Entries Tagged 'blogging' ↓

Blogging is a fantastic way of generating traffic on the web.

But blogging without a plan is rather like rowing without a paddle – you’re not going anywhere.

I’m sure you have utilised the power of search engine optimisation for your main ‘sales’ website, but are you using it on your blog too?

Many bloggers overlook this vital aspect of blogging. Generating great content regularly is all well and good, but if you’re not getting it in front of the right people, why bother?

Blogging SEO

So how do you go about SEO when blogging? For your main website you have optimised copy, optimised H1 tags, optimised title tags etc. But the content on your blog will be changing continuously, so can you maintain SEO?

It basically comes down to three elements – keywords, back links and images. So let’s look at each one in turn.

Keywords

Just as you did for the web copy on your main website, you need to research your keywords when you write blog posts. If you have a subject you want to write about, take a look at one of the free tools (such as Google’s) to find the associated words that can be used within your text to enhance your SEO.

Make sure you use your main keywords within the post’s heading and sub headings. As you write your post, don’t get hung up with the number of times you use your keywords, instead write naturally. Don’t just use your main keywords over and over; add in modifiers too – e.g. rather than stiffing your copy with copywriter, intersperse it with phrases like – website copywriter, SEO copywriter, brochure copywriter, marketing copywriter etc.

Back links

Attracting back links to your blog will help your rankings. Therefore the more people you can bring to your blog through your SEO efforts the better.

Generating interesting copy that your audience wants to read will encourage others to link to you. And, the ‘better’ the site that links to you, the more authority you will be seen to have.

One way (unreciprocated) links are the best ones to have as they are seen as more valuable by the search engines than reciprocated links. These should be generated over time by offering great content. Don’t be tempted to sign up to offerings that promise thousands of links over night – your links should be quality, genuine links. And that takes time, but, in the long run, will produce great results for you.

Images

The use of images in your blog posts will attract readers. Including eye-catching, intriguing images will lure readers to you. Although the image itself won’t help your SEO, the image tag will.

This is often overlooked by people. Use your keywords in those tags but make sure they have some relevance to the picture.

Why am I telling you this?

These three simple enhancements to your blogging will help you generate more interest and a greater number of readers. Plus, when you write your blog posts, by adding hypertext keyword links back to your main site, you’ll drive more traffic to your main site. And more traffic means more sales.

Blogging is one of the most powerful social media techniques you can use in your internet marketing strategy. But you must be patient. Shed loads of targeted traffic won’t be generated over night. But if you follow these simple SEO techniques, you’ll soon begin to build a readership.

The benefits of blogging for business are obvious. It will help drive traffic to your website, allow you to get your views and opinions ‘out there’, give you a method of conversing with your customers and establish you as an expert in your industry.

But are you spending time reading other people’s blogs?

The benefits of taking time out of your busy schedule to read what others are talking about are numerous. Not least because it keeps you up to date with current thinking and trends in your field and those associated with your business.

It will also help keep you up to date with the ever changing world of search engine optimisation so you can ensure your online marketing activities are always at their optimum.

But more than that, reading and commenting on other people’s blogs will help drive traffic back to your website. However, that doesn’t mean you should merrily write any old thing in the hope of people tracking you down over the web.

If you are going to set up a blog commenting strategy, make sure you do it well.

How not to comment on blogs

A lot of people are beginning to understand the benefits of commenting on other’s blogs, but many are doing it badly.

You may think that commenting is simple – any fool can do it. Well, you’d be wrong because below are some common pitfalls that people constantly slip into:

• Trying to be clever can offend

If there is one thing that doesn’t convey well in the written word it is intonation and irony (OK, yes I know that’s two things). When we speak to someone face to face our body language and voice patterns show when we are being ‘funny’. Try and convey the same kind of message on a blog comment and you could come across as rude or offensive. Not a good thing.

However tempted you are at making a quip about someone else’s post, keep your comments professional at all times.

• Don’t hide behind your keywords

Sometimes you’ll see people reply using their keywords as their name rather than their real name. So, for example, if I was to leave a comment I’d put it was written by copywriter Suffolk rather than Sally Ormond.

Firstly it looks awful and secondly it takes away the personal nature of your comment. You wouldn’t introduce yourself as ‘copywriter Suffolk’ if you were meeting someone face to face so don’t sign yourself as that.

• Please, please, proofread before hitting send

This one pretty much speaks for itself. As with everything you publish on the net (and with other marketing materials) always proofread. Think how sloppy you’ll look if your comment is crowded with spelling or grammatical errors.

Yes, we are all time limited, but it doesn’t take long to read what you’ve written before hitting send.

• “Me too!”

This type of comment is a complete waste of space. If you are going to take the time to reply to someone’s post at least think of something to say. Even if you do agree with everything they’ve said try to expand on it. Give examples of why you agree – write something that adds value to the post.

• Read it before you comment

A lot of people with comment strategies simply look for the blogs in their field with the highest page rank and comment on everything – quite often without actually reading the post in the first place.

This type of ‘blanket commenting’ is of no value whatsoever. No one will be impressed. If you are going to use blog commenting as a traffic building strategy at least take the time to read the post, evaluate what’s being said and then write a considered, thoughtful comment.

• Don’t spam

This is the lowest form of comment known to man. I get loads of spam comments on both my blogs. A spam comment is where someone writes a comment that contains links to their own website – a thinly veiled advert.

This is not good practice and will result in you being labelled a spammer. And once you have that reputation it will be very difficult to shake it off.

Why do you need to know this?

Reputations can be built and broken in the blink of an eye on the internet. If you get blog commenting wrong, the word will be out in seconds and we all know how quickly information can pass from person to person on the internet.

• Make sure you have a plan
• Make sure you read posts carefully before commenting
• Make sure you read your comments before hitting send
• Be professional at all times

In my last post I explained why you should get your business blogging.

“That’s great Sally. But what the hell am I supposed to write about?”

Trust me, you’d be amazed at the wealth of material available to you.

By blogging you are going to really help your search engine optimisation, customer communication, online reputation as an expert and really boost your web presence. So it is really worth digging deep to find some great topics to write about.

Look beyond your writers’ block

Everyone has something to write about:

• your businesses background
• top tips
• ‘how to’ articles
• customer case studies

In your daily work situation subjects are likely to crop up. Keep a pad next to you to jot down ideas as they come to you. That way you’ll begin to build a list of potential blog posts for future use.

I stumbled across a great post on Problogger tackling this subject. In his post, Mark Hayward gives 9 tips for creating more small business blogging ideas. Building these suggestions into your everyday working life will generate you a constant stream of ideas.

Therefore writers’ block and the excuse that you can’t think of anything to write about will be banished forever.

Sally Ormond – freelance copywriter

If you are a regular reader to this blog, you’ll know I’m passionate about blogging for business.

I’ve been blogging for quite a while now and it has proven to be an excellent way to build my business. Plus it is a fabulous vehicle to help other people with tips and advice.

But, if it is new to you, it can be daunting. Where do you start?

I’ve put together 10 tips to help you get the most out of blogging for your business.

10 tips to get you blogging

1. What is your blog for?

Before you dive into blogging you need to be clear about why you are doing it. What is your aim?

• to build credibility?
• use it as a search marketing tool?
• will it be your main company site too?
• are you going to use it as a tool to communicate with your customers?

You may want to use it for all of these purposes. But it is essential to get this clear in your mind before you start.

2. Decide on your URL

If your blog is to be part of your main site, your URL will be incorporated into your main sites name e.g. www.companyname.com/blog. However if it is to be a separate site try to pick a URL that incorporates your keywords/topic name.

An example of this is this blog. I’m a freelance copywriter therefore the name of my blog is www.freelancecopywritersblog.com.

3. Software

The next stage is to decide on which platform you are going to blog. You can use a free blog such as through WordPress but if you do that you must remember that you will not get any benefit from inward links. All the links you get will be building WordPress’s site not yours. Therefore I would strongly recommend you get your own blog on your own URL.

4. Customise it

Create a blog that will perform as you want it to. Blogging platforms have various plug-ins you can use to enhance your posts. Through WordPress there are plug-ins such as All in One SEO, Google XML Sitemap and Tweet This to name but a few.

Your choice of plug-ins will be determined by your goals.

You can also customise templates to create an image that coordinates with your company.

5. Content

When starting out it is very important you decide what kind of topics you are going to blog about. Try and keep within your specific field. After all people will subscribe to your blog because they are interested in what you are talking about.

On this blog I discuss various copywriting and marketing subjects. People subscribe because they want to learn about those fields and know that each post will be relevant to them.

It is also a good idea to use your keywords as categories on your blog – that makes it easier for people to find information they are interested in.

6. Easy to share

If one person is interested in what you have to say, there is a good chance that other people will be too. Use a plug-in that makes it easy for your readers to share your post with others through social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Delicious.

7. Keep it social

Spread the word of your blog through RSS feeds into your Twitter account and Facebook. List your blog on directories and publish your URL.

8. Monitor

To keep up to date with what’s going and to find out what people are saying about you, your blog and your company use tools such as Google Alerts and Social Mention.

9. Blog regularly

The more often you blog the more people you will reach. Try to blog at least 3 times a week –if you can post daily.

10. Link

One of the most powerful benefits of blogging is that it creates back links to your main site. In every post make sure you add in textual hyperlinks to your main site utilising your main keywords.

I hope those 10 tips will help you set on the right foot. Blogging really is a powerful tool that every business should utilise. It doesn’t matter what industry you are in, blogging can and will help you reach a wider audience.

Last week I was asked to make a presentation on Social Media Marketing and how it can help your online business.

Amongst the various issues I talked about, one stood out as far as my audience was concerned – the power of blogging.

I’ve been blogging for quite a while now, normally on the subject of copywriting and marketing. The effect this has had on my business as a freelance copywriter and Google rankings is phenomenal.

Are you sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin

I started out with a homemade website that didn’t really feature on Google. To get my name out there and in front of the right people I used the power of social media marketing – online networking, profile sites, directories etc.

Work began to arrive and I started blogging. I invested in a new website and started getting serious about SEO and driving traffic to my site. Initially my blog was a free one on WordPress. That was all well and good but I realised I wasn’t getting any benefit from the people linking to me. All their link juice (see fig. 1) was being poured into WordPress and not my site.

So, I got my own domain name and set up the blog you are now reading. Low and behold within about 5 or 6 months I was listed by oDesk as one of the top 100 freelance blogs and other listings soon followed.

But because this was now my blog on my domain, I got the benefit of the link juice which was fed directly to my website:

Fig.1 The link juice concept

People linked to my blog – my blog links to my website – the result is greatly improved Google rankings!

It was this simplified explanation of how blogging can positively effect your Google rankings that saw so many jaws drop in the room.

Most of the people present had some idea that blogging would help their rankings but didn’t really understand how.

It’s not all about rankings

By starting up your own blog you will be promoting yourself as a real expert in your field. Giving great information in your posts will help you build relationships with perspective clients. They will grow to trust you and see you as an authority in your field.

So you see, blogging can help any business. If you are not already doing it, give it a go – you will be surprised at the results.

But if you are going to blog make sure you do it regularly.

Good luck with it.