26 Tips for Writing Great Blog Posts Do you blog? Feel like you’re trying to reinvent the wheel time and again? Looking for some ideas to simplify your content creation process? What follows are 26 tips, from A-Z, to help you create optimal blog posts every time you sit down to write. #1: Anatomically Correct A blog post contains several areas that require our attention and care. Eye-catching titleIn-text links to landing pagesSidebar/banner calls to actionSocial sharing buttonsCall to action at the bottomRelevancy—making sure the post is relevant from top to bottom Parts of the blog anatomy. Example of more anatomical parts to include in your blog posts. #2: Blogging Platform By knowing the ins and outs of your blogging platform, you’ll ensure that your posts look as good as they can. Whether you’re working in platforms such as WordPress, Tumblr or Posterous, it’s good to stay up to date on the features and new versions. WordPress' editor where you can toggle between visual and HTML editing functions. #3: Categories #4: Description
What is Long Tail Search and Why it Should Matter PLEASE READ: I decided to give myself a fresh start. Read more about that here. Long tail search, in essence, refers to search terms that contain 3 or more words. These search terms are very targeted, and are quickly becoming the norm when people are searching for information about whatever they’re looking for. If you aren’t taking advantage of long tail search in your marketing strategies, you are missing out on a key source of traffic – and, if you sell products or services – revenue. Long Tail Search = More (Quality) Traffic While many marketers tend to target very competitive key words, it can take a long time for your marketing efforts to pay off. The visitors that land on your site based on a long tail search query are more likely to find what they need because their search term was so specific. For example, a long tail search such as “digital cameras for $150 or less” will net you better traffic than the generic term “digital cameras.” Long Tail Search = Less Competition
How to Write a Blog: The 12 Dos and Don'ts of Writing a Blog Thinking about writing a blog? Been writing a blog for some time now and have yet to establish any growth (and by “growth” I mean “increased pageviews”)? Over the past 10 years I’ve refined my blogging skills—that’s right, I started my first blog back in 2001 and it is so embarrassing by today’s standards that I’m almost unwilling to link to it … almost. Blogs for writers are everywhere, and there’s often good advice on them about writing a blog. There’s also plenty of not-so-good advice. Now I currently run several successful blogs, including The Life of Dad and this online editor blog. When Writing a Blog Do … Find your focus. Be relatable, be yourself.What sets bloggers apart from newspaper article feeds is voice. Use links within your posts. Include images. Respond to blog comments. Post to Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Anywhere Else You Can. [Want to land an agent? When Writing a Blog Don’t … Set Unrealistic Goals. Limit your word count. Make grammar mistakes. Be negative.
WordPress Ping Optimizer Do you know your WordPress blog pings unnecessarily every time you edit a post? Think how many times you click on “Save and Continue Editing” or “Save” button. Your blog will ping unnecessarily that many times you click on those buttons. Save your blog from getting tagged as ping spammer by installing this plugin. Update: WordPress Ping Optimizer is compatible with the WordPress 3.5.1. Update: bug fixed Duplicate results in log and WP pinging all the time Update Services Currently I am using now the below list of the service - **After you install WordPress Ping Optimizer:** * When you create a new post, your blog will ping and notify all the ping services that it has been updated. * When you edit an existing post, it won’t send any unnecessary ping to ping services and saves your blog from getting banned by such services. * When you post a future post by editing the time stamp, it will ping only when your post appears in future. == Installation == Manual installation: 1. 1. Activiation and Use
Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide to Writing a Blog Post It consistently takes me six hours to write a blog post. In a comment last week, Nick Messenger asked me about this figure and how I write. I gave you a little bit of insight into this process in How to Write a Legendary Blog Post, but I haven’t given you the exact order in which I do things. So, here it is. Step 1: Researching (1 Hour) Start with a topic. Then, before I write a single word, I do about an hour of research: Conduct Keyword Research Once you have a topic, focus on nailing it down into a high search, low competition keyword. Take the topic and turn it into a keyword because you want the post to rank for the keyword that people actually use, instead of your best guess. When I started researching this post, I checked “blog post blueprint,” “how to write a blog post,” and “steps blog post.” Research the Keyword Once you have a few good keywords, google them. To see the actual results. Primary: Step-by-Step Guide Writing Blog Post Step 2: Brainstorming and Structuring (30 Minutes)
WordPress Ping Optimizer - A Necessity For Your 2013 Ping List Edit: This post is an older post from 2012, before WordPress was updated. You no longer need a Ping Optimizer; WordPress automatically takes care of the over-pinging issues now. For an updated ping list for your WordPress blog, refer to THIS POST. WordPress is a GREAT service, don’t get me wrong, but if you do not know what you’re doing, you can be passively pissing off the Pinging Services, and might already be de-indexed from search engines! The issue is NOT with WordPress itself, the issue is with people like myself; I tend to make quite a few “edits” after publishing a post or page, and each time you edit a post that’s been published, WordPress will ping the Update Services each time! Imagine You Being The Pinging Service and Someone Constantly Updating You That They’ve Edited a Post… Not a very fun picture, huh? Install WordPress Ping Optimizer and Use Your WordPress Ping List With Confidence What Does WordPress Ping Optimizer Do Differently? Thank you for reading.
7 Steps to Writing A Great Blog Post Writing great content isn’t easy. Anyone who has ever tried knows this. Thankfully, however, there are techniques designed to make writing a great blog post easier. One of those this is to create a process for how you’ll do it. As a writer in the search marketing space, much of my time is spent crafting content designed to educate and (sometimes) entertain my audience. As such, I’ve had to develop a clear and effective process to keep myself and my team on task with the content we have to write. Turns out, the more you enjoy sharing your words, the better those words tend to be. My process for content writing looks like this: 1. Start by creating a list of everything you’re passionate about or that you feel like you can write on authoritatively. Also think about the questions that you’re constantly answering. Start keeping a list of potential topics to write about. 2. There are two great ways to work out an outline for your blog post. The second way to outline your post is verbally. 3. 4.
What is Zemanta Related Posts & Why You Need it on Your Site Hot off the heels of our very exciting launch of our Content Discovery Network, we would like to follow up and go into even more detail as to what exactly the Zemanta Related Posts plugin is - and why you need it on your blog. We have been in the business of delivering semantically matched related posts for over five years now, and with a network of over 300,000 publishers, there is no denying that many find our tools useful and beneficial to their site. But first, why would anyone want to add related posts to their site? And more importantly, why should you choose us? There are several reasons why it is beneficial to have related posts on your site. Increased Engagement One of the most frequently stated benefits of having related posts is the increased engagement and readership that you earn from having them on your site. Less Bounce, More Views That brings me to two other frequently stated benefits of having related posts: a lower bounce rate and more pageviews. The Available Options
How to write your first blog post Recently a friend asked me a question that any business that begins blogging will have to answer; What should your first post be about? That first post is terribly important, because it sets the tone for the blog, not just for the readers, but for the writers as well. From the reader’s point of view, I would want to see four areas covered in your first blog post: 1 – Who you are. 2 – Why you are blogging. 3 – What will you be blogging about. 4 – How I can leave feedback. If your first post contains these elements, I think your business blogging efforts will be off to a fine start! Tagged as: Blogging