This blog was provided to us by our dear friends and favorite gurus in SEO Services, Web Design and SEO Friendly Web Development at SEOWhat?com. Continue reading to learn how to write a successful blog, to better your Search Engine ranking:
Universals First – Blog Writing 101:
Write with the reader in mind. Remember WIIFM? It’s marketing jargon for What’s In It For Me? That’s what you should be keeping in mind. Your reader will read your post looking for what’s in it for them.
Make it valuable and worthwhile. Don’t waste people’s time. If you don’t have anything to say, no problem, plenty other people do. So share their articles, do an interview, review a book.
Proof-read for typos and glaring grammatical errors. You wouldn’t go out of the house with dirty hair or missing a sock, so why would you publish spelling mistakes? Respect your readers by polishing up your stuff.
Keep it short and simple, sweetie (KISS). Most people are scanners. You may have a lot to say and think it interesting, and it may be. But people are reading online and out of time. Get to the point quickly.
Differences for Blogs from other Writing:
Here are some ways to post a blog that are a little different from writing another piece of online copy like an ezine article:
Keep it lively, make it snappy and snazzy. Even if you aren’t a natural born writer, you can write for your blog. Just write like you’re speaking to your friend…or to yourself!
Link often. This builds credibility and positions you as an expert in your field. People don’t have time to know what others are doing, you should tell them.
Use keywords often. This will help you stay on purpose, and the search engines will love your blog. Your rankings will go up. This is one of the reasons we have you write out your purpose statements before beginning your blog. The clearer you are about your purpose, the more consistently you will deliver messages that are on target. And the more often your keywords show up, the better your search engine results.
Write clearly (short sentences, only one concept per sentence). No double speak, or more than one idea in one sentence- don’t make your readers have to think about your meaning. Spoon feed them. Use commas and dashes liberally.
Write like you talk. It’s okay to use common expressions from speech.
Examples:
Go figure.
Don’t even go there…
Now, I ask you…
Gotta love it…
(And, remember the age group of your readers…)
Use a clear headline, and don’t be afraid to make bold statements (but don’t mislead people either). Make it snazzy.
Example:
Ex-Techno-Geek Masters HTML code
Make paragraphs short
Examples:
Sometimes you make a paragraph in a blog after every sentence. Other times, you make a paragraph after two sentences.
In this case, one sentence is all you need in the paragraph because it is an especially long sentence and it fills up a lot of space; you would want to start a new paragraph after this sentence, even though all these ideas would be in the same paragraph in another type of article.
It depends more on length of paragraph than the fact that there is another idea. The eye needs white space when reading online.
Write with emphasis. Use bolded or underlined words, or italics. Remember readers are scanners.
Get to the point quickly. Remember the journalist’s rule of 5 W’s in the first paragraph: who, what, why, when and where.
Before you begin to write a post:
Should you write first into a Word doc? No! Write it onto a notepad, or post directly onto the blog. This is because of the formatting will get changed when you copy and paste from a Word doc. If you do have any glitches, just write first onto notepad. That way you can always save it on your hard drive.
If you have an article already written in Word doc, and you want to copy and paste it, don’t do it directly from Word to the blog post. Copy and paste first into a notepad, then copy and paste into your blog. This will get rid of all the hidden formatting and should work.
Revise, edit, proof, then hit preview. Correct any mistakes by clicking the “re-edit this post” button at the top.
Then click save and your post will appear on your blog. Check it out by clicking the “view weblog” button. Then go back and make any other corrections if you need.
Driving traffic to your blog post:
At first you won’t have many readers. After the initial blogging excitement wears off, you may slump into “why bother” land, and your postings will become less frequent.
This is number one biggest mistakes bloggers make!
It is also probably the #1 marketing mistakes all professionals tend to make.
Don’t give up too soon. Keep posting. Keep blogging.
Don’t be discouraged if people don’t comment. It takes a lot of readers to come across those who like to comment. It will happen.
But don’t rely on that belief that “if you blog they will come.”
You’ve got to seed it, and ask for people to go see it and subscribe.
Make sure you have a subscription form clearly displayed at the top, using a service such as Bloglet. It’s a great way to build a loyal readership base. Most people don’t surf blogland every day, so they need to be notified when you post a new article.
Put a blog announcement every where you go, i.e., your email signature, on your web site home page, create a new landing page about your blog on your web site, advertise, and promote it.
Invite your ezine and newsletter readers to go there. Give people something for free, like a free article, or a consultation, or a review of something they’ve written. Anything you can think of.
Secret Key to Building Readership
One of the best ways to get readers over to your blog when you are starting out is to go to other people’s blogs and make comments. Each time you comment you sign your name, and give your blog url. Bloggers are interested in seeing what other’s are doing, so you can bet each time you comment on someone else’s blog, they are going to check you out. If they like what they see, they will mention you in their blog and link to yours. Their readers can become yours in a short time.
Lets take another look at what I am trying to say with examples:
1.) Write natural… this isn’t technical, this is user friendly writing that will be keyword enriched and make your page rank higher, due to Back linking to your SITE.
Only reply to blogs related with your keywords.
Blog content should reflect your keywords, and have back links to related keyword content and pages.
2.) The signature of your blog needs to be Keyword enriched.
Example:
Bob the “Network Security” Guru
eEye Digital Security
888-555-6666
“eEye Digital Security, the leading developer of endpoint security, network security and vulnerability management software solutions.”
3.) Use LOTS of LINKS!!!! (even to other sources that have links to you….)
You have allot of resellers out there, or people talking, blogging about eEye. Link to them. Return the favor.
This Blogging Resource was provided by SEOWhat?com, Leader in SEO Services, Web Design and SEO Friendly Web Development.
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