Should you outsource some of your blog tasks?
May 31, 2011 Blogging
When you have a blog, there are many fixes and changes that many wish they could do to their blog to make it better, more user friendly or simply safer, but many bloggers tend to run into two problems. Either they lack the skills needed to make the changes or the amount of time it takes to do something outside of their comfortable skillset results in spending time that would be much better spent doing the fun blog stuff – like writing!
But many bloggers struggle with determining whether they should outsource some of the more tedious blog chores or struggle and do it themselves. So how do you decide whether you should tackle upgrading WordPress yourself or designing a custom template for your blog? Here are some things to consider before you break out your online checkbook – or close it up if you tend to open it too freely!
Revenue
First off, does your blog earn any revenue? If it does, this often makes it a much easier decision if you decide to hire a company to design a custom template or to design a logo for your blog. When you look at your blog’s expenses versus revenue, you might decide to set apart part of the earnings from the blog to offset anything you’d like to spend money on. It is much easier to spend $200 on a killer custom blog design when your blog made $400 last month than it is if your blog only made $5 last month.
Pain factor
If it takes you a full day to do a simple upgrade on WordPress, you may decide it is worth the cost of paying someone to do the full backup and upgrade it for you, that way you free up that day to do something else much more productive. Regardless of what blog platform you use, there are people who do the backups and upgrades for a small fee.
Enjoyment
Plain and simple, some people enjoy doing things like working on their blog template or finding and trying out new plugins, the same tasks that other bloggers find tedious and annoying. If you can happily spend an entire day trying out some new plugins or designing and tweaking a theme, then why would you want to take that away from yourself? If you love to do it, don’t think you “have” to outsource it unless there is a reason for you to do it.
Moderators
Moderators just aren’t for forums. If you have a popular blog with lots of comments, especially if you tend to post many posts each day, it can take up a huge amount of time to moderate comments. While smaller blogs don’t have much problem with trolls and spam, if you have a large and popular blog, you probably have to moderate all comments instead of using the “only moderate first time commenters” setting, even when you have a spam filter such as Akismet in place. You can hire a trusted moderator (consider regular commenters or people in the industry you are close to) to deal with the moderating and then he or she can raise any issue to your attention as needed. Since this can easily be one of the most time consuming everyday blog chores, it can be valuable to outsource this to someone you know and trust. And yes, trust is a big thing, you don’t want to hire someone to approve and moderate your blog only to discover they have been sneaking in links to their personal viagra or adult site on the sly!
Research
If your blog deals with a subject that requires you to keep on top of news in the industry, you could consider outsourcing some of the research, such as artices online and blogs discussing the topic. Then you have all the information at your fingertips when you go to write it. Some areas have huge amounts of news and updates that even someone doing it full time can have trouble keeping up. Hire someone who can weed out the duplicate stories and give you the best of the best and the most unique stories and points of view that you can then comment on or link to.
Content
What about the content, can you outsource any of that? First, if your voice and/or persona is the draw on your website, you probably want to be careful how you approach this. For you, guest blogging is the way to go, where you hand pick either authors or entries and showcase them as guest bloggers. But if you are writing on something where it could be Joe Webmaster writing about it, such as your blog on Golden Retrievers, then you can more easily get away with outsourcing your content. But you first want to ensure you are getting quality, coherent copy - while outsourcing to India might be cheap, you don’t always get the quality you are looking for. And also, probbaly the most important, you want to make sure whoever writes anything for you isn’t just copying from someone else’s site or blog!
Ultimately, it is up to you to decide where the balance is between doing it yourself and the cost of getting someone to do it for you. If your blog is a money maker, that decision is made much easier, since it won’t cost you more than you earn to do so.
Gaining pageviews on older blog posts through commenting
Mar 15, 2009 Blogging
Whether you have a old blog that has racked up hundreds of blog posts, or if you are just a newer yet prolific blogger, you probably have those killer oldie-but-goodie blog posts rarely see the light of day – not because they are bad, but simply because you published them months or years ago. And while sometimes there is the opportunity to link to them in your new blog entries, it can sometimes look like overkill when you do it on a too-frequent basis.
While one method is to include a “greatest hits” page or widget, another method is actually quite simple – include links to those older blog posts when you are answering or commenting back on someone’s comment on your blog.
If you have upgraded your WordPress, you have probably noticed that handy “Reply” link that shows up in your control panel beneath all the user comments. Now if you happen to use that frequently, definitely take advantage of any opportunity you have to include a link to your own older blog entries. Yes, they will be nofollowed, as standard on WordPress, but it is the eyeballs that is most important.
You are also guiding people to your older yet related posts through a method other than the “related posts” style of plugin. Why is this important? Because as these types of plugins are becoming more popular, people will skip over the related posts part (think of banner blindness, but for related posts) so they can get to the meat of the discussion – your comments. And this is where sometimes engaging the reader doesn’t necessarily pay off, since your reader’s first response is to see what others thought about what you wrote, while the second response might be to see what you have written previously, whether through the related posts or through your category archives. However, if you include the links in your comments, you have increased the odds that they will view your older blog posts.
It also has the added bonus of engaging your readers, which also encourages others to comment as well as increases your overall page views, since readers are more likely to check back on your blog posts when there is an active ongoing discussion in a blog entry’s comments.
Don’t forget to use decent anchor text for your title, don’t just use the URL pasted into the reply field. Sometimes WordPress URLs get long and gangly, but also it helps readers know specifically if that blog entry is so they know whether they want to read it or no. Not to mention many people skip over URLs if they can’t immediately tell what it is for.
Now, don’t include links just for the sake of including links, because even if you are a real person responding, it will come off as looking very much bot-like. Don’t do random “Hey, I think everyone should visit this blog entry I wrote two years ago.” But if someone asks a question that you can answer by also include a link to a previous blog post, definitely go for it. So only include links to older posts when it would be natural to do so.
Try to also stylize your replies differently, so readers can easily identify the comments you have made in your comment stream. Many people will pay closer attention to the author’s comments than they will to “Joe Surfer” who commented also. So make it easier for people to skim and read your comments, particularly if your blog tends to spawn a lot of comments on each entry.
Think older posts can’t gain traction and become popular after the fact? Think again. My Ten Steps to Creating a Killer 404 Page entry from February 2008 recently went big on StumbleUpon again and got significant traffic. And not only that, it was the second time it got huge referrals from StumbleUpon – it also had thousands of referrals in September 2008, again well after the original publish date. The same thing has happened on JenSense too. And yes, both have URLs with dates in them.
So next time you make a reply to a comment on your blog, think if there is a previous blog post that you could link to that fits within the response. You would likely be surprised at how many people read your comment and follow the link.
Springboard off of a successful blog entry
Jan 21, 2009 Blogging
It is funny how sometimes the one blog post you write off the top of your head on a whim ends up being the one that gets all the attention. It hits the main page of Digg, gets 100s of comments when most of your blog entries get fewer than a dozen and gets more trackbacks than all of your other blog entries combined. Or maybe it is a blog post you spend weeks carefully researching and crafting, and it paid off. But when you have that many new subscribers that inevitably come with one of those hot blog entries, it can be your very next blog entry that many of those new subscribers will consider when they decide whether to keep subscribing or whether they decide you are a one hit wonder and remove it from their feed reader entirely after reading the next few entries you publish.
So in the evolution of your blog, your very next blog entry can really make or break your blog’s popularity, so it is crucial that you springboard off that popular blog entry as much as possible. So when you go to write your next blog entry, there are definitely some things to keep in mind, so that those new readers will continue to read all your future blog entries.
Similarity
Since it was the popularity of that one blog post that got you all the new subscribers, it makes sense that your next blog entry be in the same general topic area. That way, you are serving the new subscribers with what their specific interest is that brought them to your blog in the first place, while keeping your longtime subscribers happy with the kind of blog content they are used to seeing.
Linking
Can you write about something that would lead you to link to some of the blogs that linked to the popular one you did? Not only do you link back to those who generously linked to you (and likely sent you traffic) as a way of saying thank you, you can also increase the odds that the blog you link to might eventually add you to their blogroll.
What was the response?
Often, reading what others have written on their own blog about your blog entry can give you a spinoff idea on what your next entry could be. Maybe someone took an opposing point of view, and you can address the “other side of the story”. Or maybe someone took one of your points and raised some questions about it, so you can then do a more in-depth look at one of them from that popular blog entry. Even reading the comments – particularly the ones where someone has asked something – can provide great ideas on what else you could write about.
Keep the style going
If the blog entry that brought all those new subscribers and readers was an in depth look at a topic, but you tend to post short paragraph length entries pointing to other blogs or news stories you found interesting, try and resist the temptation to follow that pattern too closely! If people read your 2,000 word entry about being a business on Twitter, but the next eight blog entries you write are all 250 word blurbs pointing elsewhere, you have to expect you will experience a subscriber drop off rate. So it is important to find the time and do another in-depth look at something, since it was what brought people to your site in the first place.
Breaking news
If your successful blog entry was due to breaking the news on something important in your market area, this can be a bit trickier, because this is often the time when bloggers can find themselves becoming one hit wonders, at least when it comes to breaking news. So be sure to cultivate your relationships with those that can give you the tip off to the next hot news story, so you can gain a reputation of being the one to go to when it seems newsworthy is lurking on the horizon.
It is those popular blog entries that can really be a springboard to success for many bloggers, so be sure you have a plan as soon as you see one of your posts gaining traction. By taking advantage of your sudden newfound popularity, writing some great followup blog posts can easily keep people interested and keep them subscribed. Plus, one of your followup blog entries could also become one of your super successful ones, meaning even more traffic and more subscribers 
Have you become too money obsessed with your blog?
Jan 12, 2009 Blogging
There are definitely blogs that I have been a loyal subscriber in the past that I now turn away from with distaste. And there are other blogs that I had come across because of one excellent blog entry I discovered – usually one in the archives that I landed on either through a link from another blog or after doing a search — that was worthy of subscribing to the entire blog, but I ended up unsubscribing almost immediately because all of the recent entries on the blog had become far too obsessed with trying to make as much money off of me as possible, that it made me wonder what value I was getting out of it, since the blogger seemed determined to suck all the value out of me
We all can probably think of one blog we used to be a fan of , but it hit that point where the making money off readers obsession hit full force with such a vengeance, that it seemed none of the blog entries were being written without having some ulterior motive to make money. And sometimes it isn’t as obvious to the writer that his or her blog has crossed the line where those ulterior motive blog posts become noticeable, not to mention irritating, to loyal subscribers. So if you think you may have crossed the line, or wonder where that line really is, here are some things to consider, because the last thing you want to do is alienate your loyal subscribers and send them subscribing elsewhere! In other words, here’s how to make sure your ads aren’t driving everyone else nuts
Acceptance
Mostly gone are the days when blog readers used to get all up in arms because someone dared to put an ad on their blog (yes, that really did happen). Fortunately now, most people realize that people need to get some payment for the labor of love that is their favorite blog to read. If you have a backlash, add one of the “donation” links and request that some readers pitch in to help cover hosting and support for the blog. Some will be willing to ante up a few bucks for their favorite blog, but secondly, the others will realize there are costs associated with the blog, and advertisements can cover those costs so you can continue to blog
Sponsored blog posts
How often are you doing some kind of blog post that has been sponsored by companies or products? Sure, a blog can definitely support doing sponsored blog posts, particularly once you get RSS subscribers levels up, but you need to consider two important things. First, is that sponsored blog post you are planning to do actually relevant to the blog? Sure a company might want to pay you $200 for writing about a specific kind of hot tub, but if your blog is primarily about healthy meals for families, that blog post will stick out like a sore thumb.
Second, how often are you doing sponsored blog posts? Doing one sponsored blog post in every ten or so entries will allow readers to be a lot more forgiving than if those same readers realize that the last seven blog posts you did have all been sponsored. And just remember, the fewer true subscribers you have, the less money you will earn if and when you do decide to do a sponsored blog post.
So if you do decide to go the route of sponsored blog posts, ensure that the sponsors posts are actually related to what you are blogging about, and that you don’t go overboard by doing them too frequently.
Affiliate links
Just because you have a Commission Junction account doesn’t mean that you should link up every possible word in every one of your blog entries with something you can get money from, nor should you go out of your way to write about something just because you can slap an affiliate link in it. More often than not, they are off-topic to your blog, and you probably won’t make much money – if any – to make it worthwhile. That said, there is absolutely nothing wrong with blogging about something and linking to it with an affiliate link, just keep in mind that everything in moderation is good. So avoid the new blogger temptation of linking up every possible thing in each blog entry, because that will turn readers off pretty darn quick.
There is nothing wrong with affiliate links, but just like sponsored blog posts, you don’t want to go overboard with them either.
On topic
Just as you want sponsored blog posts to be on-topic to your blog, the same should apply for any advertisements or links on your blog. If you have a ton of links in your blog roll on all the “high profit” areas that have absolutely no relevance to your blog (whether it is your texas holdem site or not), it will turn people off – not to mention the potential search engine repercussions as well. Keep all your ads as on-topic as possible, even if it means turning down $25 from that poker site, even though they will probably tell you how your blog about expectant mothers of twins is perfect for it!
Overboard – Ads Ahoy!
Just as you want to make sure your ads are all on-topic, you want to make sure you don’t go overboard by adding too many advertisements either. Start off small, such as an ad unit in the footer, or a 125×125 ad in the sidebar, and then gradually add one more placement a few weeks at a time until you are where you want to be. Your readers will be much more accepting with a gradual advertisement increase than they would be if you suddenly added all 8 ad placements overnight. And the same applies to brand new blogs versus proven successful blogs too, readers are much more tolerant of those well known successful blogs too!
Hit the Monkey
You know how annoying those hit the monkey flashing animated gifs are on any website, and of course all the variations of them… so why would you want to torture your own blog visitors with them? Flashier isn’t better, and many a surfer has left a site in haste after spotting one of those uber-flashing banner ads. It is far better to have a non-animated and non-annoying ad on your site than a flashier one, even if it pays less money, because the loss of visitors could be more costly than having the extra $25 or $50 in your PayPal account.
Just because you have multiple ads, doesn’t mean you have to use them all at once!
Don’t forget that you can definitely use more than one network or stream of revenue on your blog… but you don’t have to use all of them at once! Perhaps one offer from one network would work well as it is targeted perfectly to your readers this month, but the following month a rival network has a better offer for something else that is also perfectly targeted. You might find Adsense works very well for you on the whole, and you supplement it with one 125×125 image ad in the sidebar from Pepperjam. Some bloggers might even drill it down to the blog entry level and pick and chose specific ads for each entry, to tailor the ads perfectly to each topic within the blog’s theme. Or you might decide to use just a single ad placement but use a third party service such as ScribeFire Quick Ads to automatically optimize it for you. There are many ways to add multiple streams of revenue without turning your readers off.
ROI
And if you are placing affiliate ads on your site, especially a bunch of different ones, make sure you get on board with a decent analytics program and track your ROI. True, you aren’t spending money to put that ad there, but what good is it having an ad taking up space on your blog when it has resulted in zero commission sales for you in the past three months? As many new affiliate marketers with a brand new affiliate company account, if you are tempted to place a bunch of different ads on your blog to see what sinks and what swims, you are better off to just use one or two ad placements and use an ad management program to rotate them. It will be far easier to see what is working well for you and what isn’t, and then remove the ones that aren’t working so you can give the ones that are resulting in sales more pageviews.
Life Beyond AdSense
Believe it or not, there is money to be made beyond AdSense 
Many bloggers are tempted to slap AdSense on their blog and forget about doing anything else to increase the revenue, especially if they are content with what they are currently earning with AdSense. If you have fallen into the comfort of AdSense (and trust me, many people have), take a look at Supplementing AdSense with Affiliate Ads.
Don’t use just one ad revenue source
If you are planning to purchase a brand new car, you wouldn’t just go into the first dealership you find and buy your new car there on the spot without checking out any other dealerships. The same thing goes for advertising too. Avoid the mistake of just using Google AdSense or just using Commission Junction, unless it has proven itself to be the most successful for you. While both Google AdSense and Commission Junction attract many new bloggers simply because of name recognition, don’t forget there are many other networks out there. I have done a few reviews on JenSense of different ad networks that supplement AdSense well, read the reviews on the Pepperjam Network and on ClickBooth.
Rule of thumb
When all else fails and you are wondering if maybe you have gone overboard with the advertising on your blog… you probably have! It is better to err on the side of caution than turn off potential or current subscribers because you thought all eight of those ads above the fold were golden.
Whenever people start to think about how they can offset some of the costs associated with blogging they can quickly jump that line and start alienating readers, usually brought on by the first big affiliate sale or the first person that wants to pay three figures for a link or sponsored blog post. So when the euphoria comes of “I can make a ton of money doing this!” make sure you are doing it slowly and carefully because the last thing you want to do is lose some of those longtime subscribers or prevent new ones from subscribing in your overzealousness.
Tags: ad networks, AdSense, affiliate ads, Blogging, Clickbooth, making money, Pepperjam
Does your blog stand out from the crowd?
Jan 7, 2009 Blogging
Does your blog do you enough justice to help you stand above the rest of the crowd? Or has it faded into the background while other bloggers have gone on to become more successful? Chances are pretty good your blog is not reaching its full potential . But what can you do to ensure that your blog stands out and is remembered in the crowded blogosphere? Here are some things you can do to help your blog stand out from the rest.
Distinct look
Many of us fall victim to using the “same old” type of blog template. We use one and love it, but it can quickly become a signature – or worse, a footprint – of every site you do. Sure, the colors might be a bit different, but on the main level, many are pretty darn similar to each other. Getting a custom blog design from a really good blog designer can really make a difference and allow your blog to rise above the others to stand out from all the rest who stuck with “same old”. Yes, it will cost you money, but there are definitely some excellent blog template designers out there that are quite reasonable. Don’t know who to use? Look in the footers or sidebars of some of the blog designs you admire, and see who designed it.
Good layout
Just like you want to have a distinct look, you want to make sure that look is also good. This means you want to make sure your blockquote indents are clearly indented and separated from the rest of the entry and any bulleted or numbered lists you make are also formatted correctly. You want to make sure anything you bold does actually come across as bolded once you hit publish and that anything you link to actually looks like a link when you hit publish. Because yes, sometimes blog designers do weird things in their blog design to make it esthetically pleasing, but neccessarily user friendly!
Change it up
If you can’t afford a blog designer yet, carefully select one of the freebie templates, looking to make sure it isn’t sponsored by “Texas Holdem Viagra” or “Mortgages and PayDay Loans” and then change it up a bit. Change the colors, alter the header, change the text… all things you can do it make it not as easily recognizable as a popular free template. Yes, even a popular template can trick a visitor into thinking it is a fresh never-before-seen blog template unique to you, simply by changing the color scheme or re-doing the sidebar name images with a different font, without having to do anything with the layout… especially handy for those who aren’t quite comfortable designing a template from the ground up, yet can’t quite afford to use the services of a professional.
Memorable logo
Is your logo unique to you? Does it consist of a picture of some sort along with the text of your blog name and/or tag line? If you have a great unique logo – which means you will probably have to pay for one, if you aren’t an expert graphic designer – you can then use the image part of the logo as your brand to use it as favicons, avatars on social sites, and your gravatar. This helps build your brand and makes you stand out, both on your own blog and anywhere else you happen to be. And no, all logos don’t have to have an image. Some logos can be quite successfully done simply with a unique font, especially when done well with colors and layout.
Unique spin on topics
There are definitely times now when it seems just about every type of blog article has been done to death many times over. But if you can make a consistent habit of putting your own unique spin on your blog articles, the difference will be noticeable and your blog will be refreshing to the reader, especially for those used to reading regurgitated blog posts. And having that unique spin can make your blog stand out and get you more subscribers because of that fresh outlook.
Be the devil’s advocate
When there is a hot topic that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon to blog about, instead of being a sheep and going along with saying what everyone else is saying, just slightly more in your own words, go ahead and take your stand on the other perspective and be the devil’s advocate. If everyone is blogging about something Google did that has everyone proclaiming “Google is Evil”, then you go and write a blog entry about why everyone should really love Google for doing it… just be sure you have something constructive to say to back up your point of view! But not only will it be sure to get attention as link bait, it can often cause those readers to read your other perspectives on other hot topics too.
A Picture is worth a thousand words
While not all blogs lend themselves well to adding a photo to each entry (such as this one!) some market areas definitely do. If you are talking about the hockey game you watched last night, include the team logo. Were you at an event? Include a photo you took while you were there. Are you talking about laundry? Use a stock photo of a washing machine or clothes drying on a clothesline. Pictures are also great for skimmers who are skimming quickly down through a page of your blog entries – the photos help tell the reader what it is about, allowing them to pick out the ones that are most interesting to them. Some sites use photos fabulously – check out Consumerist to see how they use images, both as thumbnails on their index page where they have blurbs about each entry, and on the blog entries themselves. That said, make sure you have permission to use the photos you do, or you could find a not-so-nice cease and desist in your mailbox.
Get optimized
Make sure your blog is optimized well. This means make sure your titles and permalinks are SEO-friendly, that your blog entries are getting indexed in Google Blog Search, and that you aren’t feeding the bots a ton of duplicate content. Want even more optimization tips? Read 52 easy ways to optimize your blog while on your coffee break.
Go social
Make sure you use something like Sociable to make it easy for others to recommend you. If you notice your entry getting Diggs, Sphinns or Stumbles, add those buttons onto those entries too, to encourage votes. Get hooked up on Twitter (more on that here and here).
These are some ideas to help your blog stand out in the crowded blogosphere. What else do you do to stand above the rest?
Does your blog have an effective tag line?
May 15, 2008 Blogging
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Ten Ways to Write a Digg-worthy “Top Ten…” post
May 12, 2008 Blogging
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.
Guest blogging at ScribeFire about… blogging!
May 8, 2008 Blogging
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.
Why corporate business blogs are important to your marketing strategy
May 5, 2008 Blogging
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.
Blogger’s to do checklist before hitting the publish button
Apr 30, 2008 Blogging
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?
Tags: Blogging, blogs, links, spelling, Usability, wordpress, writing
