your fingers on the keyboard. You can also catch grammatical errors and little accidental typos that still make an actual word or where you wrote the same word twice in a row.

Do you have a hook?
The first paragraph of your blog entry is crucial. If you have a poorly written opening paragraph, readers have to be pretty motivated to read beyond that. So think of the opening paragraph as the most important part of your entire article. Make sure it is well written and enticing enough – usually with a hook - to encourage people to continue reading through to the end. Copyblogger has a great post on opening with a bang.

Spellcheck
There shouldn’t be an excuse for not spell checking, and you should always do it… although even I often forget. Someone needs to create a plugin that has an auto-spell check function when you hit publish.

Double check your links work
Make sure you haven’t accidentily forgotten a http:// or forgotten a critical period. You should double check each and every link to make sure it works, and make sure you didn’t put something else from your clipboard in place of the URL you intended. I once saw a blog where the URL linked to was actually a snippet from an IM that the author intended to paste to someone and not the URL they planned to use.

Related articles you can link to?
Are there any previous blog entries that you can link to as relevant to the topic? If so, definitely lead your visitors in that direction, especially if the blog entry is an “oldie but goodie” and not one that you published just two days ago. There is a plugin available to automatically display related blog posts.

Other blogs you can link to
Share the link love. Are there blog entries that others have written that are related to the topic. Even if they are friends, as long as the content is relevant, include some links to others. Read Why you should actively link out from your blog.

Did you source your sources?
Reporting on a news story or commenting on someone else’s commentary? Be sure you include a link to your source, whether it is linking to Joe’s New SEO blog or the likes of CNN or Forbes.

Check your post slug
Wordpress 2.5 makes this a bit easier, by highlighting the post slug underneath your title, but I still sometimes forget to do this (although I usually remember between the time I schedule a post and the time it actually gets published. Shorten the length and make sure you are including the important keywords from the title.

Check your alt tags
Are you including alt tags on your images? Be sure to tag all your images when you blog with the relevant keywords specific to the photo. And yes, avoid the temptation to keyword stuff those as well Use the SEO Friendly Images plugin to optimize your images as well as do alt tags.

Did you include categories?
Now that categories seem fairly hidden below the blog entry field instead of next to it in the new Wordpress, I keep forgetting to tag blog posts with categories. But looking at analytics, I can see just how many people come to the blog on a social media or pay per click post and then go to the category level to see the other articles I have written on the same topic. So be sure you are including categories and that they are relevant to the topic.

Did you tag it?
Along with categories, be sure to tag relevant topics and keywords on your blog entries to… if you are new to tagging, also make the time to go back on previous blog entries and tag them.

Check the vibe and flow
Sometimes you just don’t have the flow going, no matter how hard you rewrite the blog entry. And a missing vibe or flow of the piece can make a blog post mediocre when it could have been great. In this case, hit save instead of publish, and go back to it another day. When you look at it again after a few days, you can rewrite it to capture that previously ellusive vibe.

While I try my best, I don’t always remember to do everything on the list when I hit publish, but I do my best Anything else I missed that you do before you hit publish on your blog?

Yes, it’s true, there are people who love to blog - and blog with such a passion we wonder how we could emulate what they do. But there is a fine line that you might be crossing over… one where it seems you are no longer the boss of your blog, but that your blog is the boss of you. While not everyone is in danger of this happening, it seems to be something that is happening to people with a bit more frequency lately. So if you are a super blogger, you need to sit back and consider if you are really running your blog or if your blog is running you.

Addiction
Some of us are lucky to get out a blog entry a week, while others desperately try for one blog entry a day. But if you are sitting and your desk blogging and turning down chances to be social (and no, I don’t mean just taking the time to update your Twitter status or video conferencing, I mean actual face-to-face interactions with other people) you need to sit back and think if you really need to be on the super blogger schedule that you are on. Can you cut back your seven blog posts a day to four posts then slowly get it down to one or two?

Addiction Pt. 2
Some bloggers have the need to post as much as they can, but in some cases, being so blog happy can actually turn off your readers. Why? Because when they view your feed there is just so much there they just don’t know where to begin if at least one of those blog posts don’t immediately pop at them. You could lose subscribers that would have happily stuck around to read one great blog post a day but found seven just two overwhelming day in and day out.

Honey, it’s bedtime
If your partner is making bedroom eyes at you, but you decline the suggested offer so you can blog instead, well, many people will wonder what on earth you are doing still at your computer!! Yes, there will always be times where you need to make the decision of blogging over your partner, but these cases should be extreme and few and far between. If your blog just got hacked from a WordPress exploit, most people can understand the need to fix it ASAP before any more damage is done. If you found something Digg or Slashdot-worthy because it is breaking news, by all means write your blog entry now, because those 8 hours of, er, slumber could mean that someone else breaks the story. But is it your latest top ten list of how to stop comment spam, well, that is something that can and should wait until morning.

You blog on days you really shouldn’t be
Is it an hour before you exchange wedding vows and you are sitting at your computer blogging about what you think Google should do with YouTube, you really have to sit and ask yourself WHY. There are some days where blogging should be a no-no, so think of life’s big events (weddings, baby’s birth, significant funerals) and either schedule those blog posts or get up a little extra early to do it before anyone else in the house awakens, or perhaps a quick “He’s here, 8lbs 2 oz, Christopher Michael, pics soon!” posted to your blog from your Blackberry. Even your wedding anniversary qualifies if your husband or wife is sitting in the living room waiting for you to come down so you can leave for your romantic evening out. If you are putting these types of events second to blogging, yes, Houston, you have a problem.

Making life’s small events blogworthy
Sure, we all have things happen to us and think “Wow, that will make a great blog analogy”, such as the friend who replied to me “So, you do Facebook” when I mentioned I do social media consulting. That isn’t really a stretch, and it highlighted the fact people in the industry still think of social media as sites like Facebook and MySpace. But are you taking all those little things and constantly wondering how you can make them blog worthy? If you are an SEO blogger, you will probably find it hard to figure out how to spin the fact your daughter is potty trained into a blog post… but if your blog is running you, chances are you will figure out how to do it anyway just so you have something - anything - to write about, even if the end result sucks.

Does your output match your expected quality
When I have followed those who blog multiple times a day, I notice that the quality goes down. Why? Because they are so focused on how much they can output, with the desire to blog anything just to blog, they fail to notice the quality drops significantly compared to when that same person writes one well thought out blog post. I have unsubscribed from people’s blogs for this exact reason because I tired of not only how they turned potty training into an SEO related post, but did it so poorly that it was almost embarrassing to read. One well written and thought out blog post will trump 20 lesser blog posts any day of the week. Your blog doesn’t “need” you to post the seven times a day you want to blog, so cut back on quantity and up the quality instead. And if you think your blog really needs you, you probably have bigger issues than just a blog addiction!

Blogging something you hate
I would much rather read about a subject from a blogger who loves it, rather than from a blogger who hates the topic but does it anyway. If this is how you feel about your blog, where it is a chore to blog even just once a week, you might be better off kicking it to the curb and selling it, then using the money to start up something new that you are passionate about. Just because you end up hating the topic doesn’t mean you are a failure. But you might want to pick the next topic with much more care next time. It is no surprise that finding your blogging niche equals blog success. Just make sure you aren’t having a bad week and sell on impulse, which so often people end up regretting. If you are hating it, sit on it for a month, while continuing to blog so you maintain the blog’s sell value, and if you still despise every moment you have to spend on it, then sell it.

We all have times where we swear our blogs and/or websites are running our lives… and sometimes they do and they (unfortunately) need to. But it is still important to make sure that you aren’t always being run by your blog… if you are missing out on what non-bloggers would consider must-not-miss events, well, you should probably rethink your priorities a bit so that you can have a balanced life and not one where you blog is making your personal decisions… because last I checked, your blog really isn’t good company when you are out of reach of your computer

Now, hands everyone… is your blog running your life? And what do you do about it?

It seems lately that every company and corporation out there is jumping on the blog bandwagon, and while some are doing quite well, others are failing dismally. So what makes some company blogs so great, while others are languishing? Let’s look at some of the reasons why company blogs are doing so poorly, and how to correct them.

Me, Myself & I
Is your corporate blog to “Me me me” oriented? Sure, you want to use your blog to promote your products and/or services, but even the most devoted customer will tire rather quickly if every blog entry is about a product you sell or a service you offer. While a blog can definitely be used as a selling vehicle, you don’t just want to copycat what a reader can find on your site already. Give a fresh perspective on your products by telling a story. If you sell fishing lures, tell the story of a customer who won a fishing derby using one of your company’s lures. Do you sell yarn? Instead of blogging about a specific yarn, blog about a sweater that a customer knit using that yarn, with bonus points if an original pattern to knit that garment is included. Think outside the box, especially if you can place the product in the reader’s hands, as opposed to just reading a promo copy of the product itself. Let’s face it, what is more interesting, reading about a ball of wool, or reading about what someone created with that ball of wool? Both could end in potential sales of the same product, but one way does it much more effectively than the other.

Not enough diversity
Why not include industry news? If there is some big news in the fishing derby world, blog about it. Is there another romance novel coming out or a movie being filmed based at a yarn shop? Well then blog about it. Being diverse in the content you offer can keep it interesting for your readers, and will make them less likely to feel like they are reading “same old, same old”. Maybe interview someone famous who uses your products or who is a noted designer or celebrity in the market area. These can be great to bring in traffic, especially first-time visitors.

Engagement
Make it easy for those readers to make a comment… yes, this means that you have to allow comments, or it really isn’t a true blog. Not only can you showcase reader’s comments, but it also shows the popularity of the blog and the company interaction on it… and yes, that means you do have to respond to comments too. Let’s look at the yarn example. After the blog entry about what someone made with a specific yarn, ask readers to share what they have made with the same yarn. Not only are you getting responses, but you could easily find yourself with a future blog entry about the yarn and a completely different type of garment to showcase. You might not want a second sweater pattern for that yarn posted within the next month, but a blanket, hat or purse made out of that same yarn could easily be posted in the blog within that same time period.

Blogging frequency
Too many company blogs tend to space their blog entries months apart. If you are going to have a blog, make a commitment to blog at least once a week, or more if it warrants it. Many people unsubscribe from blogs if there have been no entries in the previous couple of months, assuming they are dormant. When it is especially hard to get new blog subscribers for a new blog, you don’t want a lack of new entries to be the reason why you lose some. Not enough time yourself? Ask other people from within the company to send you blog posts for consideration. Sometimes it is that variety that can really stimulate readers and get them engaging. Or make it a practice to spend one day every couple of weeks to do multiple blog posts you can then schedule to publish every few days. Even though you didn’t write them on the day you published them, your readers won’t know that.

Heavy handed moderation
Part of having a blog means people can end up posting comments that are negative. So have a comment policy in place so you don’t get a reputation for deleting all but the most positive comments. And look at those “negative” comments in a non-knee-jerk way. Some comments you think are negative at first glace (”I knit a scarf out of this same yarn and found it quite itchy,” are not really the negative you think they are… instead, approve it and then post a follow up of something like “Because this yarn has 50% wool, some people might find it itchy if it is directly against the skin as a scarf is. So be sure to wear a shirt under the sweater if it bothers you. Or maybe try Yarn B, which is quite similar in weight but without any wool”). A negative can easily be turned into a learning experience and a positive, and could result in a product sale to that commenter who was looking for something to fix what she saw as her problem.

Where’s your brand?
Your blog should match your site and match your brand, because it is representing your company. So why let it languish with a free template or worse, the default template? It is relatively inexpensive to get a matching Wordpress theme done, if you do not have anyone in house to do it. But even though it may reside on the coprorate URL, the trust factor will significantly increase when the brand is clearly visible. Not only that, you want the continuity so that if someone clicks to your blog from another page on the site, they will still know they are on your site, and haven’t just been shipped off elsewhere.

Keep it simple
Don’t install eighteen different plugins to clutter your corporate blog. Pick maybe 3 or 4 plugins you think will be most useful on the front end, such as Socialize or threaded comments, and leave it at that. Of course, this obviously doesn’t apply to plugins you add to make your blogging life easier, such as a comment replying plugin or something for blog spam. But keep the number of plugins on the front end to a small number, and only the most relevant. Does someone really need to know it is 87 degrees with a 10% chance of rain at your corporate headquarters today? Not really, so remove it and use that web real estate or something more relevant or to leave more white space.

Too much advertising
If it is a company or corporate blog, Google AdSense, affiliate ads or any other kind of advertising should be kept far, far away. A simple 125×125 promoting your own services or products is fine, but why would you want to send your readers off to competitor’s products or services, because especially if it is AdSense you have chosen, it will happen. All corporate blogs should be ad-free.

Not enough promotion
Is your blog linked to from the company homepage? It should be. Do you mention it in email newsletters or customer emails you send? You should be. If you start a blog, don’t expect people to just find it somehow if you don’t let them know it’s there. So make sure you link to it and promote it so that your target readership can find it and subscribe.

Just getting started on a corporate or company blog? A good starting point is to read 20 Best Practices for Launching a Corporate Blog, or hire a consultant who can start you off blogging in the right direction, so you don’t run into any problems later.

Getting a person to your blog for the first time is hard enough work as it is, but what can you do to encourage those readers to come back for a second (and third and fourth) visit in the coming days or weeks? There are some simple things you can do to encourage new blog visitors to feel at home so that they subscribe, return and participate in your blog.

First impressions
As much as we hate to admit it, first impressions count. Make sure your font is large enough - and “normal” enough - to be read easily. Make sure you have a clean yet unique design… one that people can identify as yours, even without seeing the URL. I have been to blogs where the content was decent but I was completely turned off by what it looked like. Black background and red text? No thanks.

Remind people to subscribe
Not only should you make it obvious and noticeable for people to subscribe, you should also hit them up with an RSS reminder at the end of each post. Look at the bottom of this entry to see how I do it… and be sure to subscribe while you are at it

Subscribing Made Easy
First, make it easy to subscribe to your blog and give them lots of ways to subscribe. Offer standard RSS feed links, but also offer quick links for adding to Bloglines, Google Reader and the other main RSS services (more on this below) to make the subscription process as painless as possible for frequent RSS readers. And whatever you do, don’t make people fill out a survey to get the feed link like one recent blog wanted me to do. Yes, the information can be useful for advertisers, but that blog lost at least one subscriber because of it, and likely many others. Always be sure to have your subscription options in the sidebar of your blog, and make sure it is on every page, not just the index page.

Offer solutions for subsciber reading preferences
Perhaps you have plenty of potential Google Reader, Feedburner or Bloglines subscribers. Make sure you offer quick buttons so that your visitors can subscribe to a variety of services quickly and easily. Feedbutton is one way to do it, rollover to see it in action:

Email subscriptions
Especially if your blog is in a market area where you have readers that have no idea what an RSS reader is, or what RSS is, offer to send new posts via email. This will enable you to make those who aren’t RSS savvy to keep updated with your new blog posts, which will make them return visitors.

Engaging
Comments are not just for visitors, they are for the blog writer too. If someone asks a question in your comments, answer it within the comments. If a new visitor has made a thoughtful comment, reply back to it, even if it didn’t require an answer per se. Visitors love to be engaged by the authors and this personal contact - albiet in a public form - will be remembered by many of those visitors. You can also make it obvious you are responding in the comments by making your comments a different color so they are easily identifiable. Major Nelson’s XBox blog is a perfect example, and it makes it easy to scan through the comments to see where he has responded, as his comments are in green. Likewise, don’t consistently ignore the oldtimers either just because they are regulars. They can easily find somewhere else to go to get their daily dose of whatever you are providing.

Showcase your most interesting blog posts
Many have posts that are way more popular than others. Be sure to include your top blog posts, or even just your favorite ones if you don’t have enough traffic yet. The blog post that brought that visitor initially might not have been enough to convince that reader to subscribe, but maybe the blog post you did a year and a half ago that you list in your sidebar is the one that will make him or her subscribe. There are many WP plugins that do this, I will be adding one shortly now that this blog is all WP 2.5 happy Not sure what you reader favorites are? Do a post with your top 10-20 blog posts and ask readers which 3-5 should be listed in the sidebar.

Offer a freebie or make a contest
Really want to get a lot of subscribers quickly? Give people an incentive for subscribing, whether it is a free ebook, report or whitepaper, or do a contest with prized which is based upon getting new subscribers. Shoemoney & John Chow held a contest with over $13,000 in donated prizes. I have seen others offer free books, t-shirts and even iPods. So think about what you have to offer that people might want and gain subscribers that way.

Make sure you write often enough
If people land on your blog homepage and see 2007 (or worse, even earlier!) as the most recent blog post, they are much less likely to subscribe. So make sure you write consistently, and if you can’t, try writing some blog entries that will still be relevant a month from now that you can set to automatically post in the coming weeks when you will be sitting on a beach in Hawaii instead of at your desk.

Make sure you have auto-discover feeds enabled
This means if someone goes to your homepage - www.jenniferslegg.com for example - in Firefox, you will see an RSS icon appear on the right side of the address bar, showing that Firefox was able to find my RSS feed right from the homepage. In IE7, the RSS icon will change to orange on the right side (placed between the home button and the print button). And also make sure it is pointing to the correct feed

Need help doing some of these things? I have more detail on how to make subscribing easy, how to highlight your own comments, how to add additional RSS buttons, etc in my post 52 easy ways to optimize your blog while on your coffee break

So, you want to start a blog… but don’t we all? First, you have to figure out what you want to blog about. Then secondly, you have to consider the market area, because does the world really need another mesothelioma blog? But while some areas are definitely over saturated, there is definitely room to find a blogging niche in a crowded blog market… and yes, even in the over saturated markets, so long as you are looking at it from a unique perspective.

Here are some things to consider before you decide if you really should add another mesothelioma blog to the world, or if you should perhaps chose something a little lower on the spam radar.

What do you like?
Sure, someone told you once that mesothelioma is the highest paying keyword on the net, and last I checked, it still was. But does this mean it would make the perfect blog niche for you? If you are a physician who researched it for a patient, or have a close family member with mesothelioma, then you probably know enough about the topic to easily start a blog. But if you had to check wikipedia just to find out what mesothelioma is, consider the fact that every time you want to write a blog post that you’d need to not only think about what to write about, but research it. And trust me, it is a much better idea to choose a topic that is much less labor intensive.

So what does this mean you should do? Think about the blogs you regularly read. Now think about what is missing from those blogs that you wish they did… that is probably a good niche idea that you should run with, because if you think it is something those industry blogs are missing, chances are other people do too, and you have just found yourself some readers. When you have less - or zero - competition, the better off your new blog will be.

Can you write about it?
Make sure it is a topic you can write about easily, with minimal research required. Perhaps you are just rewriting the latest Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan gossip while including your own cynical comments. If you just need to watch for anything newsworthy about the particular celeb in question and add your own caustic comments, that is a pretty easy blog to do.

Don’t forget that sometimes topics you are interested in can be very hard to write about. Maybe you consider yourself an armchair hockey player… but when you actually have to write a post a day about NHL, could you come up with something fresh and new while giving it your own unique spin? There are only so many ways to recap a hockey game with “He shoots, he scores!”

Do other people care about it?
Look to see if there are other blogs on your chosen topic. Does the blogger post frequently? Does he or she seem to have a lot of subscribers? Plenty of comments? Or are all the blogs on the topic more akin to a barren wasteland due to reader disinterest? Looking at competitive blogs in the niche can help you see if there are enough readers and interest to support another blog… or readers that care at all. Having a hard time finding if there is interest? Check out message boards that discuss the topic to see if there are people actively talking about your niche in a forum setting. If the most recent post you can find on the subject was back in 2003, interest could be an issue!

What is the competition like?
Can you even compete with the big boys or girls in the space? Unless you can provide something the others aren’t, or doing something to generate the readers, you might be better off choosing something a bit less competitive. Instead of an all-encompassing poker blog, maybe change it to a Chick Poker Players in Vegas blog instead or a blog catering to seniors who play poker. Poker isn’t niche. Targeting a specific demographic of poker player is a niche.

Is there money in it?
We all have niches that we could blog about until the cows come home. But just because you are passionate about underwater basket weaving doesn’t mean it is the best topic either, because last I checked, there probably aren’t many people paying to advertise on it. A quick way to check is to pick the main topic for the keyword, and then do a quick Google search for it. Are there millions of pages on the topic or do they number in the tens of thousands… or worse, hundreds? Then look at the AdWords advertisers. Underwater Basket Weaving with 47,000 results and no AdWords ads tells me that it probably isn’t going to make me much money. True, you could do the basket blog just for fun or to practice your writing skills, but if you are looking towards blogging as your day job, you might as well start with a blog that can be your day job.

Are there related affiliate ads?
Don’t just look at AdSense and consider it your get-rich-quick method of making money from your new niche site or blog. Are there affiliate ads that you can run alongside the AdSense to increase your revenue potential? Not sure about how affiliate ads work? Read my article over on JenSense, Supplementing AdSense with Affiliate Ads. But if there are targeted affiliate ads that are related to your niche - the more targeted the better - you can often make much more money with affiliate ads, and AdSense would end up being the supplement.

In the end, writing what you know and love will go a long way to help you become a successful blogger. Then, following the other tips to help you discover if your chosen blogging niche is one that will find readership and pay off financially, even in a small way… but preferably in a BIG way!

There are some bloggers who link to everyone everywhere at anytime. They just love dishing out the link love! However, not all bloggers are living in the free love world. Since the advent of the nofollow tag - which was marketed to bloggers as a way to stop blog spam - bloggers have seemingly become much more stingy with when and where they dole out those links in their blog posts… and that is if they aren’t nofollowing them in the first place. And if they are PR-conscious - that’s PageRank, not public relations! - they tend to be even stingier, under the impression that their PageRank will be better if they hoard it all to themselves.

But there are benefits of actively linking to other sites and blogs from within your own content.

More value to your readers
If you can provide useful links or additional commentary of your blog topic du jour, your blog has just become that more useful to your readers. If they are just going to go and Google your topic to find out more, instead of staying on your blog, why not just link to other sites in the first place? Then you also have the added bonus of choosing where your readers go off to read more next, instead of letting Google pick the sites.

Networking
With the great dashboard implementation in Wordpress, if you link to another blogger, they will know it… even if they never look at their blog stats. If they aren’t familiar with your blog, chances are pretty good that they will click the link to check you out and see what you wrote about them. And if they like your blog well enough, you have just got yourself a new subscriber by the mere act of linking to another blogger’s post from your own entry.

Sharing link love
If that blogger you linked to likes your stuff, chances are good that if they aren’t adding you to their blog roll, that they just might follow your stuff for the opportunity to link back to you one day. So that single outgoing link in your blog post can easily result in another link back to your own blog.

Promoting smart anchor text
Try and avoid linking with “here”, although sometimes that is what will happen so it doesn’t seem out of place or interrupt continuity in a blog entry. But do your best to link with the blog entry name or the blog name if possible. This will help those you link to, but also encourage others to link that way as well, and hopefully a few of those will be in links back to you!

Linking to Authority vs. non-authority
If you are blogging about Chevy trucks, you should link to Chevrolet’s official site, which definitely falls under the category of an authority outgoing link. But you might also want to link to your local Chevy dealership (which I would here, if they actually had a website I could find in Google!), which could be considered non-authority. I try to link to authority websites as well as some non-authority, but just do a check to make sure that non-authority site isn’t also lurking in a bad neighborhood! (Not sure what makes a link or site be in a bad neighborhood? Read Revisiting your linking strategies for a health check). There are also SEO benefits to linking out to authority sites, so definitely include them in your links.

Great for writer’s block
Stuck for a few days with nothing to write about? Do an entry where you link out to favorite blog posts you have read in the past week or two. But instead of doing snippets from the blog you link to, provide the link and your own blurb about each, such as why you think people should read it or something useful you got out of it. This will help differentiate these kind of posts from the usual “links of the day/week” that many bloggers are fond of.

Avoid the nofollow
Unless you are linking to someone with nofollow for a specific reason (which can be anything from being in a bad neighborhood, or you just don’t personally like the blogger!) dole out straight non-obfuscated links in your blog posts. If you link to a blog with a nofollow, trust me, they will notice and chances are pretty good they will either not link to you at all, or you can guarantee if they do, it will definitely be nofollowed back. There are far more benefits for you if you actively link out with straight links.

These obviously aren’t the only reasons why linking out is good But definitely some food for thought if you are one of those bloggers who rarely links out because you don’t want to share the link love!