Archive for Blog Development
Link Building to Boost Your Blog’s Search Engine Ranking
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You’ve got a great blog with an eye catching template, all the right plug-ins and widgets. Not to mention some killer content including audio, photos and even some video. Excellent! A great blog is…well….great but if no one can find it, it’s not doing you much good.
So how do you get the search engines to love you?
The answer is…. Link Building. It is one of the most important steps a blog builder can take to boost their search engine rankings. This is accomplished by using one way backlinks with the appropriate Anchor Text.
Anchor Text: Anchor text is one of your main keywords that have been converted into a hyperlink to a page on your website. For example, one of my keywords is “blog construction” and it would look like this in a post on a forum or a comment on a blog. Blog Construction. If you click on it you will go to the home page of my site The Blog Builder Guy because I linked the keyword to the site. Always use one of your keywords as your name when you make a blog comment.
So where do you find places to add your links? Below is a list of the easiest places to start.
Forum Posting: find forums related to your niche and place links in the body of the message or in your signature. Make sure your comment contains helpful content and follow the forums rules.
Blog Comments: Post relevant comments on blogs related to your niche. Use your anchor text as your “Name” when filling out the comment info box.
Yahoo Answers: Find questions that are related to your niche and give answers. The resource section allows you to put links to your site.
Social Bookmarking: Bookmark your site on places like StumbleUpon, Digg or Technorati. At the bottom How to Set Goals for Social Media Marketing you’ll find a number of bookmarking sites listed.
Once you have started your backlinks building campaign make sure you stick to a schedule so you can achieve maximum effect. Don’t do all of your linkbuilding on the same day of the week either. Spread it out so it looks more natural to the search engines.
And remember it takes time to build quality backlinks and it takes time for them to have an effect on your ranking. Be patient…remember the turtle and the rabbit story!
5 Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Blog
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photo credit: adria.richards
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!
Where Do I Get Stuff To Write About?
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That’s a question I hear all the time. “Where do I get stuff to write about?” Not to mention, “How do I make it interesting? Who wants to read my stuff? Why is there air?” Ok, maybe not the last one. That’s a line from a Bill Cosby joke. And the answer is…”to blow up basketballs!” All right, moving on.
These are all great questions for sure and each one should have an answer before you begin to put your figures on the keyboard.
I’ll cover this one today. “Where do I get stuff to write about?” First off, if you have a blog you should have a good idea of what you want your blog to be about. What will it focus on…political commentary, internet marketing, a blog for business or maybe for personal blogging, where you are expressing your thoughts and feelings to the world…think online journal.
Your blog’s overall theme or topic will dictate what you will write about. That is not to say that every single post must be “on topic”. That will get boring for you and for your readers. So don’t be afraid to go “off topic” occasionally.
If you are passionate about your blog’s topic you shouldn’t have any trouble coming up with posts….for awhile. Even the most passionate blogger can come up empty once in awhile.
So where do you turn for inspiration? I’ve always found that other blogs are good sources. I’m sure you must be subscribing to some blogs that are similar in topic to yours. Right? Say “Yes?” If you’re not go find some!!
Read through your favorite blogs and see what they are writing about. And look to see which topics have the most comments. That will tell you if the subject resonates with readers.
Still stumped? Do you have Google Alerts? If not you need to sign up. Go to Google Alerts
Below is what Google says about Google Alerts. Its a direct copy and paste…hope they don’t sue me or something. Besides they say it much better than I could. Who am I to presume that I could say it better than Google?
“Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.
Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:
- monitoring a developing news story
- keeping current on a competitor or industry
- getting the latest on a celebrity or event
- keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams”
Go to the link and sign up. Its easy and free. You will receive alerts on whatever topic you signed up for and you can choose to have them sent to your email or to your favorite feed. Like Google Reader. Yep, another Google plug. Sign up for Google Reader too! Maybe I’ll cover that in a future post.
Another great way to get ideas is from your readers. What topic has the most comments or the most views. (your analytics program will tell you that…get one if you don’t have one. Guess who has one? It begins with a G! And The Blog Builder Guy always includes it when he builds your blog.) Take the most popular post and expand on it. If its popular enough you could even write an e-book about it but that’s another post.
You can even ask your readers what they’d like to see on your blog. What better way to engage them than to ask for their opinion?
Well that’s enough for now. Can you think of anything I should add? (see that’s me trying to engage my readers)
Talk soon!
My Favorite Plugins
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Here are a few of the plugins I like the best because of the added flexibility and ease of use they provide.
You have to have backups for your piece of mind! This plugin will backup your data on a weekly, daily or twice daily schedule. The backups can be stored on your server or emailed to you. The Blog Builder Guy installs this plugin on every site he builds. It is a must have!
Dean’s FCKEditor for WordPress plugin(V3.3)
This plugin replaces the default Wordpress editor with a much more powerful and flexible editor.
Here are a few of the features it includes:
- Post comment with CKEditor to provide styled and colorful comments(Optional).
- Build-in File manager and upload manager.
- Build-in Wordpress "read more" Button.
- Control output format.
- Customizable toolbar buttons
- Integrated with WordPress media buttons for audio and video
- Manage and insert Smileys into your post.
- Customize editor’s skin.
Follow the above link. They explain it much better than I can. If you are serious about SEO you need this plugin. The Blog Builder Guy installs this one on all the sites he builds.
So those are 3 of my favorites. As time goes on I'll add to the list. If you have any comments let me know!
After reading this post check out another related post on plugins. 31 WordPress Plugins for CMS.
Power Blogging Tips (3)
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This is the last part of 50 Rapid Fire Tips for Power Blogging.
31. Don’t Post Low Feedburner Counts. Do not show your RSS subscriber count unless you have a high enough number (at least a few hundred). A low number acts as social proof that your blog has no readers, and that’s not good.
32. Install Popularity Contest or some similar plug-in which ranks your posts based on popularity. Whether you display this information in public on your blog or not, knowing which of your posts are most popular tells you that that particular subject material works and you should probably do more of it.
33. Put relevant keywords into your blog’s title. Use All-In-One SEO to have more control over the titles across your blog.
34. Use a Photo Gallery. People dig photos, so a photo gallery can be a great component to your blog. If you use Flickr, check out the Flickr Photo Album plug-in for Wordpress.
35. Create an RSS widget for your blog on WidgetBox and make it available for your readers to embed on their own blogs if they so choose.
36. Spend some time creating some killer posts for your blog, the link to them somewhere so that new arrivals can quickly see your best work. It is your best stuff which is going to sell them into becoming a subscriber.
37. Make Sharing Easy. Put options on your blog for your readers to share your posts across social media. ShareThis is a great option for this.
38. Share and share alike. If you submit your own posts to sites like Digg or StumbleUpon, be sure to also submit other posts. I might even recommend a 10 to 1 ratio of other people’s posts to your own posts. You do not want to develop a reputation on these sites as somebody who only submits their own content.
39. When you write a post for your blog, aim to be helpful. You want your visitors to come away with a solution to the problem they arrived with. Chris Brogan does so well because his posts are truly helpful.
40. Read other blogs often. When starving for ideas to write about, go to your RSS reader and read related blogs. Often, your own post can be a response to a post on another blog. In fact, this is usually a good idea.
41. Train your readers to do what you want, if needed. If you’re in a market where the people will not know how to use social media, RSS and some of these other things that help promote your blog, TRAIN THEM. Write posts or do videos which show your visitors how to Digg a post, use StumbleUpon, how to use RSS, etc. Perhaps you can educate them and they’ll become part of your promotion army for your own blog. 
42. When starting a blog, decide on it’s mission. Your posts should, for the most part, center around a specific theme if you want your blog to really take off. If you run a personal diary kind of blog, where you write about anything that comes to mind, your blog traffic will always be limited because your blog will never attract any particular segment of people. Stay on topic. If you have no specific topic, that’s fine, but realize your blog is going to be more a hobby than a business at that point.
43. Don’t overload your blog with javascript widgets. These things slow down the load speed of your site. In fact, just recently I had to get rid of the MyBlogLog widget on this blog because it was having some effects on page loading time.
44. Use Analytics. I personally use Google Analytics as well as the Wordpress.com Stats plug-in on this blog.
45. Use Windows Live Writer. It is the best blogging client program out there. Even though it is a Microsoft product and a Windows-only product, it is also better than any Mac blogging client I have tried. And it’s free.
46. Be yourself. I believe it is a good thing to show personality on your blog. Don’t be a fake. People can see right through it. Chris Pirillo draws people to his blog and Ustream feed almost solely on personality alone.
47. Don’t write like you’re writing for Britannica. You want your spelling and grammar to be correct, but be colloquial. Talk to people like you would normally talk to people, not as if you’re writing a PH.D. dissertation.
48. Link To Your Social Profiles On Your Blog. Link your various social media profiles right on your blog so that your readers can connect with you outside the confines of your blog.
48. Go where your readers are. Every market is different. When I blog about blogging, I know most of my readers are pretty adept online and probably hang out in the social media space frequently. If your readers are young, they might be on Myspace. If they’re Linux nerds, they may be in the Ubuntu forums. Regardless, you need to maintain a consistent presence in the spaces your readers congregate. Be an authority and be helpful, and traffic will be drawn over to your blog.
50. Equal time reading and writing. You should probably spend just as much time reading and learning as you do writing for your blog. This is how you expand your knowledge, become a better blogger, and get new ideas for your own site. Blogging isn’t all about you. Remember that.
Introduction to Blog Development
Posted by: | CommentsBlogs for Business
Blogging has come to be considered a highly effective marketing tool. You can easily create awareness of your product and get clients and customers to interact with each other. And not only customers, also those who are relatively new to your product get a platform to ask questions and clear their air about your product.
Moreover, it also increases your website rankings because the blog is constantly being updated, commented on, and discussions are always going on. Because of its sheer activity, the rankings improve, creating more awareness of the product.
The following are the pointers based on which you can blog about your product:
• Never make the blog post too long. Less is more. It must be well written. Long posts tend to get dreary and they are not ‘catchy’ enough for people to sit and go through them. Oh yea, spelling counts!
• Update regularly. Since you don’t need to write long posts, that is not much effort. Ideally, blog 3-7 times a week.
• Be entertaining where required, everyone can do with some light hearted humor, without being derogatory.
• You need not stick only to text. Video and photo blogging are catching on fast and are interesting ways to share your thoughts and make your videos and photographs well known. Plus Google loves videos and photos and they will help you get ranked higher.
• Be yourself. Do not to ape, imitate or copy someone else’s personality or content. You want to build relationships with people and the best way to do that is to be yourself.
These are just a few tips on using Blog for Business. There will be more to come. If you have anything to add please do so!
Introduction to Blog Development
Posted by: | CommentsHow Can Online Blogging Be Profitable to Ordinary Individuals? (Part 3)
Ranking of any website depends on a few factors. It would basically depend on the relevance of the article according to the key words used; the number of times that page has been linked and viewed, etc.
These are quite easy to follow, and if these factors are carefully noted and looked into, the rankings of your website can increase considerably.
The first step is to get your website linked through various other pages. The more the pages are that contain your links, the better ranking they will receive. The second aspect to be kept in mind is how often you update the content on your website.
Frequently edited and updated sites receive higher ranking in search engines than those that have not been looked at by the owners for ages. Always editing the content of your website as a whole may not be an option.
In this case what you can do is add a Blog to your website. A Blog will function as nothing but a forum for people to come and discuss the themes that concern your website too.
It will create a platform, as well as become a journal whereby you can also post updates about your operations and your website. The advantage is that the content on such Blogs will not be restricted only to text, but pictures and videos can be posted too.
The few easy steps as described below will take you through how to create your own blog and what are the things you must look out for:
• Cost can never be a problem because free blogging services are quite popular all over the world. If you choose sites like Blogger or LiveJournal, you are sure to get exactly the kind of platform you are looking for. They are absolutely free.
• If you are not comfortable with web designing techniques, you need not worry. Creating your blog is not as complicated as designing a template for a website. There are a number of free templates available (see What I Will Do For You) which The Blog Builder Guy can install for you. These template sites provide a wide range of templates from which you can choose the one most suited to your tastes. There are also a number of what are called Premium templates. My favorite is iThemes. I used their Flexx Professional to make this site.
• You must also use your discretion while blogging. Especially if you are incorporating your blog within your website, or creating a blog to increase awareness of your product, you need to keep in mind that this is an open forum which is read by all. You do not want to say anything that may end up angering your clients. Politics and religion are the two most controversial themes, and therefore anything about those must be carefully blogged about.
• Anything that is particularly reader friendly and does not anger too many people is considered ‘safe’. If your aim is indeed to increase the ranking of your site, you will have to make sure many people read it. You can do this by making your content user friendly.
• And REMEMBER!! What is said on your blog stays on the internet FOREVER.
• Also keep an eye on what other people write or say on their blogs. This can give you a general idea of what kind of responses those articles receive, and you can get valuable tips from them.
End of Part 3
