Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

Day 17: Lecture

Today’s topic is all about blog fodder: the raw material we use to create those brilliant blog posts. We’ll explore why it’s important to have a resource file for future posts, how to collate and store all that information, and how to use those ideas later as creative prompts.

Blog Fodder: Where Does It Come From?

Probably the biggest question or pushback I get from nonbloggers (besides the “I don’t have time to blog!” complaint) is “Where on earth do you come up with ideas for all those posts?”

It’s sort of amusing to someone who’s been blogging awhile, because we all know the truth: there’s no excuse for a blogger to ever run out of blogging ideas! Sure we may struggle with the right way to frame a particular topic, or have difficulty expressing ideas in just the right way, but the basic ideas themselves — well, they’re everywhere. That’s what this topic is all about.

I call it “blog fodder” — the raw material we use to create blog posts. Fodder is the seed of the idea of the post — not your theme, not your title, not your subject, not even your main point. It’s just the starting point — the page that makes you go “hmm, that’s interesting” — the quote that starts the gears whirring in your brain.

The biggest problem with blog fodder is not “where do I find it?” but “how on earth do I collect and store all of that in a way that makes sense and that I can actually work with?!”

Storing and Tagging Blog Fodder For Future Use

There are probably as many methods for storing and working with blog fodder as there are bloggers. Some paper addicts I know actually create a blog book — a physical printed notebook or binder with notes for future posts, lists of topics, printouts from other blog posts on other sites that they want to comment on later, an editorial calendar.

If the printed page holds more appeal for you, then by all means, choose this method. Select an easy-to-open three-ring binder, and create sections — one for ideas, one for your editorial blog calendar, and one for drafts in progress. Keep fresh paper in the binder so you can add to it when the mood strikes. Then, when you see a blog post, news item, or other website page that triggers your creative juices, print it out and place it in the binder.

I prefer the digital approach myself, and here your options are almost endless. I’ve already written about two tools I have a lot of experience with — Rusty Budget and Evernote. Frankly, I’ve started relying more and more on Evernote, and less on Rusty Budget, as Evernote will also collect URLs, and has a handy one-click button that transfers selected text to the Evernote interface, where I can then manipulate it to my heart’s desire with tags, formatting, and additional notes or text.

You can also use the ubiquitous and elegantly simple text document. Plain text is really quite an amazing tool for bloggers, when you stop to think about it. The format strips away all codes that are potentially incompatible with your blogging software, and the resulting file takes up very little space on your hard drive. I compose all my blog posts in text files these days, which is also great because I have an as-I-go real-time archive of all my blog posts. And of course, every Mac and PC has a text editor built in — TextEdit for Macs, Notepad for PCs.

There are all kinds of special editors and notetaking software you could also use: One Note, Notebook, Scrivener, MarsEdit … they’re definitely worth a try. But to keep it simple, all things considered, I highly encourage you to give Evernote a try. It’s free, it syncs up both with the cloud and with other computers on which your account is set up and the software installed, and it’s quite robust. The tagging feature lets you keep all your blog fodder in one notebook, and your tags can sort things out by your blog categories, as well as any other criteria you wish to add.

Task for Day 17: Hunt For Blog Fodder, and Store It Well

Today, we’re going to be squirrels hunting for nuts, only our nuts are the individual little pieces of blog fodder that will serve as the creative genesis of future blog posts. Select one of the methods above — or create your own, or try something else (do share with us in the comments, though!) — and sort all your “nuts” accordingly. Aim for at least 20 pieces of blog fodder to give yourself a variety to choose from — sometimes, the “muse” doesn’t really gel with a particular topic, and you just really want to write about something else, so it’s good to have choices.

Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

Day 16: Lecture

Today’s topic and task concern creating FAQs for your business blog.

What Are FAQs and Why Should You Have Them On Your Blog?

Every business owner knows those questions — the ones you always get asked, when you’re out with friends, or networking, or marketing, or whatever — when you tell a new acquaintance what you do for a living — when a new potential client calls — those questions. The ones that pop up, perhaps slightly rephrased, but essentially asking the same thing, over and over.

The substance of your most Frequently Asked Questions will vary depending on your profession, your targeted clients, your area of expertise but the common thread is this: we all get them, and we get tired of answering them over and over. We may even develop little scripts to cover the answers to these questions in one fell swoop, and over time, we can find ourselves falling into the trap of delivering this speech in a bored, rushed monotone, which makes it hard for the folks asking the questions to understand the answers.

Instead of treating these questions as an annoyance, however, recognize them for what they are: a veritable goldmine for your blog. FAQs are a fabulous source of content for your blog. Since most people know what FAQs are, they’ll know exactly what you mean when you post a new page on your blog labeled “FAQs” — they’ll know what to expect — and moreover, a good many visitors to your site will even be looking specifically for those FAQs. If you don’t have them, or if they’re not high-quality content, that can result in a lost sale or conversion.

By contrast, well-written FAQs that cover the basics in plain English written for the audience you’re targeting (your targeted readership, which is also your targeted potential client base, of course) can actually increase your conversions. Why? Simple: everything on your blog is a potential interaction with a potential client. Clients form their impressions based on how you handle those interactions. High-quality FAQs, in particular, impress a reader/potential client and help convince them to pick up the phone and make an appointment because they tell readers that you know what you’re talking about, you understand their problems, and you can help solve those problems.

Identifying Items For Your FAQs

Your FAQs don’t require in-depth market research. You probably already know them. Jot down in a text file the eight or ten questions you most often get from new clients, or callers to your office, or new acquaintances who want to know more about what you do. Chances are, you’ll see some patterns emerge.

Now look at your analytics. What keywords are people using to get to your site? There will be patterns there, too — patterns of frequently used words and phrases that reveal what the searcher is thinking about and looking for — i.e., what question they need the answer to. Those patterns tell you what your targeted readers are looking for in a FAQ.

Finally, think about the last few consultations or telephone inquiries you’ve received from potential clients. Jot those questions down, as well. Now you have a fairly good starting point to create your FAQs. Add to this by relying on your professional expertise to think about what you want your clients to know before they walk in the door. What are the main points they need to understand about your services, or the problems you help them solve? Those are also going into the FAQ.

Drafting Your FAQs — The Right Language, The Right Tone

Simply knowing what the questions are is only half the battle. Now you have to formulate them into FAQ-style items, keeping in mind these factors:

• Keyword usage: both the keywords you’re currently optimizing for, and the ones that users are searching for
• SEO principles: the way you phrase the question will impact your SERPs (remembering that search engines love text, and FAQs are basically text)
• Your targeted clients: you need to use language that puts them at ease, that they understand, and that (most of all) communicates the answer well

Here again, reading your FAQ items out loud will help you decide whether you’ve hit the target, especially with respect to communicating with your targeted clientele. See how each item sounds to you, and if you have someone available, how it sounds to others as well. Read them carefully — do they scan well? Do they use the words that your targeted clients are likely to use themselves? Don’t write solely about “foreclosure” if your targeted clients are looking for “how to save my home”!

Formatting Your FAQs For Maximum SEO Results

FAQs are a wonderful place for you to use formatting such as lists, heading tags, and emphasized text. They’re also a really good place to use jump links. This is where you’ll have a list of questions at the top of the page, for instance, and each question is also a link to the place further on the page (or on another page) where the person will find the answer to that question. This is a handy piece of HTML to know and become familiar with because it really helps users navigate your site, find relevant information that is important to them very quickly, and get the answers they’re looking for. It also looks pretty cool.

The key about understanding jump link HTML is to know it has two parts — the original link, and the linked-to destination. So, to create a jump link:

1. After you format your FAQ item — both question and answer — copy the questions into one block of text, perhaps an ordered list or unordered list, at the top of the blog page (or text file that you’re going to copy and paste into your blogging software interface).
2. Within the list item HTML (i.e., after the opening li tag), place your anchor tag: <li><a href="#question1">Text of First Question</a></li>
3. Now, create an anchor tag, which can be as simple as reiterating the question itself, that precedes each answer. Give it an id that matches the id you gave its counterpart in step 2. Example: <a id="question1">Question 1 Answer</a>

That’s it! Just make sure that you start the id marker with a letter, not a number, and make sure you use exactly the same id marker — same capitalization, same spelling, otherwise it won’t work. Now, when you publish your FAQs, your users can simply click on the question in the list at the top of the page, and go straight to the answer, saving them time and making you look way cool in the process. Bonus!

Task: Create and Publish Your FAQs

Today’s task is just that: create and publish your FAQs. You can start with a few of the most basic questions — say, three or four — then build them out over time if you like. Use formatting and jump links to ease navigation and improve SEO.

Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

Day 15: Lecture

Hopefully by now, you’ve finally got at least one of your pillar articles ready to go. If not, go back to Day 3 and review the whys and wherefores of pillar content. Then start brainstorming your ideas for pillar articles, develop some ideas, and finally work on your draft. Then join us back here, where, today, we’re going to publish that piece and promote the heck out of it.

Quick Review: Why Pillar Articles Are Crucial For Your Business Blog

Just to hit the highlights of the first post in which we discussed pillar articles, let’s go over the benefits quickly one more time:

• Greater appeal to other blogs/sites for incoming links
• Evergreen – their timeliness fades more slowly than more au courant pieces
• Massive value to the reader
• Creates loyal return readers
• Because they’re longer, you can use h2 and h3 tags more liberally, thus increasing the piece’s “SEO juice”

Publishing Checklist For Your Pillar Articles

Wait! Before you hit “Publish” on that awesome pillar article you’ve slaved over for … what, days now? … let’s take a moment’s pause and go over a few last-minute details that, while not critical, could derail your post’s success if missed:

1. Check your spelling. Really. I mean, you – your eyes – not your spellcheck software on your word processor or (God forbid) your blogging site’s interface. Look at it critically and go over each and every word.
2. Not sure if you’ve used a word correctly? Take the time to look up the definition. Make sure. This piece you’re about to send out into the world is like a little ambassador of your brand. You want to make sure it’s looking sharp, dressed to impress, and that it knows what it’s talking about. Otherwise all the other little ambassadors might make fun of it.
3. Read your post out loud. Yes, all of it, beginning to end, including your headings. I can’t tell you how helpful this one little piece of advice has turned out to be in my experience. I’ve caught things – awkward phrasings, words with unclear meanings, and really bad grammar – that I never would have caught simply glancing over it visually.
4. Double check your links. Are they properly formatted? Do you have a title tag in your HTML that’s brief and properly descriptive? Does each link actually work? If you’re linking to a PDF file or some other download, it’s good form to let your readership know what’s head. Here’s an example:
   

   For more information, you can check out this report on … {include your HTML for your link and your anchor text, then add:} (caution: link is PDF file, 1.8MB size).

5. Preview your post. Once it’s all polished and shiny, hit preview before you publish. You’d be surprised how, despite best efforts, things can get misaligned, or text is placed oddly around a picture. Preview is really the only way to be absolutely sure.

Promoting Your Pillar Articles

There are a host of ways you can effectively market your new pillar article. Here are several suggestions to get you started.

Put The Link In Your Email Signature

Create a new email signature that includes not only your basic contact information but also a quick (one sentence) summary or hook to your new post, and include the URL. If the URL is incredibly long (say, over 30 characters) you might want to visit http://is.gd and shorten it down. If your signature-creating email interface allows you to plug in live links with anchor text, so much the better, but you might also want to put the actual URL in the signature as well, since many prefer plain text emails and won’t see the link.

What’s a good hook? A short one that asks a question the post can answer — that’s one approach. Or a succinct “Learn how to …. ” format — that’s also a good choice. Whatever works for the tone and subject of both your blog and your pillar article will be fine — the key is to get the URL in your email signature block and create some curiosity about it.

Twitter: Blogger’s Best Friend

If you’re not on Twitter yet (and why the heck not, really?) then here’s one more reason you’re falling behind on this amazing tool: when I post a new piece on my blogs, I tweet the URL with a short blurb or hook. I use the built-in URL shortener in TweetDeck to make it fit within the 140-character limit, and then I hit the “enter” key.

And with that, over 2,000 people see my post’s link (between the various followers on my multiple accounts, as I retweet among them for blog posts only, being careful not to overdo it and spam people).

Then those 2,000 people have the ability to retweet — or republish my original tweet — and send out the link to their two thousand-plus friends. And that keeps going. (And so on, and so on …)

If you’re lucky enough to get the attention of, say, @GuyKawasaki, as I did recently, those retweets can be quite impressive. I stopped counting at about 50.

Ask For Input From Colleagues and Bloggers In Your Community

Your blogging community, I mean — remember this day’s tasks?  Send them a short, polite email with a link to your post. Don’t demand a link or even ask for one. Simply state you’ve created a pillar article and you’d really value this person’s opinion; when they have a moment would they mind stopping by and taking a look at it for you?

Now — this only works with bloggers you’ve already begun to create a relationship with, NOT for bloggers you haven’t yet met or had any meaningful exchanges with yet. So, pick your targets carefully.

What About Digg and StumbleUpon?

Some bloggers disagree with me on this, but I see nothing wrong with submitting your own work to Digg or Stumble Upon. Simply be upfront about it — don’t pretend to be a disinterested third party — and describe the post objectively.

Submit To Blog Carnivals

Here’s an easy way to get some traffic. With your pillar articles, especially, you’re likely to find a blog carnival or two that would be interested in that subject matter.

Think outside the box on this one — don’t just head for Blawg Review (although certainly, do that, too!) but think about your targeted readerships again, both primary and secondary. Where would they hang out, virtually speaking? Go there. Submit, submit, submit.

When the carnival is published, regardless of whether you’re in it or not, promote it and send it some traffic. The carnival owners/publishers will see the incoming links and they’ll remember that, most likely, when it comes time to pick the next carnival’s posts.

Day 15 Task: Promote Your Pillar Article

Well, the task ought to be self-evident: publish and promote your pillar article, using the above strategies to get you started. And if you have a favorite blog post promotion tactic that isn’t mentioned, please let the rest of us in on it in the comments!

Also: I’m going on record as volunteering to link to ANYONE’S pillar article that’s produced in the months of June or July 2009, in this blog, as long as you drop me a line, either email or through this site’s comment form, to give me the URL and mention this post or the BBBB1 series. That’s one free link, from The Inspired Solo (a PR4 site) to you, gratis, with my compliments, simply for playing along in the Build a Better Business Blog series! What a deal!

NB: This is the 14th installment in The Inspired Solo’s Build a Better Business Blog in One Month series. Designed to help solo lawyers and other professionals boost their blog’s performance, the series consists of a daily lecture and task (or tasks) that focus on one “blog improvement project” at a time. Each post in the series is tagged with “[BBBB1]“. You can start the program at any time. Catch up with other BBBB1 posts here.

Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

Day 14: Lecture and Task

Make a List Post For Your Blog’s Topic

Today’s task is to draft a list post for your blog’s topic. A list post is just that: a post based on a list format. It should offer substantive information relative to your topic and your services. The list itself can be ordered or unordered; the main idea is to create as complete a list as possible that offers suggestions, steps, how-to’s, or some other substantive information that your primary targeted readership would be interested in reading.

List-formatted posts have enjoyed wide success and popularity on a number of blogs in all kinds of subject areas. Why are they so popular? Probably because they’re easily digested and read, and when they’re done well, they convey in plain English the answers to common problems.

How do you get started with a list post? I’d suggest putting most of your effort in the brainstorming phase. Sit down with a pad of paper and pen, and simply brainstorm ideas for questions. The list items would then answer that question.

For lawyers, this can be as simple as thinking of “first steps.” What “first steps” should your clients take when they’re initially faced with a problem in your practice area? That advice can also be applicable to other service professions, of course — doctors can write a post about steps to take when you’re diagnosed with a serious illness; financial consultants can write about how to research investment vehicles or the steps to financial health; music teachers can write about steps their students should take to ensure their at-home practice sessions are fruitful, etc.

Once you’ve brainstormed several possible topics, you might want to do a little keyword research to figure out which topic gets the most search activity. Or you can simply go back to your original concept of your ideal client; often simply reminding myself of the person I’m trying to reach out to can inform topic idea selection for my blog posts. Pick an idea that allows for a lengthy list, because the idea here is to be succinct and yet comprehensive, if not exhaustive, in your list items.

After you select your topic, now you can brainstorm possible list items. If you’re writing about the steps in a process — i.e., “do this first, then that” — this will be somewhat easier. But if you’re writing about suggestions for improving a particular situation, for instance, you could be faced with an endless amount of choices. Every blogger is different, of course, but I prefer to put my effort initially in brainstorming as many ideas as possible, then editing them down as I proceed to draft the post itself.

When formatting your list post, be sure to use numbers and headings. Ordered or unordered lists using the ul or ol tags may or may not work for your post. Especially when you have a lot of list items together with lengthy explanations of those items, many readers find it difficult to follow huge laundry lists. You may want to consider using h2 or h3 tags instead. Then you can briefly describe each list item (suggestion, tip, step, etc.) in the heading itself, while you elucidate on that point in the text paragraph that follows.

Try searching your topic idea on Google or your search engine of choice to see what other bloggers have come up with on this topic. If you don’t see any other list posts on your topic, that’s great– you can be the first! If there are other posts on this idea, though, don’t despair — simply read and dissect the most popular posts and figure out how your list can improve on those iterations.

Finally: consider making this post one of your pillar articles. List posts enjoy great popularity and they can also provide good basic “foundational” information that makes for a good pillar article.

Extra credit: think of other ways you can use this list post, perhaps in promotional marketing material like pamphlets, a magazine article, or a much abbreviated version on the back of your business card.

Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

Day 13: Lecture

Format Your Blog Posts For Maximum Readability and SEO Juice

Time to get back on schedule with this thing! I do apologize on behalf of the abysmal Wild Blue and satellite internet service in general. When it rains — either literally (as it did most of last week here) or metaphorically (as it did when Michael Jackson died, taking most of my internet access with him — R.I.P.) — the internet goes bye-bye for me. Lessons learned. Anybody know a good lawyer who can get me out of this contract? Heh.

Moving on: Day 13 is all about formatting your blog posts to take advantage of SEO juice factors and to improve your site’s readability. Believe it or not, there are people in this world who actually argue passionately about the subject of white space. I know! But here’s what I gather from my admittedly scant reviews of said arguments: white space is important. Except where it isn’t.

Helpful, no? Let’s try that again, then, this time from the perspective of personal experience: white space and formatting help your readers grasp your point(s) quickly and efficiently.

This is a good thing for a couple of reasons. One: you never want your blog readers to work too hard to keep up with your brilliance. They may decide the payoff isn’t worth the effort required and go in search of easier waters to navigate.

Another reason: readability and ease of communication both build goodwill in the blog reader who doesn’t have a lot of time to spend (or doesn’t think she does, which works out to about the same thing from your perspective as the blogger) wading through her blog feeds, separating the metaphorical wheat from the virtual chaff.

So, in a nutshell: white space + formatting = happier, more loyal readers. This is an equation we can all get behind, I trust.

What do I mean by white space? Or formatting for that matter? Simply put, white space, while not necessarily white, is the space that surrounds your text. The empty space, that is. While the pros bicker back and forth with their various opinions, I can safely assert that from my limited anecdotal evidence, most readers seem to prefer some empty space around their text, especially with respect to topics that are relatively serious in nature.

Thus: If they’re trying to catch up on the latest Hollywood gossip, white space might not be that important to them. But if their foreclosure hearing is tomorrow and they need a lawyer today, they want to concentrate, and the white space either helps or is perceived to help, which — again — works out to the same thing for you, the blogger.

Formatting is simply the use of:

• bulleted and numbered (or unordered and ordered) lists;
• properly formatted links, containing both strong anchor words and descriptive title text;
• emphasized text using bolded and italicized text, or both; and
• last, but definitively not least: the use of headings

The Importance of Headings in Your Blog Posts

Remember the SEO projects we discussed earlier in this series mentioned the importance of text to the search engines. They like to see pages that match up with the keywords and provide information (i.e., text) that does a good job of elucidating those keywords, whatever they might be. One of the key features of their evaluation of your page’s value is therefore the value of the information you provide. This means for you that first and foremost, your goal as a blogger is to write really great content — the best you can manage — which is original, relevant, and spot-on with respect to the keywords.

One easy way to improve your pages’ evaluations by the search engines is to use the heading tags to create headings for your post. You can see those headings here on this page — I’ve used the h2 tags to separate the lecture from the task portion, and the h3 tags to introduce subtopics within the lecture portion. Example: the heading that precedes this section is “The Importance of Headings in Your Blog Posts” — I’ve included some of the keywords I’m aiming to optimize this page for (headings, blog, post), and phrased the heading to aid the reader in understanding the post in general and this section in particular.

Overuse of headings just looks silly — you’ll know instinctively when you’ve gone overboard with headings. But the use of a handful of headings throughout your post will juice up your SEO results and help your reader find the information she’s looking for quickly and efficiently. Readers are grateful for that kind of assistance, as a rule. You might also find, as I did, that the use of headings really helps improve your writing, too!

Use Ordered and Unordered Lists to Help the Blog Reader Grasp Your Points

Ordered (numbered) and unordered (bulleted) lists are fabulous mechanisms with a multitude of uses. They’re great for:

• Listing steps in a process
• Describing key facts
• Providing resources and URLs
• Summarizing your key points at the end of the post
• Articulating your blog post’s structure at the beginning of the post
• Communicating advantages and disadvantages of a particular set of choices

That list could go on and on; the uses of lists are really only bounded by your imagination and creativity. With respect to the last two items in that list, however, a bit more can be said: summing up your blog post’s content at the beginning and the end of the post is a very powerful method of structuring your content to help the reader grasp the main ideas. You’ve probably heard the old saw about public speaking: “Tell ‘em what you’re going to tell ‘em, tell ‘em, then tell ‘em what you told ‘em.” This is the same concept in written form — just use an ordered or unordered list to quickly sum up your main points at both the beginning and the end of the post. Now, this method isn’t appropriate for every post. I’d recommend the preview/summation list technique only for longer and more complicated posts — perhaps those pillar articles you’re working so feverishly on?

Emphasize Text in Your Blog Post Carefully

Formatting also includes the use of the strong and em tags to set apart certain text and emphasize it as compared to the rest of the post. This can be overdone, just as with the use of headings, but again the overuse of these tags is immediately visually apparent. So get in the habit of previewing all your posts before you publish them, if you don’t do so already, and make it a point to ask yourself whether the emphasis is a bit excessive.

I’ve been experimenting with emphasizing key words and phrases in my posts at my other blog, The Tramadol Diaries (and to a lesser extent here as well). I’m not sure whether I’ll continue to do this, but the few readers who’ve commented on the new formatting have had mostly positive comments about it. One said it helped her decide whether the post was helpful to the immediate question she was wondering about, because the emphasized text literally jumps off the screen at her. If those words match up with the question in her head, she’ll keep reading.

Whether others feel the same way remains to be seen, but I’m going to continue experimenting with this technique over there for the time being, just to see what happens. If it’s something you’d like to try on your blog, I’d be very interested to know the results, so please drop me a line and let me know!

Link Formatting for Best SEO and User Experience Results

As for links, the essential points to remember are to always use the “title” attribute in your HREF tag, and to make sure your anchor text (the text that the user clicks on in the link) is relevant to the linked-to site. Stay away from cutesy puns, “click here”, “more here” and the like. Also, ensure multiple links aren’t too close together on the page; it’s easy for a reader to miss one if you put successive links to a string of words in one sentence, for instance.

Day 13 Task: Reformat An Old Post to Be More Readable and Search-Engine-Friendly

Your task for today is to take an old post from your archives and reformat it to add lists, emphasized text, and headings.

For extra credit, take a reading of that page in your Google Analytics dashboard to see what kind of stats the page has received thus far, then check them again in a few weeks to see if there’s been an improvement. There may or may not be — this isn’t a guarantee, and anyone who promises you a certain result in SERPs is selling you a large bridge in Brooklyn, in my opinion — but overall, this approach will improve your chances of better SERP results.

Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

Day 12: Lecture and Task

Connect With a Reader

Hallalujah! A short day’s work and a very simple task for this installment of the Build a Better Business Blog series.

If you’ve had any comment on your blog recently, take a moment to email that commenter (assuming she or he left a valid email address).

What should you say? How about a simple “Thanks for commenting”? But go further, if you can, perhaps building on the substance of the reader’s comment. Offer another perspective, or a quick link to another resource you might dig up, or simply a response to the original comment. But always end with a sincere “thanks for visiting.”

Why take the time to do this? It sincerely makes the reader feel appreciated, and that’s much more likely to create a loyal reader. And loyal readers can become your absolute best source of publicity for your blog. When friends and family members ask for referrals, they’re more likely to mention your name, your blog — all because you took the time to connect with them initially.

Make this a habit. If you get a lot of comments on your blog, don’t feel compelled to email each and every one. But do try to make a habit of dropping a thank-you note to first time commenters, at least.

Check-In On Pillar Content

Bet you thought I forgot about that, didn’t you?

No such luck. I know this task can be hard for some, but trust me: the payoff is well worth the effort. By now, you should have at least come up with your three ideas for articles (more, if you’re super-motivated); built one out fully and have it ready for posting; and possibly jotted down some ideas for the others.

Remember, take this task seriously, and work on it slowly over the course of the month. Don’t try to generate an idea, write the post, and have it publication-ready in 24 hours — that leads to silly errors and typos, and faulty logic. Take your time with these articles. Remember, they’re going to be the “pillars” holding up the exalted temple of your blog! (All right, that was a bit of hyperbole. But wasn’t it a lovely mental image?)

Dominate Your Local Market

NB: This is a guest post from Amber Riviere, a designer with BrownBugProject.com.

Here’s a way you could be. Consider creating a community website. Why?

• It’s relatively inexpensive (especially considering the potential return on investment).
• It’s manageable. You can maintain it on your own until you get it off the ground and then outsource it going forward.
• It has the potential to position you as the “go-to” expert in your community. If you’re the sponsoring professional, area businesses and community members alike will see you each and every time they visit the site.

So, what is a community website? That depends on your imagination and creativity.

• It can be a place where locals congregate to discuss important events and issues within the community. You could have a blog or forum dedicated to current events, where visitors and members can comment and share ideas.
• It can be an online marketplace, where area businesses join in and post coupons, articles, tips, and events. You could set up separately sponsored blogs for different types of businesses. For example, you might get an area restaurant to sponsor an “In the Kitchen” column where the owner or chef posts regular articles and tips relevant to cooking and dining out. Try to get a broad variety of contributors and sponsors so that you attract the largest number of people from your community.
• It can be a place to promote your community. You could have sections of your site devoted to things to do, places to eat, things to see, places to stay, etc.
• It can increase the sense of community in your area. You can take a special interest in holidays, special occasions, and volunteering in your community.

And that’s just the start of it! Create a volunteer committee of local business owners to help with the site. Get together and brainstorm the possibilities; they’re endless!

Amber Riviere is a web designer with BrownBugProject.com. You can follow her work through her blog and through her newsletter, Inside Brown’s Brain.

Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

Day 11: Lecture

Analyze Your Home Page

Today, we’re going to take a look at your home page — the main landing page for your blog site. If your blog is a subdomain of your static website — e.g., http://www.mysite.com/blog, or the like — we’ll also need to take a look at your static site’s landing page.

What are we looking for? Primarily, these three factors:

1. Navigation
2. Communication
3. Readability

Let’s look at each in a bit more detail.

How to Improve Your Main Blog Page’s Navigability

Navigation is all about getting from point A to points B, C, and so on. How easily can a new user find her way around your blog? Are your various pages laid out nice and neat on tabs below your header, or at the top of the sidebar? Are the page names descriptive of the content that can be found on those pages?

Take a look at your main home page with fresh eyes. Does your attention wander in search of a focal point? Do you have at least two ways to get into your blog’s pages? How does a new user find her way around the site? Take a few moments and just click and wander, from page to page. Make note also of return paths — are there some pages that you can’t navigate to from other pages in two or fewer links?

Communication: Your Landing Page’s Prime Responsibility

In many ways, this is the most important aspect of your blog’s main page. This is, for the majority of users, the first impression they’ll get of you, your blog, and your business.

So, take a few moments to really examine the front page as a whole. Does it tell a new user — one who’s completely unfamiliar with you or your site — what your blog is “about”? Does it communicate quickly who it’s for and what can be found there?

Remember that most new users, especially those who find you via an organic search, have lots of other options to wade through. Consequently they’re not going to stick around endlessly, working to find out what your blog can offer them. It’s up to you to make your blog tell that information right away, right up front.

Readability: The Importance of White Space

You’ll hear different theories on this subject, but to me, it basically boils down to this: can a new user actually read your blog posts easily? Is the typeface too small or fuzzy or light in color? Is there insufficient contrast between the text and the background? Are you making good use of white space to provide a place for the eyes to rest and so the user doesn’t feel overwhelmed by text?

Task: Watch a New User Examine Your Blog

For this task, it’s best to enlist the aid of a friend who has never seen your blog before. Watch her surf your site, starting with the landing page and then wandering wherever she feels like going, but ask her specifically to hit your key pages, and at least one individual post page.

Ask her questions as she browses — the same questions posed in the lecture above. “Can you tell what this site is about? How quickly? Are the posts readable?” and so on.

One note: I’ve never had much luck asking the open-ended question “What can I do to make this blog better?” For one thing, “better” is such a subjective term that you’ll never get the same response twice. For another, it’s hard for a user to tell you what to improve on your blog, unless you’re doing something really, really wrong (such as using horrible grammar or no punctuation).

I’ve found I get better responses when I ask direct questions about specific features of the blog, such as the typeface, the font size, the length of paragraphs, the “findability” of the navigational links, and so on.

Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

Day 10 Lecture

Reach Out to a Fellow Blogger

Today, we’re going to be building on the work we began last week (see: Day 8: Expand Your Blog Community) and yesterday with our foray into blog-commenting as a traffic and relationship-building strategy by reaching out and building relationships with other bloggers.

It’s really this simple:

The secret to high SERPs (Search Engine Result Placement): backlinks — links from reputable, relevant blogs to your blog.

The secret to backlinks: relationships with other site owners and in particular other bloggers.

In some ways, this is an easy lesson to learn because it’s basically all the stuff we already learned in kindergarten:

• Express an interest. Learn what you can about your new blog-buddy. Read her blog, for starters — not just the front page. Really dive in and get to know this person’s story. Read the about page; read the very first blog post she ever wrote. Visit the other blogs she links to. Now you have a conversation starter.
• Be a good listener. By which we almost always mean “don’t just talk about yourself, and don’t use her time to talk as nothing more than preparation for your next turn.” Ask open-ended questions. Don’t assault her right out of the gate with a demand (or even a polite request) for a backlink or advice or a blog review. That stuff takes time and her time’s just as valuable as yours. Make your email short, compliment something about her blog sincerely, and … then what? You have a few options. Read on.
• Expect nothing in return, but hope for a relationship. Let’s get this out of the way right now: Builing a relationship is NOT exchanging Christmas presents at the office party, OK? It’s not a tit-for-tat quid pro quo exchange. Bloggers are pretty smart folks. They can tell when someone’s approaching them purely for what they can do to further the email-writer’s agenda. What you’re after is a relationship — a friendship, of sorts, one that’s going to mutually benefit the participants.
• Look for ways to be helpful. Here’s where your previous research comes in handy. From reading her blog, you’ll know a few things about your new blog-buddy — her interests, her current projects, the topics that fascinate her enough to write about them on her blog. That’s good info to have. Now you can look through your own wealth of digital info — your subscribed-to blogs, your email newsletters, your contacts — and find something that matches up with the blogger’s agenda. Find a way to help her, and offer it. Coming up blank? Offer to write a guest post. (But be careful here. Approaching very popular bloggers right off the bat with a “Can I write a guest post?” request is pretty much the same thing as asking for a backlink. Use this one cautiously, and make sure you’ve got a reasonable expectation of a positive response.)
• Share your toys. OK, this one’s not really applicable to blogging. I just think it’s nice. But then again, maybe it is applicable. If you have a pretty nifty solution to an expressed problem the blogger has been struggling with, share it, step by step. I’ve made more than a few friends by sharing my affinity for Levenger’s Circa notebooks.

What bloggers do you want to become friends with? Preferably ones that do not directly compete with you, but write about subjects that are related to yours. If you practice estate planning law in Houston, another estate planner in Houston is not the best target for this particular exercise. But an estate planner in Los Angeles may well be an excellent choice, as would a tax attorney in Houston, a financial planner in Houston, or a top-tier real estate agent in Houston.

Finding the best way to approach a blogger to strike up a relationship can be tricky. I advise a slow, steady approach. Read the other blogger’s site regularly for a few weeks. Comment on occasion — being careful to avoid self-serving links and offering up a substantive contribution to the discussion. Then, perhaps when you see an opening, or when you feel comfortable creating your own, email the blogger.

Introduce yourself in a few short words or sentences, and offer up something that might be of value — a link, a reference, a book suggestion, a contact, an opinion, a piece of information.

And what about your blog? You don’t even need to mention it, specifically (unless the “thing of value” is a post you’ve written). Simply put the link in your email signature (which you should always do, anyway).

Task: Connect With Another Blogger

Your task, which you may need to build up to, is to reach out to a blogger you don’t know. If it’s a blogger whose site you are unfamiliar with, take a few weeks first to build up to sending an email. Read through the blog, including its archives. Become familiar with the blogger’s story. Comment carefully on a few posts. Then, when the timing feels appropriate, drop the blogger a line. Continue to build on the relationship you’ve started in the future by keeping in touch, and continuing to participate on the other blogger’s site.

As with all relationships, if after you’ve given this one a fair bit of time and attention you still feel this is awfully one-sided, and the side is yours? Then you should consider cutting that blogger loose and moving on. Life’s too short to keep fishing in stale waters, and every relationship — be it the online, or the offline variety — ought to be fairly equal over time in its give-and-take for both parties. When they aren’t, my advice is to cut your losses and move on to friendlier pastures.

Build a Better Business Blog, One Block At a Time

NB: This is the 9th installment in The Inspired Solo’s Build a Better Business Blog in One Month series. Designed to help solo lawyers and other professionals boost their blog’s performance, the series consists of a daily lecture and task (or tasks) that focus on one “blog improvement project” at a time. Each post in the series is tagged with “[BBBB1]“. You can start the program at any time. Catch up with other BBBB1 posts here.

Day 9 Lecture

Comment Correctly On Other Blogs

Commenting on other blogs can be a powerful traffic strategy – but only if you do it right. Keep in mind that most comment traffic — i.e., the folks who visit your blog through the link you provide in the comment form — is going to be low-quality — that is, not targeted — unless you take care to choose the right blog and the right post to comment on.

From your work last week on expanding your blog community, you have a list of other bloggers who write on subjects that relate to your own blog’s focus. Narrow this down even further by considering the individual blog posts on these sites in terms of your targeted readership. Which posts would be most interesting to your primary TRs? These are the posts to comment on.

The substance of your comment should always follow three main rules:

1. Be succinct.
2. Add something substantive.
3. Stay away from self-serving links.

Succinctness and brevity are keys to good commenting. Remember that especially with popular blogs which generate lots of comments, it’s very difficult for a reader or the blogger to read each comment thoroughly or carefully. Often, in order to save time, readers will skim over the comments. Long comments of two or more paragraphs will often get bypassed entirely. So say what you want to say, but say it quickly and efficiently. Make your point, then move on.

Always add something substantive to the conversation. Read the discussion that precedes your comment. What points are the commenters picking up on? Can you offer a different take, or additional information? What about the post itself? Is there something in the post that hasn’t been discussed, to which you can add substantively? Try to distinguish your comment from the rest of the herd by offering up something unique, be it your opinion (especially phrased differently or with different supporting arguments) or new information that hasn’t been mentioned yet.

Also consider whether you can direct readers elsewhere for more information. Perhaps you’ve read a similar post or news report recently that can add to the discussion with a new layer of analysis. By all means, serve up that link in your comment. Just make sure it’s relevant and that you can tie it in with the current post/discussion somehow.

What do I mean by “self-serving links“? Basically, this is a link back to your own site. You’ve already provided the URL in the comment form, so simply adding a comment like “I write about this stuff at my blog at http://www.myblog.com” violates rules #2 and 3 (you’re adding nothing substantive to the discussion, and you’re simply providing another self-serving link).

Comment Types To Avoid Like the Plague

What to stay away from?

• “Ditto” posts — comments that simply say “I agree” or “great point.” These are mere noise, and give nothing of value to the blog, the blogger, or the readers.
• Garbage comments — meaningless trifles that simply make a pun or comment superficially without adding anything of value.
• “Great blog” comments — comments stating only that you like the blog (compliments like this are great, just send them in email in order to connect directly with the blogger, and make sure you add specifics).
• Comments that are off-topic – go ahead and ask a question of the blogger that’s not related to the topic if you like, but again: do it in email.

Task: Comment on Another Blog

Your task for today is to select another blog that’s related to your own topic and find a good post to comment on. Practice making your comments relevant, substantive, and succinct, without self-serving links.

Extra credit — Quick Log Your Blog Work

Here’s something I started doing to keep track of where I leave comments. I installed a “quick logger” script on my Windows laptop. Anytime I leave a comment (actually, it’s a work log, so I use it any time I complete any task), I simply hit Ctrl+Alt+L and this brings up a quicklogger window where I can append one line of text to a simple text file called “WorkLog.txt.” The script automatically adds the date and time.

For comments, I copy and paste the URL of the post and add a “LC” for “left comment.” Thus, I have an automatic (or close to it) work log, that includes the sites I leave comments on. If this sounds interesting to you, you can find complete instructions on how to download and set up the logging script and text file at Lifehacker.