Interesting and Insightful Blog Posts are at the Heart of your Blog
Web logs are one of the most popular trends on the internet today. A business web log is used as a learning pad, to build consumer relations, Build credibility and as a great communication tool. For your online business a blog can deliver press releases, categorized help articles and generate revenue through advertising.
What makes a blog a blog?
What is a blog?
It is defined as a web log. The web log is fueled by blog posts content of any kind. When you post content other people can read it and make comments and opinions. You can also allow people to subscribe if you like their blog posts. These are the core element s of blogging.
Blogs from a Business Standpoint
What can a blog deliver to business? Share your infinite wisdom with viewers. Help people that visit your blog understand more about your area of expertise. If you focus on making your blog posts insightful nature will take its course and you will begin to attract a growing list of followers. Make sure you accept subscribers. Make sure your blog is constantly updated and your subscribers are automatically notified (pinged).
Use Hot Videos
Don’t get the wrong idea! I am talking about hot videos containing the most current information on your business offerings. Both “Blogger” and “Wordpress” support videos and it is no secret that the majority of the human race is visual, especially if you can include other elements of video such as music , a splash of tasteful humor and a compelling video production. Some of the most useful and common video formats include divx, Quicktime, Realvideo, Flash, mpeg or avi.
Use Analytics to Determine What Video Format to Use?
If you already have traffic coming to your website one of the best ways to decide is by using website analytics. There are several choices when you want to look a the characteristics of the visitors coming to your website. I recommend not using your server logs that are usually tied into applications such as Awestats. Here are my 3 favorite website analytic programs:
* Google analytics is currently free. It is believed by many savvy entrepreneurs that Google will use your data for their own purposes in the future. “There is no free lunch”. Keep this in mind. I have used this powerful software to administer to 100’s of PPC clients because it is so easy to implemented from Google AdWords. The biggest problem I have is, you cannot delete data without having to ask a Google customer care representative to remove profiles. Even then, they are “inactive” and not removed or deleted. This is raising the eyebrows of many AdWord/ Analytic users. If you have no problem harvesting data for Google FREE, then this is the best software. User beware!
I personally use Google Analytics when my client asks for it. If they do not care then my choice is mint.
How to Build an Authority Blog
To start with make comments and blog posts on a regular basis. Always author compelling content and allow subscribers to make comments with a link back. Link backs to other blogs should ideally be to authority blogs within the same theme of your blog. These are very basic, natural search engine optimization tips that will pay off over time. Ultimately if you can obtain links from high ranked, trusted and favored blogs it will help you quickly obtain authority status. A great example of a knowledgeable, authority blogger is pro blogger
Choosing The Right Hosting Service for your Small Business Blog
To support a high traffic blog choosing a suitable hosting service is very important. Your concerns should include:
- Is the host a bad neighborhood (blacklisted)?
- Can the hosting package support required bandwidth?
- What is the hosts hardware?
- What back-up resources are in place?
A frequently updated blog will result in search spiders visiting regularly. This is highly desired but a complete waste of time if your server is down. Make sure you make the right choice of hosting provider for your small business blog.
Great for Training Videos
Showing your visitors “how to” seems to make for the most popular blog posts. Because opinions are generally accepted tutorial based blog posts can often be improved by other industry experts also contributing to video tutorial. Add to that RSS to a blog and your learning pad can spread like wildfire.
Marketing Video Blogs
A great idea for any blogger is video blogs. Probably one of the most successful and effective uses of video blogs is MMA. Mixed martial arts is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. It is hand a hand to hand combat sport that is as real as it gets. Cool blog posts with video can be found at websites such as;
http://www.pancrase.org/
http://www.ufc.com/
Videos in the mix add new light to marketing in your blog.
Most Popular Blogging Platforms
Blogger
Google’s version of Blog Software. It is very easy to use and runs from their server. I would recommend it for those looking for the simplest approach on how to start a blog. In a matter of minutes you will have your first blog page online.
Start setting up blogger here
Wordpress
For the more advanced users, this software is available from WordPress.org for free. It is installed on your own server. It is great community blog software with thousands of free plugins. It offers much more flexibility than blogger but also requires a higher degree of skill and knowledge base.
Start setting up WordPress here
Install a Wordpress Blog Video tutorial here
Blogging for Link Popularity
Once you discover how to create a blog and how simple it is to create a blog posting, you’ll want to make a plan to increase link popularity (incoming links). The easiest way to accomplish this is to write your best blog post every time. Learn how to how to write a blog post that is sticky, magnetic and compelling. Innovative blog post ideas will result in other websites and bloggers wanting to link to you. A good example of this is Matt Cutts and SEO. Although I take everything he takes with a grain of salt some of his post are quite interesting in the SEO community. For those that are real Matt Cutts believers all Matt has to so is blog post about something revealing about Google algorithms and link popularity increases overnight to his blog.
You may also want to take a look at blog listings in directories. Here you can blog post urls to your weblog. Submit your blog name and additional information as part of your link building campaigns.
10 Tips on Improving Blog Posts
- Keep your blog posts on topic and well themed
- Use accurate tags to help search engines understand your topic
- Invite comments to your blog
- Be aware of comment spam
- Write blog post that are compelling, controversial and debatable
- Ask interesting questions throughout your blog posts
- Make good comments on other related blogs with a link back to your blog
- Offer incentives to other bloggers to make comments
- Put a face on your web log with video
- Create a blog about you and let the blogging community get to know you
thats it, brother
Comment by Jeffreymb — March 19, 2008 @ 10:15 am