Choose a Relevant Subject

You should be blogging about a subject you are passionate or knowledgeable about. The more you know about a topic, the easier it will be to write and the less likely you will be to run out of ideas or burn out after working so hard to find one. Business should, of course, blog about subjects relevant to what they do.

Proof Your Articles

The silliest mistake most new bloggers make is forgetting to proof their work before they hit the “publish” button. No one wants to read poorly constructed sentences and most people hate having to decipher abbreviations (especially those that are industry-specific and not known to the general public. Make sure your posts are so interesting that anyone who finds them will want to read them.

Don’t Steal Articles

You might, in a pinch, be tempted to swipe an article off of someone else’s blog or website. Don’t do it. It’s a) very rude and b) represents copyright infringement. If you’re lucky the site owner will simply ask you to remove the stolen material. If you’re not so lucky the owner will ask your webhost to remove your site for lack of compliance or, in some cases, may even slap you with a lawsuit.

Allow Readers to Comment

Some bloggers don’t care about whether or not their readers leave comments but you really should. If you’re running a business you’ll want to hear what your readers think about your business. If you’re a personal blogger you’ll want to encourage conversation. Either way, allowing your readers to participate by commenting and networking will make them feel as though they’re a part of your blog and they’ll be more likely to return.

Make it Easy for Readers to Subscribe

There are a number of different features you can use to allow your readers to subscribe to your blog. You an set up email subscription tools or encourage RSS feed subscription. Either way, make sure something is an alternate method for your readers to get your information aside from visiting the website itself. The odds of seeing return visitors are greater if you can bring your content to them in a format they enjoy.

Keep these things in mind as you begin to build your blog. The easier you make it for your readers to enjoy your content the more likely it is they will return, referring others to your site along the way!

The best thing you can do to guarantee the success of your blog is to incorporate search engine optimization techniques from day one. Building your blog with your targeted keywords in mind will give you a jumpstart when it comes to getting your website listed by search engines – especially when it comes to climbing towards the top of those listings.

Most properly optimized websites, in the long run, end up performing better than websites that ignore search engine optimization and opt for advertising alone. The reason? Most companies are willing to pay for pay-per-click advertising upfront but eventually exhaust their advertising budgets.

As they end their PPC campaigns and their advertisements disappear they will find that their traffic dwindles, as do their page ranks. Websites that have used proper SEO optimization from the start are more likely to have a steady flow of business over a longer period of time – as long as the site owner continues to maintain the pages.

Let’s face it – search engine optimization may take a bit more time upfront but in the end it will cost less and result in greater conversions from targeted web traffic – regardless of your product, services, or goals. All you have to do to get started is spend a little time on keyword research, create a blog, fill it with great content, and promote yourself. The rest will happen naturally!

5. Write Quality Content

There’s a saying amongst bloggers and webmasters that goes like this: “Content is king.” It’s true – and it’s important. The higher the quality of the posts you write – the more information you share- the more people will begin to trust you as an authority on your subject. If they trust you and view you as a valuable resource they’ll begin to link back to your site or directing others right to the post they liked. Posts that earn a lot of attention will earn the attention of the search engines as well.

4. Write Strong Titles

Make sure the title of each post is relevant to what you’re writing about. Google web crawlers, as well as those from other search engines, pay special attention to the titles used on pages and posts. Make sure you include the title of your post or the keywords represented in your post in the title tag that your post creates. You’ll also want to make sure you use strong words in your title, offering valuable insight as to what you’re going to talk about. This will make it easier for your readers to find the information they’re looking for.

3. Pay Attention to Keywords

You should be targeting certain keywords throughout your website and using them repeatedly as you write your posts. Not only should you use your keywords in your titles (as mentioned above) but you should be including them throughout the body of your post as well. If possible, break your post into sections and use your keywords in the header for each section (and use the header tag to make those subheads stand out). Google won’t rank you for a keyword if you don’t use that keyword frequently enough.

2. Deep Linking

Make sure you are not only using your keywords but are also using them to link to other pages on your blog. Yes, links to your blogs on other sites are helpful but linking to your own site (referred to as deep linking) is very helpful as well. Besides, cross linking to your own posts and pages will insure your readers can find the information they’re looking for without having to leave your site to find it elsewhere.

1. Anticipate

The best way to draw attention to your blog is to anticipate what topics people will be searching for and then writing high-quality, keyword-sensitive articles about those subjects. If you were looking for information on how to make a widget what keywords would you type into Google? Think about it and use those words when you write your posts.

It’s really not difficult to create a blog full of great SEO-friendly content. Take a few moments to review every post you write and determine if it is really SEO optimized. If not, tweak it a bit and you’ll be ready to publish!

5. Staying in Line with the Competition

The truth of the matter is this – if you don’t blog you’re soon going to find that your competitors are bloging. Blogging really gives businesses an advantage, allowing them the opportunity to get in touch with their customers on a personal level. Blogging will show your potential customers that you’re not stuck in the ice age and that you know how to take advantage of modern technology. If your potential clients had to choose between your blogging competitor and your non-blogging business, which do you think they would lean towards?

4. Increasing the Google PageRank of Your Website

Blogging will help you to increase the overall Google PageRank of your website and, in turn, will  drive new traffic towards your business. A good blog, especially one that constantly updates with fresh, relevant conent, will garner the attention of search engine web crawlers. People who like your site might even link back to it, making it even more popular. Eventually, as they begin to index your pages and your site becomes more popular, your website will begin to appear closer and closer to the top of search engine result pages.

3. Corporate and Product Public Relations

Blogging gives you, as a business owner, the opportunity to talk about your products or services while at the same time building your brand. You should take advantage of this opportunity to talk to the public about the things you do. They’re never going to get a more honest or accurate story than the one that comes directly from you.

2. Positive Customer Relations

If a customer has a bad experience with one of your products what will he do? Chances are he’s going to go his own blog or to some other forum and vent about how terrible your products or services are. The problem with this is that you might never find out about his issues. If you have your own blog that same customer will probably visit your site and make a comment. You an use this opportunity to address his concerns, rectify the problem, and enhance what might have otherwise been a bad customer experience. Who knows – he might even go on to post about how helpful you were in the end.

1. Surveying the Playing Field

The #1 reason for starting a corporate blog is the advantage it gives you when it comes to understanding what your customers and prospects think not just about you but about your competitors as well. By providing great information on your own blog you will encourage those who visit to start their own conversations in the comments. They’ll tell you exactly what they think and you will eventually be able to use their opinions and ideas when formulating your next customer service strategy or when planning your next product upgrade.

Businesses with active websites and blogs have a huge advantage over the competition. It’s not difficult to create a blog and business that do find that they are constantly at the forefront and, because the provide valuable information, are more likely to gain the respect of their customers and peers.

The WP Super Cache plugin for WordPress solves the speed problem by generating an HTML file for every PHP file contained within your blog. When your webserver tries to view a file in order to run your site it will choose the HTML file over the PHP file, resulting in a page that loads much faster.

Why should you care about how fast your pages load? When people submit your posts to social networking sites (like digg.com, for example) the site will not only consider how many people have “Dugg” your work but how fast your page loads. The longer it takes for your page to load the less likely it is someone will actually stay on your page and read your information before moving on. Faster loading pages earn more attention from search engines, web crawlers, and social networking sites.

Why would you want to waste your time with blog writing if your page loads so slowly no one will ever see your work? All you have to do is install this plugin, activate it, and let it do its job.

For additional information and download instructions: WP Super Cache

Once the plugin is installed you’ll activate it through your blog’s plugin menu. When it’s time to add a video to your post you’ll simply have to switch from the visual editor to the HTML editor, insert a set of brackets with the word ‘youtube’ and include the site address for the video between the code. The code will end up looking like this (with, of course, the link you want to use in place of the one shown):

Once you’ve finished, switch back to the visual editor in WordPress, continue editing your post, and publish or save it as usual. When the post publishes it you will see the video exactly where you placed the code. The code will automatically place a preview image of the video into your RSS feed as well.

You don’t need to know a ton about how to create a blog to get one up and running. With plugins like EasyTube your the learning curve is shortened even more.

For additional information and download instructions: EasyTube

Web crawlers usually learn about new website pages after finding links to them on other sites. Including a XML-Sitemap ensures you won’t have to rely on others linking back to individual pages on your site. While having an XML-Sitemap doesn’t guarantee your page will be indexed by search engines it significantly increases your chances of being listed by making the job of the web crawler easier.

The features of the Google Sitemap Generator plugin for WordPress include:

• The ability to customize all sitemap parameters
• Multi-language capabilities
• Automatic calculation of the priority each post should receive
• Automatic notification to Google, MSN Live Search, Ask.com, and YAHOO, and other search engines
• …and much more!

Every single time you add a new post or page, or update an existing one, your sitemap will automatically be updated and the search engines will be notified. Most webhosts who wish to create a blog include this plugin. It is compatible with WordPress versions 2.1 and over.

For additional information and download instructions: Google XML Sitemaps

Search engines periodically send their web bots out to “crawl” the internet and search for information. These search engines use special formulas to determine which websites are the most popular. They consider web traffic, the utilization of key words and phrases, and the number of links a website has on other sites – just to name a few. The actual formulas used by each search engine are unknown but we do know that there are several things that can be done to increase your chances of showing up near the top of a search engine’s list.

These tactics fall into the category of search engine optimization. They ensure that your website has all of the components necessary to be noticed by the bots when they crawl the internet searching for new information. They include the proper use of meta tags, keywords, site maps, outgoing links, incoming links, the use of original content, and much more. These are all things you need to keep in mind from the moment you start building a blog. The more attention you pay to these little details the better your chances of being noticed by the search engines.

Over the coming days we’ll talk a look at the different aspects of search engine optimization, or SEO. Keep these ideas in mind as you being to build your blog or website and, subsequently, write content to fill its pages. You can’t trick the serach engines into giving your site great page ranking but if you follow some standard SEO techniques you’ll find your website climbing the search engine ranks before you know it!

The All in One SEO Pack includes a number of features. Some of those features are:

• The ability to support CMS-style WordPress installations;
• Automatic blog title optimization;
• Automatic META tag generation and the ability to edit any META tag or META keyword;
• Duplicate content solutions to help you avoid search engine penalties;
• Nonce security;
• Simple installation;
• and much more!

The All in One SEO Pack is designed to be compatible with the latest versions of WordPress and will allow you to manually fine-tune a number of different aspects of your blog. It’s easy to install and easy to use. There’s no reason for you to create a blog without installing this plugin.

For additional information and download instructions: All in One SEO Pack

Blogs themselves didn’t come into existence until the mid-1990’s. In the beginning they were only used as personal diaries where individuals could share their thoughts and receive comments from their readers. As the internet grew businesses began to realize the value of blogging. They soon learned that instead of hosting simple static websites they could also incorporate blogging – giving them an opportunity to reach out to their consumers, gather their feedback, and earn their respect in a way that was at that point unprecedented.

Today you’ll find that both individuals and businesses are using blogs to express their personal opinions, advertise products, or show their support for different causes. Some blogs feature simple text posts while others incorporate images, videos, or a combination of all three. Some people update their blogs daily while others only update 1-3 times per week. The choice is up to you and as long as you keep up a regular posting schedule you’ll eventually find more an more people are drawn to your blog.

Blogs are customizable, too – making it easy for you to create a blog that represents your ideas, opinions, or products in the most efffective way possible. There are dozens of free blogging services available online but if you’re building a blog for your business you’re probably better off installing a blogging platform on your own domain.

Regardless of the type of blog you choose to write we’re sure you’ll find blogging to be a fun and productive way of spreading the word – no matter what your purpose!