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    <title>Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog</title>
    
    
    <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/" />
    <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:weblog-115736</id>
    <updated>2012-01-27T06:20:00-08:00</updated>
    <subtitle>How to Create A Business Blog: Tips and Tricks from Denise Wakeman founder of The Blog Squad, Business Blog Consulting and Online Marketing Expert</subtitle>
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    <atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="self" type="application/atom+xml" href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/BuildABetterBlog" /><feedburner:info uri="buildabetterblog" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/" /><atom10:link xmlns:atom10="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" rel="hub" href="http://hubbub.api.typepad.com/" /><link rel="license" type="text/html" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/" /><logo>http://creativecommons.org/images/public/somerights20.gif</logo><feedburner:browserFriendly>This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site.</feedburner:browserFriendly><entry>
        <title>Six Essential SEO Strategies for Bloggers </title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/7NbE-hl4mh4/six-essential-seo-strategies-for-bloggers-.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2012/01/six-essential-seo-strategies-for-bloggers-.html" thr:count="0" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e20167611200ea970b</id>
        <published>2012-01-27T06:20:00-08:00</published>
        <updated>2012-01-27T08:07:48-08:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">Bloggers can never get enough advice about SEO. This is a guest post by Chrisian Arno at Lingo24. Six Essential SEO Strategies for Bloggers When a blog forms part of your marketing strategy, you need to be confident your words will reach the right people. With search engines constantly refining their algorithms, not to mention the huge amount of information competing for your readers, this can seem like an impossible task. Here are six strategies that can help you regain your confidence with SEO. Do Your Research If you are someone who dashes off blog posts when inspiration strikes, slow...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Denise Wakeman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Search Engine Optimization" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="SEO tips" />
        
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&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;div id="photo-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20168e613b6ab970c" class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20168e613b6ab970c" style="float: left; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; width: 200px;"&gt;&lt;a onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20168e613b6ab970c-popup"&gt;&lt;img class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20168e613b6ab970c" style="width: 200px;" title="Seo_Metaphor" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20168e613b6ab970c-200wi" alt="Seo_Metaphor" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Bloggers can never get enough advice about SEO.&lt;em&gt; This is a guest post by Chrisian Arno at &lt;a href="http://usa.lingo24.com/" target="_blank"&gt;Lingo24&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt;Six Essential SEO Strategies for Bloggers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When a blog forms part of your marketing strategy, you need to be confident your words will reach the right people. With search engines constantly refining their algorithms, not to mention the huge amount of information competing for your readers, this can seem like an impossible task. Here are six strategies that can help you regain your confidence with SEO.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do Your Research&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you are someone who dashes off blog posts when inspiration strikes, slow down a little. Keyword research might seem like a chore but this tried and true SEO strategy remains one of the best ways to let search engine robots know you have something to say about a certain topic. Take a moment to find out what questions people are asking and then set your post up to answer it or promote further discussion. If you can echo some of their search terms in your post, the search engines will make the connection and start sending those people in your direction.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;

&lt;strong&gt;Use Keywords Wisely&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Search engines are getting smarter. It's time to give up those black hat techniques that can banish you to the depths of the results pages. While this means you will have to become a better writer, seamlessly embedding keywords and key phrases into your post, it also frees you up to write more naturally. That's no bad thing if you want to build a loyal readership that cares about what you have to say. Aim for variety instead of going overboard with keyword density. Include some long-tail key phrases as well as approaching your main keyword or phrase from different angles.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ask: Is This Relevant?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By being more creative with your language you will be less obsessed with ranking for a single keyword and will have a better chance instead of ranking for several keywords and phrases. Take care that in doing this you don't lose focus completely. There's a good chance you will across promising key phrases that aren't entirely on-topic to your post but tempt you with the prospect of related traffic. Resist the urge to throw them in and instead save them for another post. Relevance is becoming a key factor in search engine ranking and needs to be one of your top priorities. &lt;strong&gt;Read each draft post and for every new idea that crops up ask yourself: “How relevant is this?”&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Avoid Lazy Anchor Links&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An anchor link is the text that directs a potential reader to a piece of web content. In this case,we're&amp;nbsp;talking about links that you create around the web to direct readers to your blog posts. Chances are you&amp;nbsp;already know that inbound links can help boost your importance with search engines. Don't throw away this opportunity with lazy linking, whether it's of the 'click here' variety or repeating your blog title in every single link. Opt instead for keywords in your anchor links and also vary your wording. You can do this through a combination of statements (Discover the best sushi restaurant on Mars), questions (Where to eat great sushi on Mars?), and the occasional direct link to your business name (Sushi on Mars) or URL (www.martiansushi.com). &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quality Trumps Quantity&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In an ideal world, what you have to say is going to make such an impression that people will link back to your blog or to specific posts. This is something you can actively encourage by social networking with the kind of people who have an interest in your business area and who might be willing to give you a mention. A good quality backlink like this is worth more from a search engine point of view than the kind of backlinks you can get from automated services. (Remember, building search engine reputation is about relevance.) Of course, as it's not an ideal world, you will probably do a lot of your own backlink creation. Again, leaving a backlink on a relevant site is going to be of more value than scattering links about at random.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Watch Your Search Snippets&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to Google and type in one of your top keywords. Take a look at the results. Each one has a snippet of text from the page it links back to. Which snippet it grabs can vary, depending on whether you have used Meta descriptions, what the search term was and where it appears on the original page. See if you can locate your search engine snippet using a variety of your most popular search terms and take note of what impression it is giving of your content. Google recommends &lt;a href="http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&amp;amp;answer=35624" target="_blank"&gt;creating quality descriptions&lt;/a&gt;&amp;nbsp;and writing custom descriptions for each of your popular pages on a website.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;div id="photo-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20163001d1314970d" class="photo-wrap photo-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20163001d1314970d photo-full " style="float: left; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; width: 128px;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20163001d1314970d-popup"&gt;&lt;img class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20163001d1314970d" title="Jack_christian_lingo24" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20163001d1314970d-800wi" border="0" alt="Jack_christian_lingo24" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; About the Author:&lt;/strong&gt; Christian Arno is the founder of Lingo24, a provider of top &lt;a href="http://usa.lingo24.com/" target="_blank"&gt;translation services in the USA&lt;/a&gt;. Launched in 2001, Lingo24 now has over 150 employees spanning three continents and clients in over sixty countries. In the past twelve months, they have translated over forty million words for businesses in every industry sector,&amp;nbsp;including the likes of MTV, World Bank and American Express. Follow Lingo24 on Twitter: &lt;a href="http://twitter.com/Lingo24" target="_blank"&gt;@Lingo24&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Further Reading:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://denisewakeman.com/online-visibility/free-keyword-search-tips-for-bloggers/" target="_blank"&gt;Free Keyword Search Tips for Bloggers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://denisewakeman.com/internet-marketing/writing-blog-posts-that-captivate-interview-karon-thackston/" target="_blank"&gt;Writing Blog Posts That Captivate&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/F6nvN0O08o3jv3Wo-Arv2Pqe2Sk/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/F6nvN0O08o3jv3Wo-Arv2Pqe2Sk/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/F6nvN0O08o3jv3Wo-Arv2Pqe2Sk/1/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/F6nvN0O08o3jv3Wo-Arv2Pqe2Sk/1/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~4/7NbE-hl4mh4" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>



    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2012/01/six-essential-seo-strategies-for-bloggers-.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Blogging Without Dates - The pros, the cons and meeting in the middle</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/ApEUjdErABw/blogging-without-dates.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2012/01/blogging-without-dates.html" thr:count="29" thr:updated="2012-01-24T08:11:39-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e20162ff04028a970d</id>
        <published>2012-01-06T06:45:00-08:00</published>
        <updated>2012-01-05T09:32:21-08:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">This is a guest post by Linda Dessau of ContentMasteryGuide.com In his October 2011 post about why you no longer need a blog (in the traditional sense), John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing predicts that soon our content will "no longer be consumed in chronological fashion." When Jim Connolly of Internet Marketing Jam explored the question of why people remove dates from their blog posts, in the end, he came to the conclusion that for his blog, the benefits far outweighed any risks. What are the pros of blogging without dates? What benefits did Jim Connolly see? People were spending...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Linda Dessau</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Blogging Tips" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Linda Dessau - Guest Blogger" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Posting on Your Blog" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a guest post by Linda Dessau of &lt;a href="http://contentmasteryguide.com/" target="_blank" title="Visit the Content Mastery Guide website"&gt;ContentMasteryGuide.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e201675ff901f4970b-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: left;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Calendar-dates" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e201675ff901f4970b" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e201675ff901f4970b-150wi" style="width: 150px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Calendar-dates"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;In his October 2011 post about &lt;a href="http://www.ducttapemarketing.com/blog/2011/10/26/why-you-no-longer-need-a-blog/" target="_blank" title="Why You No Longer Need a Blog - Duct Tape Marketing"&gt;why you no longer need a blog&lt;/a&gt; (in the traditional sense), John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing predicts that soon our content will "no longer be consumed in chronological fashion."&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;When Jim Connolly of Internet Marketing Jam explored the question of &lt;a href="http://www.internetmarketingjam.com/content-marketing/blog-posts-why-people-remove-dates-from-their-posts/" target="_blank" title="Blog Posts: Why people remove dates from their posts - Internet Marketing Jam"&gt;why people remove dates from their blog posts&lt;/a&gt;, in the end, he came to the conclusion that for &lt;em&gt;his&lt;/em&gt; blog, the benefits far outweighed any risks.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;What are the pros of blogging without dates?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;What benefits did Jim Connolly see? People were spending more time on his site, and older posts were getting more views, comments and social media mentions.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;His feeling was that people are sometimes turned off by seeing that a blog post is "past due," whether to them that means it's a week old, a month old or six months old. They simply won't click through to read it.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Removing the dates, he says, allows your blog post titles and topics to stand on their own merit without that filter. It puts all the focus on the content and makes it &lt;a href="http://www.contentmasteryguide.com/2011/07/do-your-blog-readers-need-a-better-map.html" target="_blank" title="Do Your Blog Readers Need a Better Map? - Content Mastery Guide"&gt;easier for your readers to find what they need&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Dateless blogging also gives you more freedom to &lt;a href="http://www.contentmasteryguide.com/2010/05/is-it-okay-to-go-back-and-edit-your-published-blog-posts.html" target="_blank" title="Is it okay to go back and edit your published blog posts? - Content Mastery Guide"&gt;update existing posts&lt;/a&gt; - simply treating them like any other page of your website.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;What are the cons of blogging without dates?&#xD;
&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;"A blog is really a public chronicle of our evolution as writers, marketers and entrepreneurs. While some older content may make me cringe and wish I'd known then what I know now, I try to celebrate my learning and how far I've come."&lt;/em&gt; - Linda Dessau, in &lt;a href="http://www.contentmasteryguide.com/2010/05/is-it-okay-to-go-back-and-edit-your-published-blog-posts.html" target="_blank" title="Read the original post"&gt;Is it okay to go back and edit your published blog posts?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;By presenting an online journal of your evolving views, suggestions, theories, personal insights and business practices, you're inviting your readers - and prospective clients - right into your business, heart and mind.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;By forcing each post to stand alone with no context of who you were when you wrote it, you remove some of the personality from your blog - some of &lt;em&gt;your&lt;/em&gt; personality.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;The best of both worlds&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Consider how U.S.-based supermarket chain Wegman's organizes content on their site. They have a separate area for "&lt;a href="http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?storeId=10052&amp;amp;catalogId=10002&amp;amp;langId=-1&amp;amp;identifier=CATEGORY_546" target="_blank" title="Eat Well, Live Well - article directory at Wegmans.com"&gt;fact sheet&lt;/a&gt;" articles about the core issues they know their customers care about.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Then there is the consistently updated &lt;a href="http://www.wegmans.com/blog/" target="_blank" title="Fresh Stories, the Wegmans blog"&gt;Fresh Stories&lt;/a&gt; blog, where Wegman's staff post personal and timely food and lifestyle tips. In this article about &lt;a href="http://www.wegmans.com/blog/2011/12/holiday-survival-strategies/#more-10562" target="_blank" title="Holidays Survival Strategies from Wegmans.com"&gt;healthy strategies for the holiday season&lt;/a&gt;, they reinforce a core concept from the fact sheets ("&lt;a href="http://www.wegmans.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?storeId=10052&amp;amp;catalogId=10002&amp;amp;langId=-1&amp;amp;partNumber=UNIVERSAL_20235" target="_blank" title="Half-plate healthy from Wegmans.com"&gt;half-plate healthy&lt;/a&gt;"), but make it current for the season.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;Will you keep dating your blog?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If you choose to &lt;a href="http://www.contentmasteryguide.com/2010/01/writing-attractive-articles.html" target="_blank" title="Writing attractive articles: Would you date your blog? - Content Mastery Guide"&gt;keep dating your blog&lt;/a&gt;, there are still several ways that &lt;a href="http://www.contentmasteryguide.com/2011/04/fame-is-fleeting-but-a-blog-post-is-forever.html" target="_blank" title="Fame is Fleeting But a Blog Post is Forever - Content Mastery Guide"&gt;readers can discover your older posts&lt;/a&gt;, including:&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;Providing a search box&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/05/an-organized-approach-to-blogging.html" target="_self" title="An Organized Approach: Why Blog Order is Ubiquitously Essential to Success - Build a Better Blog"&gt;Organizing your posts&lt;/a&gt; thoughtfully&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;Linking to older posts from within newer posts &lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;Using the &lt;a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/" target="_blank" title="WordPress plugin information for Yet Another Related Plugin"&gt;Yet Another Related Posts WordPress plugin&lt;/a&gt; or the &lt;a href="http://www.linkwithin.com/learn" target="_blank" title="LinkWithin widget"&gt;LinkWithin widget&lt;/a&gt; to automatically display more posts for your readers to browse&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;Using the &lt;a href="http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tweet-old-post/" target="_blank" title="WordPress plugin information for Tweet Old Post"&gt;Tweet Old Post plugin&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;What do you think? &lt;strong&gt;Will you keep dating your blog? &lt;/strong&gt;Will you pull together your content into fact sheets? Or will you go completely dateless?&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: left;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Linda-dessau-squared" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d-120wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Linda-dessau-squared"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Linda Dessau, CPCC, is the author of &lt;em&gt;Write Your Way to More Clients Online&lt;/em&gt; and the founder of ContentMasteryGuide.com. Check out her new free training webinar, &lt;a href="http://www.secretsofcontentmastery.com/events?eventId=417823&amp;amp;EventViewMode=EventDetails" target="_blank" title="Registration and recording details for Strategic Blogging"&gt;Strategic Blogging&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/JZ0_quYiBkXdEJI09P-UpzklOMw/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/JZ0_quYiBkXdEJI09P-UpzklOMw/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
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    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2012/01/blogging-without-dates.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Pitching to bloggers - the do’s and don’ts of blogger pitching</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/eBkNG_hMwTg/pitching-to-bloggers.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/12/pitching-to-bloggers.html" thr:count="3" thr:updated="2011-12-29T07:56:57-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e201675eff62bb970b</id>
        <published>2011-12-22T06:25:00-08:00</published>
        <updated>2011-12-19T10:51:22-08:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">This is a guest post by Kristy Shaw of Punch Communications. Pitching to bloggers… the do’s and don’ts of blogger pitching Life as a PR has certainly changed over the last few years; with the rise in popularity of blogs it has meant having to adapt the way I pitch to different types of media. Bloggers can be just as influential as many print publications and therefore should always be on PR agencies radars. Pitching to bloggers is a world away from traditional pitches to journalists; there are many more things to take into account. For example, in contrast to...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Denise Wakeman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Blogging Tips" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="pitching bloggers" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="PR" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="public relations" />
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">
&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a guest post by Kristy Shaw of &lt;a href="http://www.punchcomms.com" target="_blank"&gt;Punch Communications&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Pitching to bloggers… the do’s and don’ts of blogger pitching&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a style="float: left;" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e201675eff83c1970b-popup"&gt;&lt;img class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e201675eff83c1970b" style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Retro_Pitchman" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e201675eff83c1970b-200wi" alt="Retro_Pitchman" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Life as a PR has certainly changed over the last few years; with the rise in popularity of blogs it has meant having to adapt the way I pitch to different types of media. Bloggers can be just as influential as many print publications and therefore should always be on PR agencies radars.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Pitching to bloggers is a world away from traditional pitches to journalists; there are many more things to take into account. For example, in contrast to traditional media journalist’s blogging may not be the full time job of the writer, but instead something they are passionate about or a hobby.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Building a rapport with a blogger can be just as easy as building a relationship with a journalist. Here are some top tips for pitching to journalists:&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;

&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Research your blogger&lt;/strong&gt;. There is nothing more frustrating for a blogger than receiving an e-mail about children’s toys when they’re a food writer with no children. As with pitching to journalists, do your research about who you are pitching to, take a look at their Twitter and previous blog posts. Use tools such as Google Blog Search to find blogs in the sector you are trying to reach, but don’t rely on this 100%, do your own research before hitting the send button.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. Press releases are not a bloggers best friend&lt;/strong&gt;: Bloggers don’t write stories based on press releases, they may use one for ideas but sifting through a press release is not the best use of their time. A brief, tailored pitch is a much better way to approach a blogger, and make sure you keep the pitch relevant; images or quotes should be chosen to suit the bloggers style and interests.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. Keep it personal&lt;/strong&gt;: Don’t copy and paste a generic e-mail. The blogger is taking time to read your pitch, so take the time to write them a personal e-mail. Include references to previous blogs of theirs that you like (but be genuine) and what you can offer them for their blog, but don’t waffle! Remember, blogging may not be their full time job and so time is precious.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Interact:&lt;/strong&gt; It’s important to be aware of the bloggers in your area of interest, therefore take time to read a few blogs every week. Where possible, comment on blog posts you like or have something to add to. Also don’t forget to follow or become a fan of their social media profiles.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. Nothing is “off record”:&lt;/strong&gt; Just like when you are speaking to a traditional media journalist, nothing is “off the record”. If you have an embargo to stick to, remember to mention it to the blogger- updates can be instantaneous and therefore it is very easy to publish news on a blog before the story has been officially broken.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;a style="float: left;" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fe0b4390970d-popup"&gt;&lt;img class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20162fe0b4390970d" style="width: 150px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Kristy-Shaw" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fe0b4390970d-150wi" alt="Kristy-Shaw" /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;About the Author:&lt;/strong&gt;&amp;nbsp;&lt;a href="”http://twitter.com/#!/kirstyashaw”"&gt;Kirsty Shaw&lt;/a&gt; is an account manager at PR, social media and &lt;a href="http://www.punchcomms.com/seo-agency.html" target="_blank"&gt;SEO agency&lt;/a&gt;, Punch Communications. Punch is based in the UK and delivers integrated services for local and global, B2B and B2C clients.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff00ff;"&gt;Need more visibility for your business?&lt;/span&gt; Get free immediate access to &lt;a href="http://boostyourvisibility.com" target="_blank"&gt;7 simple tactics to boost your visibility on the web...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~4/eBkNG_hMwTg" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>



    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/12/pitching-to-bloggers.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Two Tips for Generating More Leads on Your Business Blog</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/i3tBe7F7zk4/two-tips-for-generating-more-leads-on-your-business-blog.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/12/two-tips-for-generating-more-leads-on-your-business-blog.html" thr:count="2" thr:updated="2012-01-05T21:30:34-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e201675ecf1747970b</id>
        <published>2011-12-19T06:55:00-08:00</published>
        <updated>2011-12-15T12:13:15-08:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">Recently I joined the Social Media Biz School as an instructor. In the video below, I share a couple of the business blogging tips to give you a taste of the kind of strategies, tactics, tips and tools you'll be learning in the free 27 minute webinar on demand: How to Generate More Leads with Social Media... [Can't see the video in your blog reader? Click here to watch on YouTube.] You can get instant access to the free webinar here. Your instructors are: Viveka von Rosen (LinkedIn), Lori Gama (Twitter), Andrea Vahl (Facebook), Lou Bortone (Online Video) and me...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Denise Wakeman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Blogging Tips" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="business blogging tips" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="social media" />
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">
&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Recently I joined the &lt;strong&gt;Social Media Biz School &lt;/strong&gt;as an instructor. In the video below, I share a couple of the business blogging tips to give you a taste of the kind of strategies, tactics, tips and tools you'll be learning&amp;nbsp;in the free 27 minute webinar on demand:&amp;nbsp;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://denisewakeman.com/smbsweb" target="_blank"&gt;How to Generate More Leads with Social Media&lt;/a&gt;...&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;
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&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;[Can't see the video in your blog reader? &lt;a href="http://youtu.be/ySIKq-A7frU" target="_self"&gt;Click here to watch on YouTube.&lt;/a&gt;]&amp;nbsp;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;You can get instant access to the &lt;a href="http://denisewakeman.com/smbsweb" target="_self"&gt;free webinar here&lt;/a&gt;. Your instructors are: Viveka von Rosen (LinkedIn), Lori Gama (Twitter), Andrea Vahl (Facebook), Lou Bortone (Online Video) and me (Blogging).&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Get more information about our special offer to &lt;a href="http://denisewakeman.com/smbs" target="_self"&gt;join Social Media Biz School here&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~4/i3tBe7F7zk4" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>



    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/12/two-tips-for-generating-more-leads-on-your-business-blog.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>The BIG SEO Secret for Bloggers</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/_kPiKaJjP0c/seo-secret-for-bloggers.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/12/seo-secret-for-bloggers.html" thr:count="14" thr:updated="2012-01-17T07:47:46-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e20162fdbfb88b970d</id>
        <published>2011-12-13T09:02:50-08:00</published>
        <updated>2011-12-13T09:04:48-08:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">This is a guest post by Adam Stetzer of Hubshout. The BIG SEO Secret for Bloggers I talk to bloggers just about every day. For a while last year my blogging blog was on page 1 for the Google search "blogging", though we are now on page 3. With this type of exposure comes some crazy organic traffic. In fact, over 39,000 bloggers have registered with my blog since I opened it in 2007. With each passing year I am continually amazed by just how many bloggers are convinced that there is a BIG SEO secret out there. The conversations...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Denise Wakeman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Search Engine Optimization" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="seo" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="seo reseller" />
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a guest post by Adam Stetzer of &lt;a href="http://hubshout.com" target="_blank"&gt;Hubshout&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The BIG SEO Secret for Bloggers&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fdbfc7a0970d-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: left;"&gt;&lt;img alt="IStock_000011656277XSmall" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20162fdbfc7a0970d" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fdbfc7a0970d-150wi" style="width: 150px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="IStock_000011656277XSmall"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I talk to bloggers just about every day. For a while last year my blogging blog was on page 1 for the Google search "blogging", though we are now on page 3. With this type of exposure comes some crazy organic traffic. In fact, over 39,000 bloggers have registered with my blog since I opened it in 2007. With each passing year I am continually amazed by just how many bloggers are convinced that there is a BIG SEO secret out there. The conversations seem to follow a familiar pattern. It goes something like this. &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blogger:&lt;/strong&gt; "Hi Adam, how can I get to page 1 in Google?" &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Adam:&lt;/strong&gt; "It's a TON of hard work, very incremental, takes a long time and requires some really good content and some awesome backlinks." &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Blogger:&lt;/strong&gt; "Thanks, I've heard all that before, so tell me REALLY how to get to page 1 now." &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;They are convinced there is an SEO secret that I won't tell them. These bloggers feel that if they could just discover the piece of knowledge they don't have, they will be richly rewarded with huge rankings, traffic and money. They just know it. Since this sentiment is so prevalent, I've made it my mission to try to set the record straight with the truth about SEO. And the truth is: The big SEO secret is that there is no SEO secret. &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The BIG SEO blogging secret: There is no secret &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&#xD;
&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;This is the point in the blog post where I lose most readers. Due to the very phenomena described above, most readers will leave this blog post and continue their frantic search for the secret blogging SEO secret that will instantly solve their problems.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;For the 5% of readers who are still with me; Congratulations! You have finally graduated from the masses of mediocrity and are ready to start your journey to success with SEO and blogging. And this was a big step. If you jump over this hurdle, you are mentally ready for the challenge ahead. And most importantly you've figured out that you are wasting valuable time searching for an answer that you probably already know. &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;The second big SEO secret for bloggers:&lt;/strong&gt; The time you waste searching for SEO tips could have you on page 1 already.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;How many forums do you read? How many blog posts do you follow? Make a mental calculation of all the time you spend on "TIP searching" activities and let's do a little exercise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;For the next month, every time you feel the urge to search for blogging or SEO tips you instead actually sit down and work. If you did this, how much extra time will you have? My guess is a fair amount. If you take that time and split it 40% toward creating awesome content and 60% promoting your blog, you will be very pleased with the results.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Again, I'm not telling you anything you don't already know. And feel free to argue with my percentages. Perhaps you feel it's 30% / 70% or 50% / 50% - whatever. The point is that you have moved from the unproductive place of self-doubt and answer-searching to the very productive activity of DOING. And DOING is where the success lies. &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Thomas Edison said these great words more than 100 years ago. And I think they apply as much to SEO, blogging and the Internet as they did to his endeavor to invent the light bulb.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;While great ideas are required once in a while to jump-start a project (such as a new blog or to find new SEO keywords to go after), the idea-generation needs to be outweighed by a ratio of 99:1 with work. Plain, simple, non-sexy, work. It's hard. It's monotonous. It doesn't sell tabloids. But hard work is still at the heart of why your website or blog is not on page 1 in Google.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;And at the risk of becoming a marginalized motivational blogger, I urge you to stop reading, reflect on what you already know about SEO, and think about how you can get more done with the time you already apply to your blog. You already know about keyword selection.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;You already know about title tags and keyword density. You already know about Google Adwords search volume estimates. You certainly know about backlinks, guest blog posts and building relationships. And you've had the importance of high-quality content pounded into your brain. So there you have it. The leading SEO tips for bloggers were already in your head. So get to it. &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;br&gt; &lt;a href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20154383db381970c-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: left;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Adam_Stetzer" border="0" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20154383db381970c" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20154383db381970c-800wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Adam_Stetzer"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;About the Author:&lt;/strong&gt; Dr. Adam Stetzer has a Ph.D. in Industrial Psychology, which includes the study of motivation, job satisfaction and performance at work. He has published in many nationally-recognized, peer-reviewed, journals and maintains his own personal &lt;a href="http://blogskinny.com/" target="_blank"&gt;blogging&lt;/a&gt; blog. He is also the president of HubShout, an &lt;a href="http://hubshout.com/" target="_blank"&gt;seo reseller&lt;/a&gt; company with industry-leading SEO software. He has been active in the technology field for over 15 years working with large companies such as General Electric, Verizon, Ford, ChevronTexaco, and PepsiCola.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p style="text-align: center;"&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://blogsquadbonus.com/" target="_blank" title="5 Critical Tactics for Business Blog Success"&gt;Download your free gift - 5 Critical Tactics for Business Blog Success!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~4/_kPiKaJjP0c" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>



    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/12/seo-secret-for-bloggers.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>5 Tips for Beefing Up a Short Blog Post</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/sNOwO23PKoE/5-tips-for-short-blog-post.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/12/5-tips-for-short-blog-post.html" thr:count="13" thr:updated="2012-01-04T05:00:49-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e20162fd16b30a970d</id>
        <published>2011-12-02T06:01:00-08:00</published>
        <updated>2011-12-02T07:08:16-08:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">Even after the best writing session, the results sometimes fall short of your expectations. The quality may be there, just not the quantity. Here are five tips for how to beef up a blog post and turn it into an article.</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Linda Dessau</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Blogging Tips" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Creating Blog Content" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Linda Dessau - Guest Blogger" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="blog posts" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="blog writing" />
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a guest post by Linda Dessau of &lt;a href="http://contentmasteryguide.com/" target="_blank" title="Visit the Content Mastery Guide website"&gt;ContentMasteryGuide.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;In &lt;a href="http://www.contentmasterygift.com/" target="_blank" title="How to access this free training package"&gt;How to Be a Weekly Blogger&lt;/a&gt;, I remove the pressure of having to write a feature article for your blog every week.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Instead, I suggest that you aim to write one feature article per MONTH, and then in the weeks in between you can play off that topic with connective content.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Connective content combines your expertise and opinion with something that's already been created; whether that's a post on your own blog or someone else's, or a movie, book, website, product or story that relates to the topic of that month's feature article.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="font-size: 20px; font-weight: bold;"&gt;How to turn a blog post into an article&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;The funny thing about relieving pressure is that it can really open a channel for creativity. You may produce some wonderful content this way, and you may decide that it deserves a bigger audience - whether that's via an article directory or as a guest post on another blog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&#xD;
&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;But since &lt;a href="http://getwellnessblogs.com/blogging/wellness-blogging-tips/whats-the-difference-between-a-blog-post-and-an-article/" target="_blank" title="What’s the Difference Between a Blog Post and an Article?"&gt;connecting posts tend to be shorter than feature articles&lt;/a&gt; (I recommend 250 words as a broad guideline), you may need to make some alterations before you can share this content in other settings. Some article directories, for instance, require a minimum of 500 words.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://lindadessau.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834548d0869e2015393a812a3970b-pi" style="float: right;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Body-building" border="0" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834548d0869e2015393a812a3970b" src="http://lindadessau.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834548d0869e2015393a812a3970b-800wi" style="margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Body-building"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Here are five tips for how to beef up your blog post and turn it into an article:&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;ol&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Show as you tell&lt;/strong&gt; - Provide an example that supports what you've written, such as a personal story, a client story, or something about a well-known public figure. Note: If you have (or want) a global audience, be sure to provide enough context that the story is relatable even if the reader hasn't heard of the person.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Set the stage&lt;/strong&gt; - Introduce your article with some standalone text such as a quote or a powerful question. Or use your opening paragraph to get your readers' attention and compel them to keep reading. What's in it for them if they do? Why is this an important topic for their particular situation?&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Work them up&lt;/strong&gt; - As they finish reading your article, inspire your readers to take an action or make a change. Give them hope that if they do, they will see better results in their business or personal lives (depending on who is your ideal client).&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sprinkle in some stats&lt;/strong&gt; - Support your main point by sharing numbers and facts (charts and graphs are powerful as well, but won't do anything to add to your word count). You can also reference other bloggers, authors and experts and describe their findings or opinions.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mine your mountain&lt;/strong&gt; - Look to your own &lt;a href="http://www.contentmasteryguide.com/2010/11/its-easier-to-plant-your-flag-of-expertise-on-top-of-a-mountain-of-content.html" target="_blank" title="It's easier to plant your flag of expertise on top of a mountain of content"&gt;collection of content&lt;/a&gt; for phrases, sentences or even entire paragraphs that you can bring over into the post. Freshen them up and rework them for this new setting. This reinforces the core message of your blog, plus it's likely these new audiences missed it the first time around. &lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/ol&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If you've written a blog post you love, there's no need to keep it hidden on your blog just because of a low word count. Try beefing it up with these tips and get it in front of some new eyes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: left;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Linda-dessau-squared" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d-120wi" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Linda-dessau-squared"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Linda Dessau, CPCC, is the author of Write Your Way to More Clients Online and the founder of ContentMasteryGuide.com. She'll be delving into how to create powerful openers and closers for your blog posts in the free training webinar, &lt;strong&gt;How to Write a Blog Post&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;a href="http://www.secretsofcontentmastery.com/events?eventId=410942&amp;amp;EventViewMode=EventDetails" target="_blank" title="How to Write a Blog Post, free webinar with Linda Dessau"&gt;Click here for the details&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff007f;"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you have any short blog posts you've wanted to share in other settings? How might you apply these suggestions?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/t8LATLEDv55Z_aFLfO6SlJggSiY/0/da"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/t8LATLEDv55Z_aFLfO6SlJggSiY/0/di" border="0" ismap="true"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br/&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~4/sNOwO23PKoE" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>



    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/12/5-tips-for-short-blog-post.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Social Networking Poll - Have you voted?</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/UmmZ5MYAom8/social-networking-poll-have-you-voted.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/11/social-networking-poll-have-you-voted.html" thr:count="0" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e20162fd21f549970d</id>
        <published>2011-11-30T09:34:58-08:00</published>
        <updated>2011-11-30T09:34:58-08:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">If you missed it on DeniseWakeman.com, I'm taking a short, one question poll to find out what social networking site you use the most for business purposes. If you haven't voted yet, I would appreciate it if you would take one minute to click over to the poll and vote. Thank you and blog on!</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Denise Wakeman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Polls" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="poll" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="social networking" />
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;If you missed it on DeniseWakeman.com, I'm taking a short, one question poll to find out &lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;what social networking site &lt;span style="text-decoration: underline;"&gt;you use the most&lt;/span&gt; for business purposes.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If you haven't voted yet, I would appreciate it if you would take one minute to &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://denisewakeman.com/social-media-marketing/social-networking-for-business-poll/" target="_blank"&gt;click over to the poll and vote&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Thank you and blog on!&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/11/social-networking-poll-have-you-voted.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>Blogging Brings YOU into the Writing</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/aAWq5KEdGhg/blogging-brings-you-into-the-writing.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/11/blogging-brings-you-into-the-writing.html" thr:count="9" thr:updated="2011-11-26T18:57:28-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e2015436909bff970c</id>
        <published>2011-11-04T06:11:00-07:00</published>
        <updated>2011-11-04T08:24:52-07:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">This is a guest post by Linda Dessau of ContentMasteryGuide.com In academic writing or journalism, we're usually asked to chose whether we're going to write subjectively (an argumentative or persuasive essay, opinion piece or editorial) or objectively (an expository essay, investigative report, profile or news feature). In blogging, we see a delightful mixture of all of these types of content, sometimes even within the same blog post. Here, you can bend the rules and choose both objective and subjective writing. You can bring more of yourself into everything you write, not just your personal posts. For example, we may offer...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Linda Dessau</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Creating Blog Content" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Linda Dessau - Guest Blogger" />
        
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a guest post by Linda Dessau of &lt;a href="http://contentmasteryguide.com/" target="_blank"&gt;ContentMasteryGuide.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;a href="http://contentmasteryguide.com/" target="_blank"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/em&gt;In academic writing or journalism, we're usually asked to chose whether we're going to write subjectively (an argumentative or persuasive essay, opinion piece or editorial) or objectively (an expository essay, investigative report, profile or news feature).&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;In blogging, we see a delightful mixture of all of these types of content, sometimes even within the same blog post. Here, you can bend the rules and choose both objective and subjective writing. You can bring more of yourself into everything you write, not just your personal posts.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a style="float: left;" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127e63970d-popup"&gt;&lt;img class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127e63970d" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Blog-microphone" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127e63970d-120wi" alt="Blog-microphone"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;For example, we may offer practical action steps about how to implement the ideas in a passionate thought piece, or we may introduce a "how to" post by telling a story. After all, people learn just as much from our experience as they do from our expertise.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;When I visit a blog, I'm not just looking for information. I want to get to know the voice and personality of the business owner behind the blog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;You may have some concerns about using a more narrative style of writing, especially if you'd had lots of experience with more formal styles of writing. For example:&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Shouldn't my blog posts be all about helping my reader, not about me? &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&#xD;
&#xD;
&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Often your blog and your business ARE about you, especially if you're a member of your target audience. Your journey can inspire, inform and guide your readers and clients.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Doesn't it diminish my credibility to prospective clients if I write in a casual style?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Just the opposite. By writing authentically in your own voice, people who are drawn in by the &lt;em&gt;real you&lt;/em&gt; will recognize that connection right away. Plus you'll quickly weed out the people who aren't the right fit.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What if someone looks at this in six months or a year and it doesn't make sense anymore?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;It's true that writing about current events in your life or business will put a time stamp on your blog post, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. It is these narrative elements that make blogs such a wonderful chronicle of our evolution as writers, marketers and entrepreneurs.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What if a new reader doesn't understand my post because they haven't been following along?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Even though some readers will stumble upon your blog without knowing any of the back story you may be referring to in your narrative, this is a key step of building that relationship. You want to write to your readers as if you’ve already had a positive interaction and this is a continuation of that conversation.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;What if I want to submit my blog posts to article directories?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;If you're planning to submit a blog post to an article directory in the hopes that it will be republished in other blogs, newsletters or print publications, you may want to limit your narrative and focus on delivering the concrete information that readers and prospective clients are looking for.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Once they've had that positive introduction, people will want to keep in touch via your mailing list and your blog. And that's where you can show your readers more of YOU!&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a style="float: left;" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d-popup"&gt;&lt;img class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d" style="margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Linda-dessau-squared" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc127d71970d-120wi" alt="Linda-dessau-squared"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Linda Dessau, CPCC, is the author of Write Your Way to More Clients Online and the founder of ContentMasteryGuide.com. The freedom to mix narrative writing into other styles is just one of the three formal writing rules she will help you let go of in her free training webinar, &lt;strong&gt;Blogging Versus Writing&lt;/strong&gt;. &lt;a title="Blogging Versus Writing, free webinar with Linda Dessau" href="http://www.secretsofcontentmastery.com/events?eventId=400445&amp;amp;EventViewMode=EventDetails" target="_blank"&gt;Click here for the details&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;span style="color: #ff007f;"&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you have a specific concern about your writing voice and bringing YOU into your blog? Post it here so we can assist you.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~4/aAWq5KEdGhg" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>



    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/11/blogging-brings-you-into-the-writing.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>The Art of Planning Your Blog </title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/WO3Tm9zoK10/art-of-planning-your-blog.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/10/art-of-planning-your-blog.html" thr:count="8" thr:updated="2012-01-10T05:45:04-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e2015436748ee0970c</id>
        <published>2011-10-31T05:54:00-07:00</published>
        <updated>2011-10-30T14:29:21-07:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">This is a guest post by Mitch O'Conner. The Art of Planning Your Blog Thinking of starting a blog? So is everybody else. According to BlogPulse, there are over 174 million blogs on the Internet as of October 2011, and over 7,000 new blogs are created every day. On the other hand, a 2008 Technorati survey indicated that 95% of blogs end up being abandoned - meaning that the vast majority of bloggers either post very infrequently or completely give up on their blog within a very short amount of time (sometimes after a couple of months, sometimes after a...</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Denise Wakeman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Blogging Tips" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="business blog" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="set up a blog" />
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This is a guest post by Mitch O'Conner.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h1&gt;The Art of Planning Your Blog&lt;/h1&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e201543684f433970c-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: left;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Blog_Website_Business_Plan" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e201543684f433970c" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e201543684f433970c-200wi" style="width: 200px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Blog_Website_Business_Plan"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Thinking of starting a blog? So is everybody else. According to BlogPulse, there are &lt;a href="http://www.blogpulse.com/"&gt;over 174 million blogs on the Internet as of October 2011&lt;/a&gt;, and over 7,000 new blogs are created every day. On the other hand, a 2008 Technorati survey indicated that 95% of blogs end up being abandoned - meaning that the vast majority of bloggers either post very infrequently or completely give up on their blog within a very short amount of time (sometimes after a couple of months, sometimes after a single day).&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;But this doesn't mean that there's less competition - it simply means that &lt;em&gt;blogging is hard&lt;/em&gt;. It takes a lot of work to develop and maintain a blog, and even if it's well-operated, there's still no guarantee that you'll get a lot of traffic or see any income being generated. This is why it's almost impossible to overstate the importance of planning. The more you think ahead, stay focused on your goals, and keep your basics covered, the higher your chances will be of becoming successful with blogging.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;What Will You Blog About?&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&#xD;
The content and focus of a blog are the first things a blogger must decide on. What are you trying to accomplish? Let's examine three blog types:&#xD;
&lt;ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Personal Blogs&lt;/strong&gt; - These are the most traditional, "online diary" sort of blogs. Basically, a personal blog is for sharing ideas, reflecting on life and just communicating thoughts in general. These blogs rarely see extensive traffic or income, but it's not impossible to become popular if your content is engaging enough.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Genre Blogs&lt;/strong&gt; - These are blogs that chiefly discuss a specific topic such as politics, fashion, home improvement, parenting, music, and travel.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Business or Organizational Blogs &lt;/strong&gt;- These are blogs that are part of a larger business or organization, such as a large corporation or non-profit club.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Of course, these categories can overlap. There are plenty of "genre blogs" that also promote specific products that the blogger is selling. So, if you're just looking for a unique communication outlet that allows you to make posts over 140 characters long, then you don't need to do quite as much planning. But if your endgame is to make a profitable site that you can eventually sell if you want to, you'll have to consider many more things.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;The first of these considerations is your niche market. &lt;strong&gt;Your blog has a much better chance of becoming popular if you're serving a marketable need that's under-serviced.&lt;/strong&gt; Does the world really need another blog about poker? Well, maybe.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e2015392b1a617970b-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: right;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Bigstock_Halloween_Pirate_543732" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e2015392b1a617970b" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e2015392b1a617970b-150wi" style="width: 150px; margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px;" title="Bigstock_Halloween_Pirate_543732"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;If you can provide excellent, expert insight into the game as well as keep readers informed of everything going on in the poker world in an engaging, unique way, then you could probably pull it off. But you might have more success creating a blog about something with a little less competition like antique clocks, dog training, or Halloween costumes.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;One of the best ways to decide this is to ask yourself what you're interested in and what you have expertise in. This will help ensure the longevity of your blog. Market research is important here as well - if you're really serious about creating a profitable blog, you may want to take some marketing classes to get expert advice about niche markets.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;The Basics&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;There are a few basic things you should decide on before you even start writing:&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Platform&lt;/strong&gt; - &lt;a href="http://www.blogger.com/"&gt;Blogger&lt;/a&gt; and &lt;a href="http://wordpress.org/"&gt;WordPress&lt;/a&gt; are the two most popular free blog hosting services. They aren't the same though. For example, if you're blogging about Halloween costumes, you'll likely need a lot of image storage. WordPress offers three gigabytes of image storage as opposed to Blogger's one gigabyte.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Posting Frequency&lt;/strong&gt; - How often will you post? This a point of contention among bloggers, but it's important to keep your site updated and active. Posting frequency also depends on your niche; again, if you're blogging about Halloween, it'll probably please your readers if you post more often during the fall.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Topics&lt;/strong&gt; - Are you going to plan topics ahead of time or "shoot from the hip"? This depends on your personality - if it takes you a long time to create a quality piece of content, then be sure to set aside the necessary time.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;SEO&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Your blog will never be successful if nobody knows it exists.&lt;/strong&gt; As Bill Gates famously stated in 1996, "content is king." Ultimately, your excellent content will be the factor that draws readers to your blog. However, there are some tactics that are (arguably) necessary in order to succeed. These tactics involve getting noticed on search engines, and are known as search engine optimization, or SEO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;SEO often involves internal linking, creating a sitemap, executing a backlink building campaign, and performing keyword research. Keyword research is especially important, as it can aid in your market research as well as your SEO.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;For example, sticking with our Halloween blog example, you could use a tool like Google Adwords Keyword tool to find out what people are searching for in relation to Halloween. If you find that a phrase such as "&lt;a href="http://www.halloweenexpress.com/adult-costumes-c-1.html"&gt;adult Halloween costumes&lt;/a&gt;" is getting a very high number of searches on Google, you can incorporate that phrase into your content in order to rank more highly in the search engine results pages.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;Monetization&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;How will your blog make money? If you're actually creating and selling a product, then you have a source of income right there. But if your blog is mainly content-oriented, you'll have to plan out your money-making strategies. The most important aspect to remember here is that your blog can't make money if you don't have readers. You have to attract a decent amount of traffic for any of the following options to work:&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sell Ad Space&lt;/strong&gt; - Pay-per-click advertising is a setup where an ad is placed on your site and you get paid each time a reader clicks the ad. Tools like &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/adsense"&gt;Google AdSense&lt;/a&gt; can help you place these types of ads.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Branded Products&lt;/strong&gt; - If you've established a brand, try using a service like &lt;a href="&amp;quot;http://www.cafepress.com"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Cafe Press to create t-shirts, mugs or other items with your logo on them.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Affiliate Programs&lt;/strong&gt; - Back to the Halloween blog example. You can promote other Halloween sites or products and receive a commission for any sales made through your blog. A site like &lt;a href="http://www.clickbank.com"&gt;ClickBank&lt;/a&gt; can help you with this.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Membership Fees&lt;/strong&gt; - If your content is in very high demand, you could create a paid, "members-only" section of your site, or compile some of your content into ebooks for sale.&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Of course there are plenty of other ways to monetize your blog. Deciding early how you want to make money will help your blog take shape.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h2&gt;Longevity&lt;/h2&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;It's important to establish milestones and set reasonable goals as you go along, but keep your mind on the big picture as well. &lt;strong&gt;Are you blogging about a topic that's going to be obsolete in a year?&lt;/strong&gt; Is your blog only going to be popular at certain times throughout the year?&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Your Halloween blog will be popular in the fall, but after Halloween is over, you'll have to be prepared to somehow keep your readers interested. Blogging about horror movies, timely and interesting costume ideas, fun party themes and homemade candy throughout the year can keep it interesting. So, be sure to consider your topic's staying power and how you can creatively monetize your blog at all times.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt; Clearly, planning a blog takes a lot of time and consideration. Once your blog is live, be prepared to work hard, but don't forget that blogging &lt;em&gt;should&lt;/em&gt; be enjoyable. Don't hesitate to hire outside help if needed, and be sure to adapt to changes in the market and public interest.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; &lt;a href="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc06d0f3970d-popup" onclick="window.open( this.href, '_blank', 'width=640,height=480,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0' ); return false" style="float: left;"&gt;&lt;img alt="Mitch-OConner" class="asset  asset-image at-xid-6a00d834515d1969e20162fc06d0f3970d" src="http://nextlevelpartner.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834515d1969e20162fc06d0f3970d-150wi" style="width: 150px; margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px;" title="Mitch-OConner"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt;About the Author:&lt;/strong&gt; Mitch O’Conner is an online marketer and writer. When he’s not working he enjoys spending time with his wife and kids, watching TV, playing games and camping.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Get more tips on how to get the best out of your blog...&lt;a href="http://masterbusinessblogging.com" target="_blank"&gt;click here to get 5 free videos!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~4/WO3Tm9zoK10" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>



    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/10/art-of-planning-your-blog.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
    <entry>
        <title>How to Get More Traffic to Your Blog with Old Content [video]</title>
        <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~3/FcNZcAfr-Oo/get-more-traffic-to-your-blog.html" />
        <link rel="replies" type="text/html" href="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/10/get-more-traffic-to-your-blog.html" thr:count="5" thr:updated="2011-11-14T09:30:36-08:00" />
        <id>tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d834515d1969e20162fbeb3b93970d</id>
        <published>2011-10-27T08:40:52-07:00</published>
        <updated>2011-10-27T08:40:52-07:00</updated>
        <summary type="html">Do you ever think about your older blog posts, wondering if you get any value from them after they've slipped out of sight, replaced by new content? Do you ever check your analytics to see what kind of traffic you're getting to older content? I confess, I am sporadic at best, at taking a backward look at my content and seeing how I can squeeze more traffic out of it. Then, this video was brought to my attention by David Newby, a member of my LinkedIn group, Online Visibility Boost for Entrepreneurs (it's on open group, you're invited to join!)....</summary>
        <author>
            <name>Denise Wakeman</name>
        </author>
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Creating Blog Content" />
        <category scheme="http://www.sixapart.com/ns/types#category" term="Driving Traffic to your Blog" />
        
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="blog content" />
        <category scheme="http://sixapart.com/ns/types#tag" term="blog traffic" />
        
<content type="html" xml:lang="en-US" xml:base="http://www.buildabetterblog.com/">&lt;div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"&gt;&lt;p&gt;Do you ever think about your older blog posts, wondering if you get any value from them after they've slipped out of sight, replaced by new content?&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you ever check your analytics to see what kind of traffic you're getting to older content? &lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;I confess, I am sporadic at best, at taking a backward look at my content and seeing how I can squeeze more traffic out of it. Then, this &lt;a href="http://youtu.be/qbrFLA7mcF4" target="_blank"&gt;video&lt;/a&gt; was brought to my attention by David Newby, a member of my LinkedIn group, &lt;a href="http://denisewakeman.com/linkedin" target="_blank"&gt;Online Visibility Boost for Entrepreneurs&lt;/a&gt; (it's on open group, you're invited to join!). I was intrigued and watched the video by Jonathan at &lt;a href="http://bloggingyourpassion.com" target="_blank"&gt;BloggingYourPassion.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;object height="360" width="480"&gt;&#xD;
&lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qbrFLA7mcF4?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;rel=0"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&#xD;
&lt;param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&#xD;
&lt;param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qbrFLA7mcF4?version=3&amp;amp;hl=en_US&amp;amp;rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480"&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/object&gt;&#xD;
 &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;A couple of things to note.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;blockquote&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;1. You need to have &lt;strong&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.google.com/analytics/" target="_blank"&gt;Google Analytics&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; set up and linked to your blog.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;2. &lt;strong&gt;Identify posts&lt;/strong&gt; that do a good job of demonstrating your expertise, show how you serve your clients and have a strong call to action.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;3. Use the tutorial in the video to &lt;strong&gt;re-optimize the posts for keywords&lt;/strong&gt; prospects are really searching on.  &lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/blockquote&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;Use your time and energy to focus on your most powerful posts that will bring you the targeted readers you want and make sure your content compels to take action to subscribe, get your free report, register for a webinar, etc.&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Do you re-optimize older posts? &lt;/strong&gt;What kind of results have you seen when you do?&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;h3&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Need more tips on how to optimize your blog for your business?&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/h3&gt;&#xD;
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&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt; In this ebook you will learn:&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&#xD;
&lt;ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;Why a blog is an essential foundation for your online business&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;10 key steps you must take before you create your business blog&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;How to create effective content that moves your readers to action&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;How to boost your visibility and create a powerful online presence&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;How to use social networking to drive more people back to your blog&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;li&gt;14 Attention-Grabbing Tactics for Launching a New Business Blog&lt;/li&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/ul&gt;&#xD;
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&lt;ul&gt;&#xD;
&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
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&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/BuildABetterBlog/~4/FcNZcAfr-Oo" height="1" width="1"/&gt;</content>



    <feedburner:origLink>http://www.buildabetterblog.com/2011/10/get-more-traffic-to-your-blog.html</feedburner:origLink></entry>
 
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