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The Professionals Guide To Blogging
The Professionals Guide To Blogging
©2008 SEOmoz
Table of Contents
Section I: Why Blog? Research and Statistics on Blogs
Blogs are different from static websites because they also incorporate social
elements. Most, if not all, blogging software includes RSS (real simple
syndication), which is a format that allows content to be shared among many
publications. Blogs often invite users to comment, and an ensuing dialog can
occur which can generate hundreds to thousands of responses.
In April of 2008, the Technorati blog search engine was tracking 112.8 million
individual blogs. In the previous year, Technorati chairman Dave Sifry
released his State of the Blogosphere, where he acknowledged that there were
70 million weblogs with 120,000 new blogs arising daily. Every second, 1.4
new blogs are being created from scratch, with 1.5 million posts per day or
17 posts per second. In one year, from 2007 to 2008, the size of the
blogosphere increased 62%.
In 2005 (and later updated in 2008), Business Week wrote a fascinating piece
on how blogs – coupled together with social media – allow individuals to
actively participate in online communities. Business Week calls the blog
“simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the
Internet itself.”
In 2004, a Pew Internet & American Life Project report was released that stated
that at least 32 million Americans consume their news through blogs. That’s
more than 25% of Internet users.
Another report from 2004 found that nearly half of internet users have
contributed their thoughts and files to the online world. Whether by blogging
or by social media, content creation is preferred by more than 53 million
Americans. The report finds that the average age of content creators is 25.
These are your influencers, and these are also your customers.
In 2006, blogging wasn’t dying down. Pew Internet & American Life Project
found that bloggers are the new authors, with 54% of writers only using the
blog, and no other form of media, to share their thoughts with the rest of the
world. Fifty-seven million Americans are reading blogs on a regular basis.
Millions of people are adding blogs to their daily news consumption.
But how are blogs used? A large percentage of individuals utilize the blog as
an online journal. Only five percent of blogs in the world are dedicated to
business, which is why a blog is a great opportunity to market your product
and business and to establish yourself as an authority in your niche.
Why, then, should you really blog? In another Pew Internet & American Life
Project study, 58% of people turn to the Internet to address problems and
issues. Fifty-three percent consult with professional advisors, many of whom
may actually already be on the Internet). The entire chart is below:
If you don’t blog, someone else will. They may talk about their product in
the form of a review. They may consider your service ineffective for their
goals. By starting your own blog, you bring the conversation to your
territory, where you open the floor for your consumers and address other
concerns posted throughout the Internet. Blogs are perceived as direct
communication and can instill trust within your customers. When customers
know their advice is being listened to, their satisfaction increases. As a
transparent blogger, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Furthermore, some of the more prolific bloggers who keep their audience
entertained and who post frequently are starting to be considered experts in
their subject matter. Not only does this help the blog itself become more of a
known brand, but it also gives the blogger an opportunity to “coach”
traditional media journalists. Today’s news features more quotes from
bloggers than ever before. This is a trend that continues to grow to this day.
While blogs themselves are over 10 years old, they have only recently
become influential. More and more journalists today are using blogs as a
source of news, and so are the consumers. Last year, for example, popular
gadget blog Engadget had published a piece on how Apple planned on
delaying their Leopard OS as well as the iPhone. The unsubstantiated rumors
cost Apple an astounding $4 billion dollars when their stock plummeted after
the news broke. If anything, this story goes to show that the word of the
blog is powerful and can make or break businesses. It also illustrates
another important point: Engadget was the only news source to have posted
on this Apple finding, yet Apple lost a whole wad of cash due to its
publication. It goes to show that all sorts of people, from the average
student to the stock holder, are reading the blog to be updated with Apple
and tech information. The blog proved to be authoritative enough to be able
to dramatically influence business decisions.
As journalists turn to blogs for insights, it appears that the blog is becoming
a tool for up-to-date news. Due to the nature of blogging software (and in
many cases, the editorial hoops that don’t exist when posting content on
smaller blogs), blogs can be updated with breaking news sooner than later.
That is why people are beginning to trust the blog more than traditional
media.
Other reasons why blogging has become more of a mainstay in today’s new
media world is because blogs, without a doubt, are an incredibly useful tool
for marketing your product or service offerings. Once you share a story, you
can engage in a conversation that may not necessarily end on your blog –
but it will usually get people talking. As many people say, no publicity is bad
publicity, and therefore, blogging should not be a strategy that companies
are afraid to employ.
There are a variety of tools available that can provide you with the latest
information, from email alerts about updates to RSS feeds to visiting the
page on a regular basis. These options are briefly discussed below:
• Direct hits: Of course, blogs are websites too, and the website is
the place where the ongoing conversation takes place. Just as a
visitor will go to your website to buy a product, so too will a visitor
go to your blog and write a comment. Blogs often are illustrated
with information about the blogger or company, including a contact
page, a privacy policy (if applicable), and links to popular posts, and
they also may contain widgets, which are reusable multimedia
modules (often snippets of code) that can be displayed to site
visitors. (Example widgets include lists of recent visitors, “virtual
business cards” describing the author of the blog, weather
information about the blogger’s hometown, or a news snippet of
other sites that interest the blogger.)
• Social media: Many people learn about blogs through social media
sites such as Digg and Mixx (social news), del.icio.us and
StumbleUpon (social bookmarking), and even Facebook and
FriendFeed (social networking) when users share links with their
friends.
Figure 7: StumbleUpon
Figure 8: Digg
Figure 9: Mixx
There are other ways to consume blog content. In fact, the email newsletter
isn’t entirely dead: FeedBlitz, for example, delivers your blog content directly
to a user’s inbox. The aforementioned tools and techniques are just a few
ways people have opted to read blogs and keep abreast of the current
happenings within their industry and around the web.
Keep in mind that you should consider the decision of choosing a blogging
platform carefully. You may want to go with a free solution now, but in the
future, your blog and brand will grow and you may want to migrate to a
different type of platform and host. While there are tools that make this
transition relatively easy, this is something you should try to avoid if at all
possible – if you’re really enthusiastic about blogging, the ideal solution is to
flesh out the details now, because the costs may be aplenty later (from the
time investment to the development and migration).
There are a variety of blog platforms available. Some are free but require
your own maintenance. Others are free but are hosted on a centralized
server and give you little administrative control over the backend. Yet others
are full-fledged paid solutions that boast security updates (and are not as
often hacked because they are not dominant players in the blogging market).
For low maintenance but high cost, the following blog platforms may be a
solution you’re seeking:
If you’re not sure where to host your blog, consider the following questions:
• Your goals: Is this something you see yourself doing for the long
run? Will it be used for yourself or for your company?
• Your budget: Do you have a budget for hosting and domain
registration? Do you have a development budget for a customized
redesign?
Based on these answers, you should get an idea of what kind of software you
should opt in for. Below, we’ll discuss some of the considerations you may
want to think about or discuss among your company.
Depending on your needs, you may want to go with blog software that’s
simple to manage and does not require much IT overhead. If that’s the case,
a hosted solution may work. On the other hand, if you want to host the
software locally, MovableType may be your solution. Keep in mind that you
may have little leeway on adding advertisements to your blog, so if
monetization is one of your goals, you may want to opt in for a solution that
gives you more control.
At this point, WordPress may seem to be a viable choice, but before you sign
up, note that WordPress is extremely heavy on MySQL queries and a heavy
load on your blog can crash your server. On the other hand, MovableType
serves static pages that don’t typically encounter this problem. Check with
your hosting provider if you have questions about whether it supports
WordPress (Windows IIS users should definitely inquire with their hosting
company to see if WordPress can be supported since WordPress works best
on a LAMP – Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP – solution).
What if you already have a domain? Then the answer is easy: use your
existing host and create a brand new folder to support your blog. You’ll likely
need to have your host set up a database to maintain the blog, but
otherwise, by all means, go for it. It’s suggested to host your domain on
www.mysite.com/blog rather than blog.mysite.com, but this is a choice you
should discuss internally within your organization to determine the best
solution to fit in with your current hosting infrastructure. For additional
considerations, see what Matt Cutts has to say on the matter. He explains
that subdomains are best used in situations when the content is completely
different (e.g., news.google.com versus gmail.google.com).
Hosted domains, however, also have some negatives. As stated earlier, you
have lack of control and custom software. While you may not be able to
envision this reality, what would happen if your hosting provider goes out of
business? Where would your domain name go? What about the content?
Additionally, if your blog gains momentum and gets an influx of traffic due to
promoted viral content, the number of simultaneous connections you may
have can become throttled by your hosting provider.
On the other hand, registered domains give you the opportunity to integrate
your blog better with the products you have on your site because you have
full control and have flexibility to install whatever you want, from custom
plugins to specific themes or designs. If you’re aiming to build your brand,
this will provide a more credible experience to your readers; your business
will be taken more seriously with its own domain.
Registered domains don’t come without a catch. You still have to pay hosting
fees to a service provider and you have to renew your domain name yearly.
Your blog software will have to be updated in the event of new software
upgrades (as they often are required to close up known and dangerous
vulnerabilities). In the end, you’ll be held responsible for any bugs in the
software.
In this section, we’ll discuss some of the important considerations you must
make when choosing a blog platform for SEO and tools that will make SEO
much easier. You’ll also learn a little more about how to create content that
is SEO friendly, especially with regards to keyword research.
When you are considering SEO for blogs, you’ll need to think of employing
numerous on-site techniques so that search engines can discover your
content. The critical piece is keyword-rich content. Beyond that, make some
considerations for:
• Duplicate content: Your category pages may have the same exact
content as your monthly archives. If this is the case, be sure to
employ rules (such as in robots.txt) to filter out the duplicate
content. For example, in the case of WordPress, you may want to
add rules to disallow crawling of category page. This ensures that
search engines find the proper page (typically the main page) and
crawls that (and indexes it) instead.
Search-Friendly Platforms
Thankfully, numerous blog platforms meet the 12 basic SEO issues, but choose
wisely and be careful. To recap the CMS post, your blog platform should give
you the ability to make the following choices and customize your site with
some basic SEO elements. As indicated in the list below, some blog
platforms fall short and others give optimal control. Again, consider the pros
and cons of every blog platform you are weighing on before actually
choosing a platform.
5. Internal Anchor Text Flexibility: As this blog post states, “In order to
be ‘optimized’ rather than simply search-friendly, customizing the anchor text
on internal links is critical. Rather than simply making all links in a site's
architecture the page's title, a great CMS should be flexible enough to handle
custom input from the admins as to the anchor text of category-level or
global navigation links.” Internal anchor inflexibility is typically not a
problem with many blog platforms as you can change the anchor text
as needed. However, as an aside, you may want to work with your
developer to employ page sculpting for less-important pages or add
nofollow to links to which you do not want to pass much link juice.
10. Image Handling and ALT Tags: All blog applications mentioned in
this article also give you control over image handling. Keep in mind
that the hosted TypePad application has storage limitations depending
on the solution you have purchased, and the same applies for your
own hosted solution (check your quota with your hosting provider if
you have any questions). WordPress gives you incredible control over
ALT tags as you upload the image to the server through the software,
but all other platforms make it possible through editing the code by
hand.
11. CSS Exceptions: If you are hosting the blog yourself, you’ll have
complete control over your stylesheet and can add any CSS rules as
appropriate. Blogger.com also features CSS control, though
WordPress.com does not (and TypePad has this feature available only
for higher-priced subscriptions).
12. Static Caching Options: This is one feature that free bloggers (using
Blogger, WordPress.com, or TypePad) don’t have to worry about. Since
free hosted solutions are typically incredibly scalable, simultaneous
database connections during a traffic surge should not impact
performance on other blogs and won’t bring down your website either
(especially as it’s hosted elsewhere). On the other hand, if you host
MovableType, a static page is created when you publish your post.
WordPress does not offer static caching options out of the box and can
be troublesome because of the constant PHP/MySQL queries (though
there are a variety of third-party plugins to augment caching). Still,
when it comes to WordPress, your hosting configuration and server
resources ultimately determine how stable your WordPress blog will be
under hundreds of concurrent connections.
All in One SEO Pack: If you have to choose one plugin for WordPress to use,
this is the one you need. The All in One SEO Pack gives publishers the ability
to customize the title tag (and make it different from the actual post title)
and to add meta tags to individual posts and the blog’s homepage itself.
Google XML Sitemap: This plugin gives you the ability to create a sitemap that
is search-engine friendly. When a blog post is published, it also automatically
notifies search engines of changes via pinging. As soon as you publish a new
post, the XML sitemap gets updated.
Dagon Design Sitemap Generator: You already have a sitemap for search
engines, but what about for visitors? Dagon Design’s sitemap generator is a
fully customizable sitemap generator that you can add on a single page for
ease of navigation for those human readers. It also allows you to view the
number of comments your blog posts have received at a glance.
Objection Redirection: Making a big page structure overhaul? Use this plugin
to redirect pages without having to edit your .htaccess file.
Note: Upon starting a new WordPress blog, be sure to set up the permalink
structure appropriately. By default, your URL may be something to the effect
of www.mydomain.com/?p=302. Change this as soon as you get started to
reflect a keyword-rich URL structure and to employ slugs rather than post IDs
within the URL.
By using these tools, you can get a better idea of what the average
computer user typically searches for. Identify these keywords and phrases
and put them in the content, title, page slug (if applicable), meta tags, alt
tags, bold tags, header tags, and more. As always, keep in mind that blogs
need to be human-readable, so don’t overdo it – as Darren Rowse puts it, “do
not sacrifice your readers’ experience of your site just for the sake of SEO.”
If your website is focused on a specific niche, you’ll be able to apply the
necessary keywords in later articles and posts. For more tips on how to
incorporate appropriate keywords into your blog posts, refer to this post:
Headsmacking Tip #3: Run Your Blog Post Titles Before Keyword Research
Before You Hit Publish.
Section IV: Writing for Blog Audiences
Crafting a Blog’s “Voice”
Why is this necessary?
The reason why blogs are popular is because most of them – or the most
successful ones – offer a level of transparency between the reader and the
writer. Instead of seeing a corporate voice, you often learn about individuals
in executive corporate positions as humans. Blogs have a different overall
feel, and posts are better received when they convey your thoughts
regarding your business in a more informal and humanizing way. The best
corporate bloggers have voices that are heard above the crowd.
Face it: every big company has a website. Among those, though, how many
big companies engage in blogging or social media to communicate with
prospects? The answer: not very many. Blogging, then, is a great way to
influence hundreds of thousands of web surfers who may be interested in
your product offerings. Above all, since social media is an entirely different
beast than traditional marketing, blogs are a terrific way to be more direct
and have realistic relationships with readers rather than focusing on a sales
approach (which nowadays is being rejected, as the number of people who
are skeptical in traditional media outreach is growing).
Because most bloggers are looking to open the doors to conversation and
participants on comment-enabled blogs feel more welcome and appreciated,
those who participate in the conversation may feel as if they’re contributing
to the overall business strategy. Blog comments empower users and give
them the ability to voice their concerns on a website that they know is being
moderated and watched by executives and business owners, which makes
the community (rather than the “audience” or the “customer”) feel good
about their investment in the product or service offering. Above all, though,
giving readers the sense of entitlement by allowing them to participate has
often given community members a strengthened belief in the business
model. Not everything has to feel “corporate,” after all.
In many ways, the blog voice needs to come from the heart. Beyond
thinking about your sales goals, think about how you can relate to your
community: your “audience” may not necessarily be buying your products
(yet), but with the proper tone, you can convert these people into readers,
subscribers, buyers, or to achieve whatever goal you’re aiming for. Forget
the corporate jargon in your personal blog. It needs to be all about your
readers and yourself. Speak to your readers on a human level and open up.
Blogging is about conveying ideas to your readers, but it is also about
appealing to your readers emotionally.
One of the most highly-acclaimed blogs that achieves this very goal is an
extremely successful corporate blog, Nuts About Southwest (by Southwest
Airlines). Recent blog posts should explain why. In one post, an employee
talks about her youth as a Vietnamese American in honor of Asian/Pacific
American Heritage Month. In another, a father reflects on his son’s duties to
safety while recounting a recent policeman’s murder. In yet another posted on
Valentine’s Day, the airline shares a story of love and integrates it with how they
operate the business. To the point, it’s evident that Southwest Airlines is not
just thinking about its own goals but also about its readers. As a result, the
readers feel more part of the “Southwest Airlines” family. The blog has been
an incredible success for Southwest Airlines as indicated in a recent interview,
and it won the best blog of 2007 from PR News.
If nothing at all, the Southwest Airlines blog should explain how blogs are
successful within the corporate world. It succeeded because the blog was
extremely personable and the writers were directly interfacing with the
customer (and valuing the customer by allowing for conversation) while
incorporating human elements, particularly emotions. In the case of the
father reflecting on his son’s work as a police officer, the story itself is
touching and gripping at the same time. This was a brilliant and very
successful way to bring in additional readers who may want to read more
about personal heartwarming stories (and also to learn about the business –
because, after all, that’s the true goal of the blog). The Nuts About
Southwest blog is a professional corporate blog that reflects the attitudes of
employees so naturally that it doesn’t even feel corporate anymore.
Consider your writing style. Stay on point and break up your posts
into several concise and readable paragraphs. Don’t turn the post into
a ramble and don’t deviate from your main idea. Blogs aren’t formal
essays, but your readers’ attention doesn’t need to be overloaded with
information that is not relevant, especially because most people are
skimming rather than reading articles in their entirety. If you’re unsure
about how to proceed in this regard, don’t hit Publish immediately after
you finish writing. Take a break and return to your blog post after you
clear your mind, and then proofread your post to make last minute
changes that you feel comfortable with.
Lists: Since we’ve established that most individuals skim blog posts
rather than read them in their entirety, lists are important to utilize in
your blogging structure for many reasons. For one, lists are more
easily digestible than the standard paragraph format. Make it work for
you by using emphasis on the introduction of the list and then
elaborating upon the list item in the sentences that follow.
Interviews: Interview posts can work in many ways. You can run a
series of interviews with a variety of experts on a topic, or you can
engage your readers by allowing them to participate in interviews (and
make them feel good about themselves) by asking questions and
letting anyone participate, regardless of their level of expertise. Most
interview posts perform well, as individuals are quick to share
information about themselves. At the end of the day, blogging is about
you, me, and us.
Always have a backup plan if you’re unable to write for a prolonged period of
time. If you have a big blog and cannot attend to it while you’re on vacation,
for example, don’t let it just sit there. You may end up losing readers; they’re
not going to stick around if you appear to not be there for them. Instead,
invite readers to be guest bloggers or ask experts to share their thoughts.
Let any reader have a voice; empower your community. Most bloggers aren’t
looking for compensation and just want a bit of the spotlight. They’ll be
eager to participate.
Another option is to write posts in advance and have them scheduled for
particular dates, so that when you’re away, your readers (who will likely still
be hanging around) will still have something to come to. When this occurs,
it’s often useful to inform your readers that you’ll be away (especially as it
may relate to responding to comments) but that you’ll be back as soon as
possible.
Darren Rowse recently ran a series on bloggers’ tipping points and asks many
prominent bloggers about how their blogs eventually made it to the “A-List.”
It may take several months to turn an idea like this into fruition (which all
depends on the responses and timeliness of your audience in addition to
your network and contacts), but start ahead of time and then schedule the
posts for when you’re not available.
Once you know exactly what topic your blog will cover, don’t deviate from
the focus. If you’re blogging about travel, don’t talk about clothing one day
and the radio the next – unless you have a good way to tie in both to the
main focus of your blog. The best blogs are those that are focused on a
specific niche.
Thankfully, you’re not alone. There are hundreds of places where you can
get ideas for content, from using blog directories to news articles and then
some. Let’s outline a few of the popular ones:
Blogs: Chances are you’re not the only blogger covering a particular
topic. As you may know, the SEOmoz blog is not the only blog on SEO
and social media marketing. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of
blogs covering the search industry. Likewise, your industry will
probably also have similar blogs. Look at those for inspiration and get
ideas. Naturally, one of the biggest pitfalls of beginner bloggers is to
regurgitate news; this isn’t a bad thing (especially if you can pump out
the news as soon or shortly after it happens), but to give your blog
more of a personal touch, add some opinion and insight. Write a
detailed commentary and cite your sources (linking out is critical
here!).
Figure 16: Google’s Blog Search Showing Results from the Last 12 Hours
How do you draw your readers in? It’s all about visual elements. Even if
your readers are not reading everything you write, you can lure them in
with the appropriate eye candy. A hilarious image or detailed chart will
cause your readers to stop and take a second glance. The right pictures
can make a solid first impression on new readers and keep them
entertained. To locate images, use Flickr (make sure the images are
Creative-Commons licensed and be sure to give appropriate credit) or use
a free stock image search engine like EveryStockPhoto
(http://www.everystockphoto.com). While your great content may minimize
the need for images, it doesn’t hurt to dress up your post with illustrations
and make it more interesting.
As with any SEO advice, keep your blog images small for faster load times
and small screen resolutions, especially as many users are starting to
read blog posts on their mobile devices. Resize them with an image
editor for your blog post (don’t just force new height and width
constraints; it won’t be aesthetically pleasing and will take longer to load).
If necessary, link your readers to a full image.
If your hosting plan doesn’t allow for images, you can use a service like
Flickr, ImageShack (http://imageshack.us), or other sites to host your
images. Flickr is a favorite among many bloggers for other social media
benefits, but figure out which image hosting site works for you and go
from there.
Video is the future, so make sure to incorporate some video in your blog
posts. They can be informative, humorous, or whatever suits your
audience. Ideally, if you can transcribe the video yourself, it would be
even better for SEO purposes (and not many blogs or video service
providers take advantage of this). You can use sites like YouTube, Blip.tv,
Vimeo, Jumpcut, iFilm (now Spike), and many other video service
providers to host your videos. The sites will provide you with an embed
code that you can place within your blog.
Figure 20: Whiteboard Friday – A Video Embedded into a Blog Post
Ask the readers: If you’re looking for ideas, you can always run a
column where you ask the readers a question and invite their answers
in comments. You may even choose to expound upon one of the ideas
written in a comment and make it a separate blog post (or series, if
there are just so many great comments). At the same time, you may
want to let the readers ask you a question. Don’t be afraid to share
information about yourself and open up.
Utilize contact forms: Ensure that you launch your blog with a
contact form so that your readers can contact you in some way. There
are many plugins available that enable you to set up a simple contact
form where your users can add questions and service providers can
even send related pitches to your address. After you become an
established blogger, you’ll likely be contacted by traditional media for
quotes and you’ll likely even be asked to provide help on consulting for
related businesses.
Keep the comments open: The biggest part of a blog from a social
media perspective is the ability for community members to be
participants and to have a many-to-many relationship (rather than a
one-to-many relationship that is so common in traditional media
spheres). You can now share information and you can get feedback
almost instantly. Engage in the discussion wherever you’re able; don’t
just stop at the blog post and ignore the comments. Also, a word of
advice: don’t make it difficult for your readers to post comments.
Everyone should be able to write something without registration. If
you are worried about spam comments, install a CAPTCHA. If you are
worried about link drops, consider adding nofollow to commented posts
(though be advised that nofollow is the default on most blogs) or
moderate all comments before they are approved. Just don’t give off
the impression that it’s hard for your community to partake in the
conversation.
Send your content to readers via email: Thankfully, there are a number
of tools that will send recipients an email of your blog post as if it were an
actual email newsletter. Popular services include FeedBlitz
(http://www.feedblitz.com) and FeedBurner (http://www.feedburner.com).
Offer feeds based on category. Consider approaches for how you deliver
content (especially from a larger blog to your diverse audience). If your blog
pumps out tons of posts daily, you may want to offer category feeds. For
example, the popular blog Lifehacker covers a variety of software-related
topics, but not everyone wants to read about Windows or Mac; they just want
to know about Linux. Offer feeds that fit what they’re looking for instead of
letting them wade through your mountains of content to find what they’re
interested in. Make it easier for your readers, not more difficult.
Few blogs offer partial feeds primarily due to the fact that users simply do
not like them. Full feeds do have risks, most notably related to copyright
infringement, but if you take appropriate action and file a DMCA complaint,
the content scrapers will often be penalized (though the process takes
several weeks to complete). There are tools that can embed the original
content link onto the scraped feed so that readers know where the original
content has come from. One such tool is Joost de Valk’s RSS Footer
WordPress plugin, which is also fully customizable.
Traffic Boost: Without a doubt, if your viral content piece takes off,
you can get hundreds of thousands of visitors to your website in an
incredibly short time span.
Linkability: Great content gets linked to. People want to show off
their funny finds and share the best of the Internet with the rest of
their readers. If you write something informative or hilariously funny,
you’ll drive some valuable links to your site, which in turn will translate
to better rankings. A note of caution, however: try to focus on content
that is remotely related to your business or blog. Don’t write about the
30 largest hot dogs if your blog is about donating clothing to the needy.
After all, while powerful links can cause other parts of your site to be
more trusted in the eyes of search engines, the most relevant links are
the usually the most critical, so stay on topic.
Once you learn what works, you can craft your content to work just as well as
top-performing content, if not better. Ideally, if you’re going to blog about
something, look into older topics rather than newer topics. The fresher the
story is in the minds of social media users, the less likely they are to vote
upon something that is similar (especially if they don’t read the content and
the title and headline reads like a “dupe story”). This is more important for
informational pieces of content rather than news stories. On the other hand,
if you do feel that you have something compelling to say about an existing
story, it is very possible that you can add your fresh perspective and new
spin onto the newer topics in order to stand out above the crowd. For viral
content to be worthy, it is incredibly important to offer original research or
apply a brand new perspective on existing research.
If you don’t find something that fits your blog directly, that’s okay.
Brainstorm and generate ideas among friends, coworkers, or family. Write
every single idea on paper, no matter how silly and outrageous it sounds.
Sometimes, the silly and outrageous content is just what a social media
audience needs.
Your content still may not feel “popular,” no matter how hard you try to spin
it. Apply some of those creative juices to your post and give it an angle that
you may not have thought possible. For example, give your business-to-
business content a tech focus – even if your B2B blog isn’t very tech-centric.
Tie your viral content into current events that are of interest to the social
media community. In these particular cases, look at what is popular on the
front page of Digg, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us today (and over the past
few days) and work your content into a specific news story that was well
received by the crowds (which you can determine easily by viewing the
number of votes, thumbs, and saves that these content pieces have
received).
As mentioned earlier in this article, there are caching options for WordPress.
Before you activate a caching plugin and consider yourself safe, you will still
want to test this out thoroughly before you go ahead and promote the
content. Your hosting environment may feel safe under a medium load, but
it may not be able to handle the heavy traffic, even if your hosting provider
reassures you that your website won’t suffer an outage. Perform stress tests
as much as you can.
Static hosting features are still available, though if you have too many page
accesses within a short period of time (and your content is media-heavy with
hundreds of kilobytes of photographs hosted on your server), you may also
run into traffic spikes, server outages, and worse, bandwidth allocation
issues with your hosting provider. When in doubt, contact your host and be
sure that they are prepared for a spike and you won’t incur penalties. (This
is one of those times when it’s better to have a free solution on Google’s
Blogger, TypePad, or Wordpress.com, as maintaining your own hosting
environment can be entirely unpredictable.)
Fortunately, there are many different analytics platforms available for blogs
that will provide you with detailed usage statistics about your visitors. Most
require a small code snippet to be added to the header or footer of your site.
For the most part, these are all easy to set up. In this section, we’ll discuss
the options available.
Free Analytics: Some of the most powerful analytics tools are free and
don’t require much tweaking or IT overhead. Once the code is integrated
into your site, you need to log into the various analytics consoles to see
popular content. Here are some tools that work very well:
Finally, CrazyEgg also provides you with a list of raw data, which shows
you the type of element being clicked on (a word in a paragraph, a link,
a DIV, etc.), the number of clicks, and the percentage of clicks.
CrazyEgg has many different payment plans available and is a great
choice for bloggers who want to understand what their visitors are
doing once they access your site. It’s especially useful for blog
monetization to determine the ideal placements for advertisements.
Additional blog directories are listed at TopRank Online Marketing Blog, Search
Engine Journal, and MasterNewMedia.
Blogrolls
Another way to get noticed is to provide blogrolls for your readers and to be
included on blogrolls of relevant sites. A blogroll is simply a collection of
links that typically appear on the sidebar of a blog. If your blog is included
on a blogroll, this is a good sign, as the link itself is usually an endorsement
by the blogger. It’s one of the highest forms of praise since it’s a perpetual
link that shows up on the front page.
Figure 34: An Example Blogroll, Broken Down into Categories
If you are active on other blogs and have established a relationship with the
author of the site, it should not hurt to ask for blogroll inclusion. If you’re an
active participant, you can ask if you’ve earned the privilege to be included
on a blogroll.
Blogroll relationships don’t just happen like link exchanges. They’re a high
form of trust, and as such, you usually need to be a proven blogger to get
included on such a high-esteemed list. It all depends on the bloggers,
however. Some have different criteria for how they update their blogrolls. If
in doubt, ask.
Run a blog meme. A great way to promote your blog and bring awareness
to a specific cause is to run a blog meme (a “meme” being a unit of cultural
transmission). The idea behind a blog meme is to start off sharing
information about you and then tagging a number of people and asking them
how they’d answer the same question. In hundreds of posts, people start
spreading ideas and the original links get spread as well. Often, a blogger
should contact the person he or she tagged to let them know they’re “it,”
and they’ll pay it forward by tagging their friends (and linking back to you).
Popular past blog memes include “5 Things You May Not Know About Me,”
“My Favorite Charity,” and “What Magazines Do You Read?” SoloSEO has
tracked popular memes in the past and illustrates how virally they can spread.
A note about blog memes: try to tag people who occasionally blog about
themselves. Some bloggers won’t create personal posts on principle, but
others are very liberal with what kind of posts they choose to make. Many
bigger bloggers have to satisfy a tremendous audience and may not
necessarily respond to the blog meme for editorial concerns and fear that
they’re ostracizing users since they would rather share the “news,” not
“personal tidbits.” As a common courtesy, if you get tagged in a blog meme
and cannot participate, let the tagger know so that they can tag someone
else who can.
Have a contest. If you are a big blogger (or even if you’re not), contests
are easy to set up and require no major overhead. Giveaways can be
relatively cheap and include iTunes music certificates or Amazon gift cards.
In the case of larger blogs, numerous sponsors often chip in to provide
books, cash, computers, cameras, and more, which is all the more
compelling reason for your readers to participate in these contests. Some
popular contests include photo caption contests (where you provide a
targeted photo to your audience and let them write the most creative
caption), asking a question about a particular technology and choosing the
best answer (e.g., what is your favorite social network application and why?),
and possibly using third party software such as SurveyMonkey to get detailed
responses to questions in return for a nice prize (as long as you record the
participants’ email addresses). One popular contest is Andy Beal’s SEM
Scholarship contest, where readers write guest posts for his blog on any topic
related to SEM and are eligible for over $10,000 in prizes.
Read other blogs and comment. One way to network is by reading other
blogs and writing insightful comments on the blog entry. In this case, you
can link back to your blog (the smart idea is to use your name, not some
“Free SEO Newsletter” identifier for link value – it looks silly and there is no
link juice as blog comment links are generally nofollowed). Engage in a real
dialog with the blogger and they’ll recognize you, too. For promotional
strategy, relate to the blog post and provide valuable commentary rather
than “Great post!” Some spam filters actually disallow generic comments as
a precaution. If you have a related blog post you’d like to point out, it may
also suffice, but most bloggers don’t like too much self-promotion from
guests/commenters, so use this tactic sparingly. If you’re a big fan and want
to be made known, comment often. Eventually, even the biggest bloggers
will know who you are.
Link out – and generously. Link out to relevant sites on related topics.
While you may not necessarily feel that this is a benefit to you, as you may
lose the reader to the other story, that’s usually not the case. (If readers
navigate to the other story, it’s typically after they finish reading yours.)
When you link to other blogs, upon publishing your blog post, a trackback
will be generated that will alert other bloggers that your content has linked
to them. Often, that is a way of letting the blogger know that you endorse
his/her content. If the trackback is approved by the blogger you linked to
(and the blogger displays trackbacks in their comments), your link will
appear on the bottom of the comments. While trackback links are
nofollowed, readers who seek out related material may click on that link. If
they find it valuable, they may link to you, and so on.
Here is what a trackback looks like on your blog. You’ll see a snippet of the
text where you’ve been linked to among other text from the linked post:
If you become a solid social media networker, you’ll grow a fan base on your
own. If you are always commenting on social media submissions and are
always voting upon certain users’ content, they’ll take notice. They’ll likely
see who you are and what you do and follow you back. This can be another
great way of networking for some maximum exposure.
Like any initial investment, you’ll likely put a lot of time and energy toward
your blog with no initial return. That should change if you keep at blogging.
Successful bloggers can make anywhere from three to six figures a month.
Display Advertising
Banner advertising is a popular option for bloggers. Sponsors can pay
bloggers a monthly fee for display of a banner, or bloggers can use affiliate
banners where they receive money from successful transactions.
There are number of banner options available. These include the 728x90
leaderboard, the 468x60 skyscraper, the 300x250 rectangle, or the 125x125
square. Most blogs utilize the 125x125 banner ad and those appear
predominantly above the fold (which is a typical requirement for advertisers
for maximum visibility).
Figure 36: Display Ads
If you are monetizing your blog with display advertising, you’ll likely need to
provide information to potential advertisers. Advertisers typically inquire
about your demographic and the number of page views (and unique visitors,
if possible). You should have this information handy if at all possible. Many
advertisers often look at other metrics, including Alexa ranking and
PageRank, to verify the popularity of your site and to determine how much
exposure their ad will have. This may influence the amount of money they
want to offer as well.
If you choose to provide display advertising through a third party, you can
use services such as Tribal Fusion (http://www.tribalfusion.com/), Right Media
(http://www.rightmedia.com), and Advertising.com (http://www.advertising.com).
In this way, you don’t have to handle the ad sale directly and it may be
easier for you as a blog publisher.
Text Links
Once your blog kicks off, you’re going to be contacted by numerous people
to engage in link exchanges. Others will ask you about the ability to
purchase links. The first process is discretionary; many bloggers ignore the
requests due to the lack of research performed in the blogger’s niche. Most
link exchange emails get ignored by all webmasters and you’re under no
obligation to place a link on your site to another person’s website. If the
information and content is relevant and educational, however, a link
exchange may be helpful.
In the second case, text links may very well work if targeted appropriately.
Be aware that search engines can penalize you if they find out that you
provide text links that are not targeted and do not carry the nofollow on
them. However, many services, such as Text Link Ads (http://www.text-link-
ads.com), Text Link Brokers (http://www.textlinkbrokers.com), Kontera
(http://kontera.com/), and LinkXL (http://www.linkxl.com) provide contextual ads
within blog posts without you having to make any changes or additions to
your website code. These systems can still be discovered by search engines
and should be used with caution. If you don’t like a text link ad, you may
want to opt out.
Affiliate Programs
If your content is related to service offerings (and there are hundreds of
thousands of such offerings on the market), affiliate programs are a great
way to monetize your content. The more common ones that you’ve likely
experienced are book reviews with links to Amazon that include referral IDs.
In the SEO sphere, you probably have also seen banner ads from the
following affiliate programs:
SEOBook
AzoogleAds
With affiliate programs, you can talk about a particular service or product
and add an affiliate link to the product so that your readers can look into the
offering and choose to purchase the item or service. As a result, you earn
commissions on the sale. In most cases, it’s best to have full disclosure that
you are providing an affiliate link for full transparency as a blogger.
Not all items and products you talk about will have affiliate programs. In that
case, you may not make any commissions off the product. However, a large
percentage of affiliate programs exist and there are many things that can be
well-monetized if you consistently keep your readership up-to-date with
content so that they trust you to purchase a product through your review.
Besides the concerns about full disclosure and the requirement of nofollow
links, sponsored reviews are often few and far between because of concerns
about editorial credibility. However, it can make you a good chunk of cash if
the reviews are targeted to your readership.
• Serving ads via RSS feeds: At the bottom of your RSS feed, you can
add contextual links or images to the bottom of your post. Services
that offer this advertising method include Pheedo
(http://pheedo.com/), BidVertiser (http://www.bidvertiser.com/), and
Feedburner (http://www.feedburner.com). An example RSS ad is
displayed below:
• Ask for donations: Put a PayPal donate link on your website and ask
people to donate to help motivate you to contribute content. There
are plugins that also work in a similar way. The plugin below
(available for WordPress) can be found at
http://www.blogclout.com/blog/goodies/buy-me-a-beer-paypal-
donation-plugin/.
Since trust is shifting away from mainstream media and professional outlets
of communication, bloggers understand that being social and interactive with
their readers is an incredibly valuable way to build trust and gain popularity.
The successful blogger is often the one who actively updates content,
engages with the audience, and offers a level of transparency that is not
often seen in big business.
Is blogging the right choice for my site? That’s a question that you need to
investigate thoroughly. If you are ready to be communicative, receptive to
feedback, and you have the motivation to keep your community updated
with developments as they occur, then blogging as a solution may be a solid
investment. Of course, if you may have to go through a lot of corporate
hoops in order to get a single blog post published, you may want to revise
your strategy or make an argument to your department with someone who
understands the necessity for regular timely updates. The art of blogging,
however, has been effective for small businesses and bloggers to achieve
success to large blogs like Southwest Airlines to gain favor in the eyes of an
even larger group of people.
Where will blogging be in the next five years? Blogs already over 10 years
old, and they’ve only begun to gain more momentum over the past few
years. Will blogging be dead in 2013? Probably not. Instead, we’re likely to
see additional multimedia components, such as video, interactive chat, and
perhaps real-time virtual life through applications such as Google’s Lively on
the blogs of the future. While the conversation is already beginning to shift
to other mediums, such as microblogging platforms (Twitter, Plurk,
Friendfeed, etc.), the blog will remain at its core and there will likely be tools
that will be developed to integrate the microblogging discussion with the
blog platform itself. The conversation, therefore, will be discussed in
different places but they will all lead to the same destination.
Blogs about blogging: There are hundreds of blogs about blogging, but
here is the cream of the crop:
Copyblogger (http://www.copyblogger.com)
Problogger (http://www.problogger.net)
Social media resources: If you intend to use social media often when
promoting your content, there are a handful of great blog resources on how
to appropriately engage in social media marketing. These blogs are not
necessarily social-media specific; they also discuss monetization techniques,
blogging tips, and more.
Techipedia (http://www.techipedia.com)
Social media sites range from popular, multi-topic sites to niche sites for your
particular blog topic. You can submit to as many as you want.
Digg (http://digg.com)
Mixx (http://www.mixx.com)
Reddit (http://reddit.com)
StumbleUpon (http://www.stumbleupon.com), which requires a toolbar
download
del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us)
Shoutwire (http://www.shoutwire.com)
Newsvine (http://www.newsvine.com)
Metafilter (http://www.metafilter.com)
You can also promote your content on sites associated with your profile:
Facebook (http://www.facebook.com)
MySpace (http://www.myspace.com)
Twitter (http://twitter.com)
FriendFeed (http://friendfeed.com)
Plurk (http://www.plurk.com)
Video Sites: If you have a video or want to find a video that may be relevant
to your audience, the following sites are great for video inclusion.
YouTube (http://www.youtube.com)
Blip (http://blip.tv)
Vimeo (http://vimeo.com)
Metacafe (http://www.metacafe.com)
Break (http://www.break.com)
Jumpcut (http://jumpcut.com)
Aggregates: These sites usually contain the best of the best content as
promoted on a variety of social sites or as hand-picked by a team of editorial
staff.
popurls (http://popurls.com)
Alltop (http://alltop.com)
Blogging Software: From the free software to paid software tools, there’s a
solution for anyone.
MovableType (http://www.movabletype.org)
Blogger (http://www.blogger.com)
TypePad (http://www.typepad.com)
ExpressionEngine (http://expressionengine.com)
MyBlogLog (http://www.mybloglog.com)
Clicky (http://getclicky.com)
CrazyEgg (http://crazyegg.com)
StatCounter (http://www.statcounter.com)
Mint (http://haveamint.com)
If you’ve ever had to write the same text again and again, Texter
(http://lifehacker.com/software/texter/lifehacker-code-texter-windows-
238306.php) for Windows and TextExpander
(http://www.smileonmymac.com/textexpander/) for Mac can replace text
based on specific designated hotstrings.
Plugins:
Share This social media plugin for WordPress, TypePad, Blogger, and
others (http://sharethis.com/getbutton)