by brian on December 22, 2009
1. Post REGULARLY (not a numerical goal): Something as specific as “I’m going to post every Tuesday and Friday.”
2. Respond to EVERY comment: A blog is set up for discussion and engagement; if you do not respond to comments you will dampen the spirits of those who comment and decrease the chances that they will comment in the future.
3. Link to other bloggers in your posts: Next to commenting on other people’s posts this is the easiest way to build rapport in the blogosphere.
4. Embed pictures and videos more frequently: It causes more people to engage and requires just a little bit more time on your behalf.
5. Focus your posts around specific topics: the more diverse your blog is the less it will be read. If people know what you blog about they will be more likely to check your site when the want information about a specific topic. There’s no way you will compete with the Huffington Post.
Tagged as:
Basics,
communication,
tips
by brian on December 12, 2009
1. Consolidate Your Categories to 3-5 larger ones: None of your readers are going to take the time to go through fifty different category tags. Eliminating tags will also help focus your writing and make your posts sharper.
2. Optimize Your Blog Title for Search Engines: Is your blog title abstract? Or is it only your name? Both lack the information to help those searching for content online find you. The title of my personal blog was “The Necessary Things” (too abstract). I recently added a subtitle to help with search engine optimization: “The Necessary Things–Future Oriented Leadership Thoughts within Campus Crusade.” Much more descriptive and immediately lets people know what the blog is about.
3. Optimize Your Permalinks for Search Engines: Read this article on using permalinks. If you’re still using “ugly” ones please change to “pretty.” They don’t just look better, they also make your blog posts more findable.
4. Mix Media into your blog design and posts: Are there any pictures of videos on your blog layout? Are there hundreds of pictures or videos on your blog layout? Each person that gets into blogging leads more towards one of these three media elements: text, photos, video. A big part of the refining process of blogging is balancing each of these three media elements to increase engagement among your readers.
5. Post more often by reading more posts: Are you using an RSS reader? Are you reading any other blogs besides yours? Reading other people’s blogs has probably helped me with my own blogging more than anything else. If you have yet to dive into RSS I suggest starting with Google Reader. It’s easy to use and if you have an iPhone or a Droid there are apps that sync with it.
Tagged as:
tips
by brian on November 30, 2009
I just met Nick Iyengar (thks @jeffwidman) and he was generous enough to explain Google Analytics to me.
He recently blogged about how to use the results that analytics shows for your organic keywords to sharpen the content production process.
Here are some great quotes from the post. You should definitely take some time to read the whole thing on his blog.
“Search behavior is evolving over time, so even if you have great keyword coverage, people are constantly searching on new terms you’re not covering with ads.”
“In other words, use your organic keyword data to identify new keywords to add to SEM campaigns.”
This is how it can affect your blog:
- Most blogs start out with content that is specific to a small audience, but over time more people begin to find your blog through search engines.
- Over time patterns emerge in relation to that organic traffic; you may knowingly or unknowingly draw readers from many contexts because of a particular mix of words used in your blog.
- For example: I wrote a post that included the words “listening, hearing, and jimi hendrix.” It turns out that phrase is searched often and drives a handful of pageviews on my site weekly.
- If you invest some time exploring your organic keywords you can learn to write content around words that are searched more frequently resulting in not only more pageviews but also views that are more targeted.
Tagged as:
analytics,
google analytics
