photo credit: r0bz Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your site attract the search engines like a magnet attracts iron. It is part science, part art and maybe a little bit of luck.
The goal is to make sure your blog is high in the search engine rankings for the keywords that you think people will use to find you. And that of course, makes it easy for prospective customers to find you!
WordPress blogs are designed to help make SEO as easy as possible. There are a few simple tasks that you need to do to make sure that your blog setup is optimized.
Custom Permalinks-customize your permalinks instead of using the default links. The permalink should include a keyword and a category that is also a keyword. See Plugins,Widgets & Permalinks for a detailed explanation of permalinks.
Text-when writing make sure to include your keywords in your posts. Just make sure that using them is natural and it doesn’t look forced. And don’t overdo them either…one or two mentions is good. It is also a good idea to bold or underline one or two of them. That makes the search engines notice them.
Post Titles-make your titles as descriptive and attention getting as you can. It is also a very good idea to include your main keyword if possible.
Page Titles-another great way to insert keywords into the blog.
Category Names-Guess what? You should use your keywords for your categories too.
Photos and Video-WordPress makes adding images and video easy. And the search engines love them!
<ALT>tags- An <ALT> tag provides a description of an image or photo. This is useful for a text-based browser or for screen-reading technology for visually impaired people. The benefit for SEO is that the search engines read the <ALT> tags as keywords. So guess what you should be putting in your <ALT> tag? If you guessed keywords, you’re right!!
So those are a few steps you can take to make the search engines love your blog! As a matter of fact I think I need to make sure all my images have <ALT> tags!
There are a number of blogging platforms out there and they all have their pros and cons. In my opinion WordPress is the best of the lot and here are 5 reasons why. Agree or disagree? Let me know what you think!
1) Hosted and Self-hosted Platforms. The hosted solution puts your blog on WP’s server and it’s free. The self-hosted solution requires you to buy a domain name and get your own hosting account which will cost your some money. But remember the software is free to use.
2) Open Source- Not only is the software free but it is open source. And while no programming skills are needed to use it, because it is open source you can rewrite the code if you are of a geekish bent.
3) Flexible- a great word to describe the WordPress platform because of the large number of plugins that are available. What’s a plug-in? Visit Plugins,Widgets & Permalinks to learn more. The vast majority of plugins are free and there is one for just about every need. There are also specialty plugins which you can purchase.
4) Themes-there are 1000s of themes or a templates available to help your blog setup. And guess what most of them are free. Have you noticed that the word ‘free’ keeps coming up? Free is good!! You can also buy customized themes which allow an even greater degree of flexibility and personalization.
5) Help!! If you need it you can get it just about anywhere online or in the real world. From forums, websites, blogs, free tutorials, online courses (free & paid) to a variety of books at your favorite bookstore, help is available. See this post about WordPress Resources.
There are many more reasons to use WordPress but those are my favorite. If you have a favorite or two let me know!
Using social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn are a good way to introduce yourself know to the people in your market niche. But, in my opinion, somewhere along the line you should be drawing people to your blog.
As I see the progression, I would start out with Twitter. Why? Because it is quick and easy to set up and start using. It is also easy to find people in your market by using Twitter’s search and trending topics features. Once you have started conservations with people (it is called social networking for a reason…be social!) you can start to ask questions and learn about your market. You need to know what problems they have and what they need to solve them.
Whatever you do don’t start trying to sell your products or services as soon as you open your account! That will turn people off immediately!
Once you have a good idea of what is needed you can start offering advice to your community on how to solve their problems. This along with regular conservations helps to build trust which is essential.
After Twitter comes Facebook. Why? Because Facebook allows you to be more expansive when addressing your market. You aren’t limited to 140 characters for one thing. You can also add audio and video as part of your educating process.
Other social media channels like LinkedIn, YouTube or podcasting can also serve to help establish you as an expert and build trust. But again you should be getting people to visit your blog to learn more about you, your business and how you can help them solve their problems.
Your blog gives you the chance to go into greater depth about all the different facets of your business. You can write posts that offer greater detail on what you do, you can do a video or if you are camera shy you can record a audio presentation. You can even post photos. And because blogs allow comments you can get instant feedback on your posts. Comments also make it easy for people to ask questions and offer suggestions on improving your product or service.
And of course, you can use your blog to lead people to your other social media channels such as Facebook, YouTube, Podcasts etc.
And finally your blog is an excellent place to direct people to your “money site” whether it be within your blog, another website or a brick and mortar store.
So make your blog the hub of your social media efforts. Use your other social media channels to entice members of your various communities to visit your blog for an in-depth view of what you do and how it can be of benefit to them.
You've decided to launch a blog for your business and you're busy laying the groundwork. You've selected a name for it, and you know what you want to blog about and who your bloggers will be.
But do you have the right elements and information on your blog? What information should be on your blog? When visitors arrive at your blog, what information are they looking for?
This article will walk you through what should be on your blog and what information your visitors want to see.
Before we look at the elements that your blog should have, for the purpose of this article let's assume two rules:
Every visitor to your blog is arriving there for the first time.
You will have a maximum of five seconds to make the following information available to them: who you are, what you do, and your contact information.
With those two rules in mind, let's consider the four elements that your blog should have.
1. An About Page
The About link should be at or near the top of the blog (at the very least above the "fold"). The page it links to should explain who you are, what you do, and—unless you have a separate page for it—why you have the blog. Think of visitors arriving at your blog by accident and having no idea who you are or what you do. The About page is there for those people.
You might think that if that information is already on your website, then it doesn't need to be on your blog as well. But that is why you should assume that every visitor is arriving at your blog for the first time and has never seen your website.
Treat your blog as a separate site from your main website, even if your blog is housed on your website. A good portion of your blog's traffic will be from search engines, so it's very possible that the first exposure someone has to your company will be via your blog, not your main website. So you must clearly explain what your business is on your blog.
2. Complete Contact Information
Contact information should also be at the top of your blog. Include at least three ways that visitors can contact you: Ideally, your phone number, physical address, and email address.
Email address and phone number are a must. If you don't want to leave your personal email address and don't have a company email that you can use, create an email address just for the blog with a service such as Gmail or Yahoo.
And if you have only a personal phone number and don't want to publish it on your blog, sign up for a service such as Google Voice, which will give you a unique phone number that you can use,; put that number on your blog.
The point is, you need to make it obvious to visitors how they can easily get in touch with you. That is where the five-second rule comes into play.
Let's say you sell mountain bikes, and someone arrives at your blog after doing a Google search for a particular model, wanting to find out whether it's available yet. The person arrives at your post that confirms the model has shipped and is in stores now.
Excited, the person scans your blog for contact information to ask what the price is. The person immediately spots your phone number, address, and email address—exactly what the person was looking for!
But if that contact information weren't available and easy to find, that person probably would have left your blog and gone to the next search result. Again, that is where the five-second rule comes into play.
3. Your Product/Services Page
In the About page, you tell visitors who you are. With this page, you tell visitors what you do and what you can offer them. If you are an advertising agency, for example, this page would explain the services you offer and the clients you cater to. If you are a B2B company, you would clearly explain what industry you are in and which businesses you service.
That is also why you should have your About page on the blog, as well as several ways visitors can contact you. On your Products/Services page, include links to your About page and tell visitors how they can get in touch with you.
4. Pictures and Bios of Every Person Who Writes for Your Blog
So many blogs have no mention of who their writers are, and all their posts are signed by "Admin" or "The Blogging Team," or something similar. Let's face it, though: people can more easily connect with and trust another person than they can a company logo.
That's why it's vital that you have pictures of your bloggers on your blog, as well as a bio for each writer. Doing so makes it much easier for readers to trust your writers and connect with them.
A picture of each blogger, should preferably be on the front page of the blog. A good example of a blog that does this well is HomeGoods' OpenHouse blog. Notice how the pictures of the bloggers are at the top of the page. There's also a bio for every writer, which makes it easier for readers to trust the posts because they can literally see who is writing them. It also encourages readers to leave comments and contact the writers. http://openhouse.homegoods.com/
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When you create and design your blog, make sure to include the four elements discussed in this article. Their intent is to clearly tell your readers who you are, what you do, and how they can get in touch with you.
The power of blogs is that they allow you to put a human face on your company. By adding the above elements, you are making it much easier for your readers to see who you are and what you do—and so to connect with you and trust your content.
Have you ever run across a article on a website and thought to yourself, "That's really great information but I don't have the time to read it now." And then when you do have the time you don't have the article.
Now I know you can always bookmark it but that would fill up your bookmarks pretty fast. So here is a great solution that I recently came across. It is a site called Instapaper. They describe as "A simple tool to save web pages for reading later." Registration is free and easy.
Here is a quick video to show you how to use it….enjoy!
Before we can begin to set our goals we have to know what we are talking about, that is, what is social media marketing? What are the media in social media? I hope I answer those questions below.
Social media definitions:
“Social media is media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media uses Internet and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers.” Wikipedia
Social media is about people sharing opinions and ideas. These ideas can be expressed in text, video, audio or pictures.
“Social Media refers to activities, practices, and behaviors among communities of people who gather online to share information, knowledge and opinions using conversational media.” Social Media Bible by Lon Safko & David K. Brake (p6)
So there are 3 definitions and the common factors among them are:
People
Interaction
Sharing
A simple definition would be people interacting with each other through various social media sites for a common purpose.
Social Media Marketing definitions:
“Social media marketing is a term that describes the act of using social networks, online communities, blogs, wikis or any other collaborative Internet form of media for marketing, sales, public relations and customer service.” Wikipedia
Social media marketing – “a process that empowers individuals to promote their website, products or services through online social channels and to communicate with and tap into a much larger community that may not have been available via traditional advertising channels.” The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web by Tamara Weinberg
Social media marketing then is using social media to market your products or services to members of your social media community.
What are the media in social media? Let’s put them into categories to make it simpler. And remember this is not an all inclusive list. Who knows what new sites will be launched before I get done typing this.
Social Networking:
Facebook
LinkedIn
MySpace
Ning
Bebo
Photo Sharing:
Flickr
Photobucket
Picasa
Video: YouTube
Viddler
ScreenCast
Hulu
Google Video
12 Seconds
Publishing: WordPress.org
WordPress.com
Blogger.com
TypePad
Constant Contact
Wikipedia
MovableType
RSS Aggregators:
Atom
FeedBurner
PingShot
FeedDemon
Google Reader
Bloglines
Web 2.0 Sites:
Weebly
HubPages
EzineArticles
Scribd
Squidoo
Jimbo
ZoomShare
Spruz
Webnode
Social Bookmarking Sites:
Digg
StumbleUpon
reddit
Technorati
del.icio.us
Propeller
Fark
kaboodle
Those are just a few of the media in social media. Once we have set our goals we will select from the above sites the ones that will help us best achieve our goals.
Ah, goal setting!! There are so many different theories on how to set goals. The most important thing is to actually set them! Who woulda thought? Easier said than done though.
Sometimes just the thought of setting a goal is overwhelming. All those negative thoughts start creeping in….ok, flooding in! You know what they are, I don't have to repeat them.
So what you need is a plan. A SMART plan. SMART-Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
Using the SMART plan makes goal setting much easier because you are able to clearly define what you want and how to go about getting it. Often times you will find that the original goal has changed because you have analyzed it and discovered that it isn't what you really wanted.
Specific-What exactly do you want to accomplish? Why is it important to you? Perhaps you want to get more traffic to your blog. Ok, that's good but what is "more traffic"? Is it one visitor a week? Is it 100 a week? Maybe it's 5 per day. Make it clearly defined.
Why is getting more traffic important? Will it lead to increased sales? Will it raise your site higher in the search engines? Whatever you want to accomplish must be important to you otherwise why bother?
Measurable-the old saying is… "if you can't measure it, you can't manage it." You must setup specific criteria for measuring your progress towards your goal. If your goal is to have your site rank higher in the search engines then perhaps you can make 3 posts to a high PR forum each week. You could also submit your site to say, 4 social bookmarking sites per week. With a plan like that it is easy to measure your progress…you either made the posts and submissions or you didn't.
Attainable-Your goal cannot be unattainable such as creating 1000 backlinks to your blog in one week. It ain't gonna happen no matter how well intentioned or hardworking you are. It's got to be realistic! But the goal must also challenge you to work harder than you normally would. It has to stretch your abilities.
Realistic-This doesn't mean that the goal must be easy but it does mean that you have the skills and time to acheive the goal.
Timely-Every goal needs a timeframe, otherwise there will be no urgency to complete it. Set a deadline for yourself "I'm going to have new 100 subscribers to my blog 6 months from today!" You know what you want and when you are going to have it!
In my next post I'm going to talk about how to formulate your Social Media Marketing strategy.
To learn more about how a blog can help your business grow,be sure to visit the What's in it for You Page.
photo credit: r0bz Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of making your site attract the search engines like a magnet attracts iron. It is part science, part art and maybe a little bit of luck. 
