7 Editing Tips to Improve your Blog-Writing Skills

You can have hundreds of websites on the internet, but if nobody knows about you, you are invisible. A well-planned, creative online marketing campaign can put you out there for the world to see and instantly increase your sales. Now with that said, you will at one point need a blog in order to improve your online visibility. Take a look at these tips below fromsocialmediatoday.com.

Developing your blog-writing skills is a slow process. Work on your technique continuously and your work will attract readers. Take in readers critiques for they know best how well you are passing on your thoughts. Neglecting the editing aspect of blog-writing will deter your readers from your blog.  Here are the reasons why writers need to edit and how to edit your blog articles.

Let’s start at the basis of why writers need to edit.

• Inspirational chaos. Say you came across an amazing idea for a blog article that you know and feel will bring in traffic from the web. Then you start typing away with no end in sight. I like to call this ‘verbal/written diarrhea’ where your words just flow in every direction. Editing will help your thoughts come together in the end.
• Diverse ideas. Writers tend to get lost in their sentences or words and don’t take the time to double-check if their sentences would make sense to a reader. People may capture your writing differently than you had thought. In the creative process ideas get intertwined which can cause for messiness and a blog article that isn’t easy to read.
• Grammar and all that other stuff. Editing as you write never works out!  Take your time to edit your blog article after you have finished. We all miss one or two words when editing – sometimes we don’t even notice when we press the wrong key so spell-checking and revising each article afterwards is a must.
• Oh, you speak English, too? Even if you consider yourself an English-native speaker – edit your articles. Just because you were born into the English language and learned about it all your life doesn’t mean you won’t make any errors (it’s very naïve to think so).  

Follow these 8 simple tips to when editing your work that promise great writing skills for future blogs:

1. Take a breather after writing. The first mistake writers make is editing their post right when it’s done. Writer’s thoughts are fresh in their heads and when re-reading their article they might not pick up on the errors right away. Giving yourself time will put you in the reader’s seat without prejudice to your own work.  You won’t remember why you chose that exact word over another. This is the only time I recommend distractions: TV, music, Facebook, what have you. The key is to focus on unrelated things then come back to your article.

1. Divide and Conquer. Divide your editing into three processes: content editing, structure editing, and grammar editing. Being more specific while editing will help you focus on specific grammatical errors. Again, take your time.
   -Edit content. Review your article keeping an eye out for sections that don’t make sense. Look for unfinished paragraphs and fragments. After identifying them, work towards fixing the errors.
   -Edit structure. Write your articles in a way that the reader will be able to follow your content. Structure your content using bullets or bold headers.
   -Edit grammar. Lastly, edit grammatical errors. This shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes for a 800-900 word article.
2. Less is more. When it comes to words – less really is more. Don’t use complicated jargon unless your blog’s audience understands the lingo. Readers know when you have used the same words and are saying the same thing again. Remember the reader is smart – don’t underestimate their ability to understand your words. Adjectives and adverbs can confuse and distract readers. Keep overused words such as “definitely,” certainly,” “really,” etc. out of your article.
3. Don’t trust Spell-check. Trust your spell-check software lightly. These tools don’t “understand” your writing and don’t grasp variations of sentences or word usage.
4. Read at random. Choose a random paragraph from your article and edit it. Then choose anotherrandom paragraph and edit that one. Do so until you have finished editing them all. I know you’re asking yourself why? This tactic stops you from reading in “autopilot.” You wrote this article so you know what’s coming next and you may miss obvious mistakes.
5. Don’t overdo it. What’s harder than actually starting the editing process? Knowing when you’ve had enough. No sense beating a dead horse. If you find yourself rewriting the same sentence over and over then you should call it a night. Reaching the publishing stage is stressful, but don’t let your indecisive editing keep your article in the drafts folder.
6. Learn from your mistakes. After following the steps above, you will be closer to a perfectly written masterpiece. Learn from the mistakes you picked up in the editing stage. Analyze what you’ve done wrong and practice to get to your goal writing style. When you write your next article make a list of your mistakes along with your corrections. This will help you remember your mistakes and hopefully not repeat them.

I hope you find the above tips as useful as I have. There are free online tools such as After the Deadline to help with editing. This tool has helped me shift from writing in a passive tone to a more active tone. What actions to you take when editing a blog article?

Starting out with mobile social media marketing

We are all part of the continuous mobile buzz and it doesn't look like it will be stopping anytime soon. Everyday you find people sitting at their favourite coffee shop with their tablets and smartphones working. The new on the go office space is 100% mobile and it's no longer necessary to sit in a cramped office to get work done. It is now easy to get things done on the go.

People are slowly shifting away from reading traditional newspapers as all the latest news can now be accessed from mobile devices. E-books are changing the way booksellers are selling books like Amazon. When last did you go to a bank to do a bank transfer? Why am I asking this? It's simple - the times are changing and you should get your business on board.

Online you will find many digital marketing articles explaining that Social Media is the best route to take for Internet marketing. Even though I agree with that, I believe you should take your social media campaign further and integrate mobile marketing into your strategy. This will help boost your business to be visible in the ever changing digital business world. With a mobile marketing strategy, your customers will be able to have access to your business on the go, virtually from anywhere in their own comfort zone.

If you already have a social media marketing strategy and it is geared for traditional online users, I guarantee you that you are missing out on lots of valuable business. To start integrating mobile marketing with your social media campaign, find below a couple of tips that can help you with this.

Mobile social media marketing tips

Use mobile platforms: Create profiles on social media platforms such as Foursquare, Google Places, and other related local networks. Having an active presence on these mobile platforms will help your customers find you online.

Mobile website: By creating a website for your business that is mobile friendly with mobile friendly graphics, guick loading times, your business will be ready to tap into the mobile market.

Mobile app: This is very different from a mobile website. A mobile app for your business can help your users interact with your business. You can create a mobile app to allow users view your latest news and blog posts, schedule appointments, contact customer service or even place orders. The possibilities with a mobile app is endless.

QR codes: Create a QR code that you can use in your internet marketing strategy. One of the easiest ways to create a QR code is to use Google's URL shortner Goog.gl.

As more people are starting to use smartphones for business, make buying decisions, and to find information, it is important for your business to tap into this medium in order to reach customers.

Using your blog for search engine optimization

Using your blog as a Search Engine Optimization strategy for your website has many benefits on improving your organic website rankings and attracting targeted website traffic. Blog marketing  is a method of using optimized blog posts that provides value to your website.

When you publish a new blog post, Google sees this post as a new page to your website. By using keyword rich links in the content of your blog posts that links to the most relevant page on your website provides a powerful way to increase your links on the search engines.

How are you going to optimize your blog to have the best SEO benefit for your website?

SEO Optimization

Make sure that the structure of your blog is 100% optimized to support your website. To gain natural links from your blog, make sure to make it original and interesting. Other bloggers will link to your blog if they find it interesting or when they are referencing you on their own posts. Other ways you can optimize your blog is by submitting your blog feed to blog aggregators such as Technorati and adding an SEO pluging to your blog to help you with the optimization process.

Keywords

Create a blogging campaign by listing the keywords you will be targeting in your blog posts. These keywords can include all the phrases that are relevant to your business and that you want to use to be found for on the search engines. Usually this list can be anything between 30 and 300 keywords that you can use in the content of your blog posts. If you use a blogging keyword plan when writing your blog posts, it will be much easier to stay on topic when writing new blog posts.

When writing new blog posts, make sure to use a minimum of 300 words and posting new posts at least twice a week. If you don’t publish new blog posts on a regular basis, you will lose interest from the audience you are trying to reach.

4 Blogging Tips to Double Your Site Traffic

Did you know that you can use yourbusiness blog for branding and it also establishes you as the authority in your niche? Blogging is an interactive method that will allow you to reach your target audience. This can include using the blog for website traffic, reaching new customers, branding, and it can be used as a communication medium. take a look at these tips below from SocialMediaExaminer.com.

Jason Crawford, president of the Parts and Service division of Block Imaging, was upstaged by his six-year-old daughter.

In her ponytailed debut on the Block Blog, Crawford asked her, “Madeleine, do you know how to fix a laser aimer?”, to which she confidently replied, “Yes!”

The pair then demonstrated with charming aplomb a simple troubleshooting tidbit for Block’s medical imaging equipment customers.

The video was one of a slew of ideas that came out of a two-day retreat aimed at kickstarting a company-wide commitment to content marketing through their blog.

Since then, Block has seen an increase of approximately 150% in organic search traffic to their site, which has translated to more and better-qualified leads and shorter sales cycles.

Sales volume has increased significantly enough since September that the company—which had been in a slump—hired 13 employees, including 3 additional salespeople.

Organization: Block Imaging International, Inc.

Social Media Handles & Stats:

• Website — Block Imaging International Inc.
• Blog
• LinkedIn
• YouTube — 12,591 views

Highlights:

• Organic search traffic increased from 4,000 to approximately 10,000 visits per month
• A single post was the impetus for a $70K order
• Three new salespeople hired since the company-wide commitment to blogging
• Over 250 downloads of The C-Arm Buyers Guide in its first 3 months

Block’s search traffic increased significantly after a September 2011 company retreat focused on content marketing.

Block Imaging, a 70-person company in Lansing, Michigan, provides preowned and refurbished medical imaging equipment, including machines for MRI, CT, X-ray, C-Arm and mammography, to a worldwide market.

Their sales growth over the past year is to a great extent directly attributed to theirfocus on content marketing through their blog.

Four factors have contributed most to their blog’s success.

#1: Buy-In From the Top

The atmosphere at Block Imaging in summer 2011 was fearful and distrusting; sales were down and every department had scaled back.

Vice President of Marketing Krista Kotrla articulates that they had two options: “Are we just going to accept this not being a good year and cutting and scaling back on everything, or are we going to go all-in on something to try to grow this business?”

She had experimented with getting a blog going the previous December, but participation and results were spotty. “It was kind of relegated to the marketing department trying to get an article from the company president maybe once or twice a month,” she said.

Kotrla proposed a two-day company-wide retreat with a content marketing specialist to launch what she calls a “culture of content marketing.” Response to the retreat was extremely positive, generating a host of ideas for blog posts and videos such as the one Crawford made with his daughter.

“I had never written a blog before, and I had never done a blog video before, but I figured we’ve got to start somewhere,” Crawford said. “It really came down to being willing to be a little vulnerable and a little real with people.”

Block Imaging employees in a team blog-title brainstorming exercise at their company retreat.

“It was a definite intentional shift from leadership saying that this is the way we are going to go, this is the wave of the future,” said Product Manager Chris Sharrock.

#2: Make it Easy for Everyone to Contribute

There is no one-size-fits-all strategy at Block for coming up with content. Sharrock dove in wholeheartedly, and has no problem consistently cranking out two to three blog posts a month, but some others have needed a little more help and encouragement.

Some people can take a list of keyword phrases that marketing has gleaned from Hub Spot and run with it; others work better with a specific blog post title. Others are more comfortable verbally. “Some salespeople feel much more comfortable standing in front of the backwall we set up in the conference room and filming a short video,” Kotrla said.

And if there is someone who hasn’t sent any submissions in a while, “We pull them aside and in a one-to-one meeting, try to figure out what they need,” she said. “Is it more keywords, specific titles? Sometimes they just need permission to stop the daily grind and sit down and talk it out. Other times, they feel more comfortable if they know it’s being reviewed by an engineer, so we’ll take a salesperson and an engineer out to lunch and flesh out a few outlines.”

Block’s ambitious goal of one post every weekday means managers must keep on top of department quotas, but they find that an atmosphere of inclusiveness and flexibility has far better results than reprimanding people for not participating. To date, over 40 people from the 70-person company have contributed to the blog.

#3: Empower a Content Officer

One strategy that has helped tremendously is to have a single point of contact for all blog drafts, someone they have taken to calling the “Content Officer.”

Jordan Batterbee, originally from engineering support, emerged as a natural writer who can take a draft, outline or even a list of bullet points from another team member and craft it into a well-edited, SEO-keyworded post, injecting some humor and personality along the way.

Jordan Batterbee, Block Imaging’s Content Officer

Having him as the conduit for all posts has been “hugely significant,” said Kotrla, “Because it made it a lot easier for people to contribute very little and turn it into a post that they get recognized for. It makes it easy and comfortable for people to participate.”

Batterbee has increased his contribution to the point that he is about to move over to marketing full time. “I wish we had invested sooner in developing a dedicated person to carry more weight in helping to oversee our blogging machine,” said Kotrla.

#4: Make it Fun and Rewarding

The one factor that ties everything else together is consistently celebrating and rewarding contributions to the company’s content marketing, creating an environment where employees are intrinsically motivated.

“Every two weeks at the staff meeting, we reward two content superheroes who have contributed something significant to the blog. We have a Spiderman mask and a Wolverine mask that they put on and we take a picture that we share in the next all-team PowerPoint presentation,” said Kotrla.

Two of Block’s biweekly Content Superheroes.

“We also have a really cheesy Plinko board with gift cards at the bottom, so they get a gift card, too. But it’s not really the gift cards, it’s the fun of knowing that you contributed. We try to inspire in the team that all of their efforts arecontributing in a significant way to the overall company vision.”

But besides the chance to unleash their inner superhero, the biggest motivator for Block’s employees is success.

Said Crawford, “When we get feedback when someone says, ‘Your answer to a common question helped me make a better decision,’ or when people begin to see that they helped someone get a better result or find an answer to a problem they were having, that’s a great feeling that people want to experience again and again.”

What do you think? Does your company have a blog? What strategies are succeeding or not succeeding in your content marketing? Leave your comments and questions in the box below.

Business blogging for lead generation

Businesses blogging has become the heart and soul for many business Social Media Marketingcampaigns. A business blog marketing strategy can get faster results than traditional online marketing and many businesses online are taking advantage of this opportunity to use this method as their main online marketing strategy.

How business blog marketing works is that it uses blog posts to advertise their services, products, and website to the online world. In plain English: business blogging is simply a way to market your business on the social web using your blog. Many businesses has a website, but not all of them are using a blog for marketing purposes.

Blogging for branding

Did you know that you can use your business blog for branding and it also establishes you as the authority in your niche? Blogging is an interactive method that will allow you to reach your target audience. This can include using the blog for website traffic, reaching new customers, branding, and it can be used as a communication medium.

Business blogs are the newspapers of the future and has become quite an important medium on the web. In my experience, blogging is also one of the best ways you can use to publish new news that can be spread like a virus online. More and more people are reading blogs everyday to find out information and if they are looking for an answer to their problems. This shows that blog readers are early influencers and adopters. People who read blogs are more likely to take an action when they have found what they are looking for.

Using business blogging for lead generation is a very similar to marketing with an enewsletter. With both you can build relationships with your customers and credibility. Do you have any success stories with blogging?

Marketing Your Blog: 10 Essential Tips You Should Know

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them.Some companies choose to hire a blog consultant, but others like to try things internally. Blog marketing is a must if you are a blogger. Take a look at these tips from Hongkiat.comabout marketing your blog.

Everything from contacts and invoicing to project management

Well, a new year is upon us, it’s also the start of a new decade within the blogosphere. More and more people are building blogs, and that means there are lots of blogs competing for the same eyeballs and your blog is just one of many. Try finding accurate figures on how many blogs there are and you will know it’s impossible to find a verifiable number because bloggers and their blogs come and go. Look around. It’s certainly a disheartened moment when you see blogs with quality articles that have been abandoned by their creators.

With all of these blogs out there, and all those information available at no cost, how do you make your blog stand out? No problem, just follow these tips and your blog will blossom in this new era when you stay ahead of the rest of your competitors.

1. Target Your Content To A Specific Readership

Image: via Dat Le

Unless you want to throw all of your marketing budget and precious time on people who could care less about your blog, then you must pay attention to determine the preferred audiences to whom you would like to target. Before posting any piece, determine if it hits the sweet spot of your demographic.

2. Be Original, Be Honest

Don’t follow the herd within your sphere of interest. Followers aren’t innovators and innovation keeps readers reading. So, don’t simply spin the same old post. Take an original slant on a common topic.

Be honest. Verify your facts and provide links to additional verification. Readers trust you to be a good reporter, instructor, mentor or inspiration so keep it honest at all times.

3. Don’t Be Afraid Of A Little Controversy.

Controversy sells. You and I know that. If it is a part of your business model, be prepared to engage others with differing opinions because, guaranteed, lots of readers will disagree, and you may even encounter a few trolls and haters who frequent blogs for no other purpose than to post inflammatory garbage.

4. Post As A Guest Blogger

Image: via AjDreams

Don’t post to just any blog within your realm. Submit your best pieces to the prestigious blogs – the ones that already have a substantial following. For example, Hongkiat.com is considered by industry insiders to be one of the best blogs for designers, marketers and freelancers. Getting one of your posts published on a top of the line blog is a great way to drive traffic to your blog where readers can find tons of content – all your archives – just waiting for a bookmark.

Of course, getting published on a well-established blog requires insight and something new to be added to the discussion. A rehash of conventional wisdom, regardless of the field of endeavor, won’t make the cut with top tier blogs within any industry or area of interest.

5. Simplify Subscriptions

Don’t hide your RSS button down the page together with your WordPress theme credit links, make them visible & clear for your reader’s eyeballs by taking the following approaches:

• Add an RSS chicklet at the top of your sidebar so visitors can easily load your posts into their RSS readers.
• Offer email subscriptions.
• Provide links to mobi feeds so readers can access new content from their cells or iPhones.
• Provide one click subscriptions using reader links to PageFlakes, Google Reader and other remote site readers. You can build a big following fast if you make it easy to find your blog again. And again, and again.

6. Social Media Marketing

The expansion of social media and the evolution of multi-generational media apps are only going to pick up steam. Social media sites have taken off, providing bloggers with an arsenal of tools based on the guerrilla-marketing axiom: Use the resources of others to your advantage.

A few years back, Twitter didn’t exist. Today, not only is it ubiquitous, it spawned a whole new level of web innovation and interactivity.

Follow the rules & open accounts at Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter. Every time you make a new post to your blog, let your readers know about it by posting to these popular sites. Update your status with interesting & latest news that fascinates your readers.

7. Create Different Profiles For Each Social Media Site

On LinkedIn, you want to be all about business. On Facebook, show a little of your personality – the carbon-based life form behind the blog. On Twitter, shine the spotlight on your blog. Each profile should be designed to show a different facet of you and your expertise.

8. Don’t Oversell. Teach, Too

If you post to social media sites all day long, flogging your latest blog post, it won’t be long before your Facebook friends hit the hide button next to your name. It can’t be all selling and no sizzle. Instead, post information on a new blog piece, but also post news from other sites that you think will benefit your readers. Know when to stop pushing for a larger readership and when to start giving away information to drive more readers to your blog.

9. Long Tail Keywords Get You Found

Image: via Wiki

If you maintain a book review blog, a broad keyword like books will keep you buried in the backwash of Google’s SERPs. Instead, narrow the focus of a search engine search through the use of terms and phrases, broadly referred to as long tail keywords.

So, instead of using “books” as a primary keyword, use a long-tail keyword like “independent book reviews” or “book reviews of current bestsellers.” Sure, not as many people will use these long tails when conducting a search but those who do will discover your blog at the top of page 1. And that’s just where you want to be.

10. Optimize Your Blog – Both For Readers & Bots

Cut the clutter of 23 affiliate banners, animated adverts and other distractions. Remember, your site should be attractive to human sensibilities.

Indeed, it’s important to look good to readers who follow you. It’s just as important to look good to search engine spiders. Conduct keyword research using tools like Google’s keyword generator that provides keywords used by actual Google users over the past 30 days. Place those keywords in headlines, sub heads and a few of them in your blog posts.

If you don’t know much about SEO, grab yourself a cup of coffee & start reading the comprehensive list of search engine ranking factor provided by Seomoz.

The pace of innovation is only going to increase in this new decade so, if you’re standing still you’re losing ground to competitor bloggers. Stay current, use all the new tools and follow all the new rules.

Your blog space is your real estate. It has value. Make the most of it.

Questions to be asked with your blog marketing campaign

Blog marketing is a way to advertise or publicize your business website. In other words, blog marketing is an easy way that you can use to market your website, products, and services. With blog marketing you can establish your business as an authority and it can also be used as a strong branding tool.

Blogging for your business is an interactive medium that will allow you to reach interested people that wants to find out what you offer. This can include building up quality traffic, building up your online brand, reaching new customers, and help you to communicate directly with your current customers. Even though this sounds good, there is really more to it than just launching a blog. Your blog should have a clear focus if you want it to succeed. Find below questions you should think about before starting your blogging journey.

Blog marketing questions

What is the purpose of your blog? Your blog marketing campaign will work the best when it has a clearly defined purpose. This could be to promote a new service, promoting a whitepaper, targeted traffic or to increase your network size.

Who is your target market? Do you know who you want to reach with your blog? Define your target audience with interests, demographics, and what information they are looking for.

What are you going to write about? Choose a topic that you are going to write about that will interest your reader and that is related to your business. If you sell websites, perhaps you can start a blog on website design. This way you will be able to engage with your audience before they make the final decision.

What platform are you going to use? Do you know which blogging platform you are going to use with your blog marketing campaign? There are many free platforms you can use with blogging such as WordPress.

What keywords are you going to target? Blog marketing works the best if you have a plan. Research and create a list of keywords and phrases that you are going to use in your blogging spree. Choose a couple of keyword phrases that are focused on the topic you are going to blog about. This is very important because these keywords are how people are going to search and find you online.

Blogging Tips for Internet Marketing

Internet marketing ties together creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including: design, development, advertising, and sales. By encouraging your readers to share your content with others is a really powerful way to drive targeted traffic to extend your brand and to drive traffic to your website or blog. Take a look at this article below from themelib.com with tips for marketing your blog.

Blogging can be used for a lot of things but if you use wisely, you can utilize it to promote yourself on the internet. What we can say with certainty is that it is one of the most effective methods of reaching out to readers. Blogging allows you to share life experiences with your readers. Anyone who has a computer and internet connection can blog. Read below for some simple blogging tips for your internet marketing activities:

• Regardless of the subject, your main goal is to build up your credibility as an expert in that area. You will also need to have links to the varioussocial networking sites on your blog so that you can create a network of links more easily.
• The better your advice, the larger your audience will become. And the more audience you receive, the more readers will visit your site and use your blogging links. And who knows? If you get enough hits, major companies may even recognize your work’s value and try to get in touch with you.
• Submit your links to social networking sites on your blog so that they can be Tweeted or StumbledUpon.
• Use an excerpt from one of your blog posts in your email signature with a link to the post on your blog.
• Get signup box for your viewers who wish to subscribe to your blog. You may also want to try offering a special information or gift to subscribers for signing up.
• Ask for comments and feedbacks from your viewers. This is among the best ways of keeping tabs on their interest on your blog.
• Join up with other blogs and blog networks. You can even invite other bloggers to post their stuff on your site. And if you want something a bit different, you can try interviewing other bloggers to hear what they have to say.
• Use RSS for feeds and to add interest to your blog.
• Pick your keywords carefully. Make sure that your blog posts are targeted towards the right keywords so that you can get additional traffic into your site.
• Use Tweeter.

Although you’re not going to become an instant internet celebrity overnight, blogging is obviously a big help in your internet marketing arsenal.

12 Things That Will Kill Your Blog Post

In Internet Marketing, onlinecontent that you publish is one of your most valuable assets on the web. By sharing your content online you can enhance your company’s brand, broadcast your message across the web and demonstrate your expertise to name but a few benefits. Did you know that you can allow the visitors of your website or blog to share your content with others? Have e look at this article below that I found on seomoz.org that talks about thing that will kill your blog post.

Blogging is a lot like fishing. Some people do it all the time and never catch anything…while others catch everything.

Why is that? You know better than to say it is luck.

So let’s call it what it is…when you look around at successful blogs…whatever industry or topic…there are several undeniable basics to success.

And it starts with blog posts that kill it…rather than get killed. But what kills a blog post? Here’s a list of 12 things…ignore them and you will have a tough time being successful.

1. Crafting cute, clever or confusing headlines (or really bad ones)

Your headline is going to appear in many places. At the top of your post…

In search engine page results…

Feed readers…

And subject lines.

The goal of the headline is to stop readers cold and draw them into your post. You can’t do that if you use cute, clever or confusing headlines.

You can stop readers cold, however, if you write headlines that are unique, ultra-specific, useful or urgent.

As you can see, headlines can share multiple U qualities. The best ones often do.

2. Never linking to old posts

In the example above I linked to four older posts of mine. I did that for several reasons.

1. They helped me prove my point.
2. Those links drive traffic to those older posts…giving them new life.
3. Those links contain keywords I want to rank high with.
4. Links are one of the best ways to direct Google spiders through your site.

Just because you’ve published a post doesn’t mean you should forget about it. Each post is a valuable asset in which you can give new life to with each link.

3. Never linking to other bloggers

A long time ago I wrote a post without any links. It was an important topic…I was busy and just wanted to get the post out. I actually intended to go back and put in links when I had more time.

However, an influential blogger who had started reading my posts commented almost immediately. He said, “Don’t you want others to join the conversation?”

I immediately went back and put in links.

The value in linking out to other bloggers is three-fold:

1. You draw others into the conversation – By linking to others opens yourself up to discussing the topic at hand. This allows you to listen and trade ideas with others, learning things you didn’t know before you started…and creating relationships.
2. You give credit where credit is due – If you write something that is based on an idea that you got from somewhere else, you must link to that blogger. Its proper manners on the web.
3. You get the authority juice – Inbound links no doubt have high impact on your search rankings. But so do outbound links…especially if you are linking to authority sites. Read my The 10 Golden Rules to Attracting Authority Links to learn more.

4. Forgetting to fill out your page title and description fields

You’ll screw any chances of your post ranking if you forget to fill out the page title and description fields for each post.

That meta data is critical to search engines crawling and indexing your site. And when you use keywords properly, it tells those spiders what the page is all about.

To make life easier on you, use a plug in like All-in-One SEO pack. In WordPress you’ll see this form at the bottom of each post:

That’s by far been the best plug in I’ve used. Here are some tips on creating good meta descriptions.

On top of that, your titles and descriptions have to be social friendly. For example, Jennifer from SEOmoz tried to share Nutella Day on Facebook and here is what happened:

If you want Facebook to pull in the right title and description, follow these steps.

5. Creating clunky URLs

Having the worst domain name is one thing. Creating clunky URLs for each post that people can’t read or search engines can’t index is another thing.

These are the worst offenders:

• http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/602-9912342-3046240?_encoding=UTF8&frombrowse=1&asin=B000FN0KWA
• http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=98115&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1&iwloc=A

If you want to give your post a fighting chance in the SEO landscape, then you have to include recognizable words in your URL. This means keywords, too.

6. Plagiarizing other bloggers

Listen: one of the keystone elements to successful blogging is consistent content. In fact, in one study HubSpot proved that the more you blog the more traffic you will get.

But ask any blogger, doing that over time and the well will eventually run dry. That’s why there are so many blog posts about creativity and overcoming writer’s block.

Bloggers need a ton of ideas!

That’s when the temptation to copy what other bloggers write comes in. (By the way, scrapers are shameless plagiarizers.) But there is no faster way to kill a post and ruin your reputation than to plagiarize.

7. Publishing less than one post per month

Okay, I understand that you are very busy…and that churning out one blog post a month is not easy. But really, the less you post, the less chance your newest post has any chance at gaining traction.

That one blog post every two months is about as good as not blogging at all.

As I mentioned above, the more frequently you post, the more traffic you are going to get. That traffic eventually slows and then dies when you stop posting.

Besides, if Google comes back to your site to check for more content and doesn’t find any…it will back offand it may be a long time before the spiders come back…which sucks for your newest post.

8. Writing big blocks of copy

On an article for Optimizing Marketing Copy for Mobile I found these paragraphs intriguing…especially the one with the arrow pointing at it:

I understand the author isn’t writing for mobile. He’s writing for Mashable. But the same rules that apply for mobile marketing copy…well, pretty much apply across the web.

Writing short paragraphs is a basic blog post writing law. Just like simple words and short sentences. Resort to long blocks of copy and you are stacking the deck against your blog post.

9. Zero presence on any social media platforms

When blogging was the only game in town (see points 3 and 4 in that article I linked to)…well, all you really had to do was blog. There weren’t other social media sites you could leverage like Twitter, Facebook or Google+.

That has all changed.

Hopefully you are on these sites (especially Google+)…and hopefully you are being strategic about how you use these social sites to promote your content. Every post you publish needs a boost from your social media presence.

10. Never inviting readers to leave comments

A post without comments is like that abandoned house down the end of your street…creepy and not to be trusted.

Of course if you are just launching a blog, it may be a few weeks before you get your first comment. But follow all the steps above and that comment will come.

You also have to encourage people to comment. That’s why I end every post I write with a question:

I do this on my blog and every guest post I write.

You will also get comments when you write detailed posts on advanced topics. You may cover a complicated issue that needs a little more explaining…or somebody wants to know how you did something.

That’s okay…you want that.

In the end, good comments give your post proof that people find what you are writing about valuable. And the more comments the better. It’s social proof in action.

11. Writing about a topic nobody cares about

It’s this simple: your post will fall flat on its face if you do not write about what your audience cares about.

The same is true if you try to write about a topic that somebody else is already doing a good job writing about. For example…

• If you want to write about online copywriting…then you have to do a better job than Copyblogger.
• Want to write about social media news? Then you have to compete with Mashable or Social Media Examiner.
• Perhaps SEO is up your alley. If that’s the case, then you have to square off with the likes ofSearch Engine Land or SEOmoz.

Don’t get me wrong…it can be done. Every single one of those blogs started small. But it takes a lot of work, which brings me to my last point.

12. Giving up

In a wonderful post about 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic, Rand Fishkin ends with the tactic of being consistent. He points out that the SEOmoz blog, his personal blog and his wife’s popular Everywhereist blog didn’t really take off until two years had gone by.

Sadly, most people quit about nine months in.

Blogging is hard work…and commitments like job, family or other reasons can overtake your blog. That happens. This is why it is so important to count the costs before starting a blog…because in the end giving up on your blog will kill every post you’ve ever written…and success will not come.

Conclusion

None of what I shared…except the part about social media presence and Google+…is probably new to you. But it’s true…and it has been for years, which means it’s probably not a bad idea to follow, right?

Fortunately, blogging is a level playing field…so anybody can apply the basics and succeed. I mean, if you want a blog that grows year after year…you have to start with the basics…namely, writing a killer blog post. And do that non-stop.