My Take On Life | Questions & Answers

Many clients ask me how to drive more traffic to their blogs. By now you have probably heard that blogs are an excellent resource to get leads as well as clients for your business. The best way to do that is by creating search engine friendly blog posts that get indexed in search engines. When people search for information on topics you discuss in your blog it appears on the search engine result pages. Potential customers then are able to read what you have to say and get on your mailing list.

So now it all boils down to techniques that help you effectively optimize your blog for search engines. Here are tips and ideas to do just that:

- Create A Keyword Rich Header For Your Blog. The header repeats on all pages on the blog. By making sure that your header contains targeted keywords, you are able to get more of your blog pages indexed in search engines.

- Treat Each Blog Post As A Separate, Optimizable Page. Use the process of search engine optimization on each blog post. This means that you need to create an optimized title for each post, find targeted keywords for each post and weave the keywords into your post’s text.

- Make Sure That Each Blog Post’s File Name Are Descriptive. Different blogging software behaves differently, but some will call your blog posts 2.html, 3.html, 4.html, etc. As you can see, that is not very descriptive and not particularly helpful to either people or search engines. When you create a post called “How Coaching Helps Business Owners”, calling it “how-coaching-helps-business-owners.html” is a much better title than “5.html”

Make sure that your blogging software creates descriptive file names for your blog posts; it is better both for human readers and search engine spiders.

- Get Links Pointing To Your Blog. Quality links to your blog means more blog visitors and higher search engine rankings. Current search engine algorithms value links to your blog, which means that having links pointing to your blog will improve your blog’s search engine rankings.

- Get Your Blog Listed in Blog Directories. Blog directories are a great source of getting unidirectional links to your blog. Since blog directory links many times are unidirectional (they link to you, but you don’t link back to them), they are great for boosting your search engine rankings. Having many unidirectional links pointing to your web site will improve your search engine rankings.

A blog is an excellent marketing tool, but your blog will not attract more leads and clients for your business if you don’t use search engine optimization techniques to optimize your blog and attract targeted search engine traffic to it.

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Where To Get Content For Your Blog

Blogs and websites that have rich content are always going to do better than those that don’t. I am sure you wondered where these blogs get their ideas, views and opinions. It is easy to write about something you are passionate about- but to do that most days of the week is extremely hard, since you would probably run out of things to talk about or you simply don’t have the time. So how do they do it? Where do they get their ideas? Do they get help from tools and other sources available on the Internet?

The best way would be to provide the content yourself, and this is of utmost importance if your goal is to try to create traffic to an affiliated link. You’ll definitely want to sell the idea about the services and products beforehand. What that will do is set the stage or the “mood” and give your recommendations authenticity.

Expounding on the uses of a particular service or product, with your own likes and dislikes, achieves this naturally. With an affiliate program, it is a good idea to have a personal anecdote that goes hand in hand with the product or service.

Using private label articles is a viable alternative. PL articles abound in the Internet and you can always buy some that are connected to your central topic and then place them in your blog. One way of maximizing a purchased PLA is to cut it down into several pieces, thereby maximizing its content.

Utilizing RSS feeds to post on blogs is becoming very popular, although not everyone is familiar or willing to learn about RSS feeds. The advantage to an RSS feed is that your blog is automatically updated with fresh news and content. The disadvantage is that it is not unique content and that anybody interested in the feed will likely click out on a story that appeals to them.

Putting in your very own content is the best way to go. One way to find fresh ideas is to look for an appealing news article and then do a summary write-up based on it. It’s not as easy as it sounds, but you and your readers will find it the most rewarding way. If you feel that you just don’t cut it as a writer or you genuinely don’t have the time, then hire someone else to do it for you. There are many services out there who provide a “blog service” which includes daily posts of unique, engaging content and you can instruct these content writers as to where you want the links in your blog pointing to- so that any burden of cost in terms of hiring them should be offset by the gains in your increased visitor base, the marketing of your other websites and earnings from your affiliate programs.

These are the best ways to generate content for your blog. It is advisable not to be going with the automated path. If you do decide to do that, you will probably have plenty of content- but the substance of the text is unlikely to increase traffic for you. Putting in some good, old-fashioned content work will yield better results for you. As the expression goes- “you get out what you put in….”!!

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The Ten Cardinal Rules Of Blogging

It was easier when I was running EMJ, since I had built EMJ slowly over 25 years so people got to know me better as the company grew. At SYNNEX, I have a whole new group of people who wondered about who I was. Blogging was one way to bridge this gap.

I am a life long learner. Doing SYNNEX threw me into a huge and fast learning curve. Part of me wants to share and inspire people. Blogging was a natural way for me to do this.

From this experience I came up with Ten Rules of Blogging:

1. Have a theme. This helps attract readers. It provides a framework around which to blog. I chose Time Leadership as my theme. I have had a long interest in the use of time and published an audio book on time management. I am constantly looking for new time reducing ideas to add to my present material.

2. Blogging obligates you to do more blogging. It is just like writing a newspaper column. If you have a lot of people reading your blog, they expect to see new material. I blog about 5 or 6 days per week and occasionally skip a day, but not often. I now know the pressure writers on deadlines must feel.

3. Blogging is a two-way street. You must respond to the comments you will get. The larger the blog following, the more comments you will get.

4. Blogging takes time. One of my time rules is – if I add something to my schedule that takes time; I need to delete something that takes the same amount of time. For me, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes per day and I write quickly and keep it brief.

5. Be legal. Of course this is obvious but I mean more than just being legal — be careful of giving away information that could be considered to be business confidential. There have been cases where people have lost their job because the company does not like what has been said in the blog.

6. Keep a file of blog ideas. I keep an electronic file and a paper one. This material gives me something to say when sometimes I am not as inspired to blog. It can also be something that prompts me on writing in my blog. I know I often find myself thinking in terms of what might make good blog material.

7. Provide links from your blog. People who read blogs are used to being able to click on interesting topics and going right to the web page with the information. After all, this is the internet.

8. Only start blogging if you like to write. Even though I like to write, I do often find it to be a bit of a challenge.

9. Be authentic. I think the readers appreciate it. I think it would be hard to have a ghost writer do a blog. It would be difficult to appear real.

10. Be patient. Don’t expect 10,000 readers in the first month. Readership grows over time. I follow my stats, and I notice my weekend readership is about half my readership during the week.

And now that I have written this article – am I less mysterious?

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