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Blogging - Where To Begin |
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Written by Dianne Fratscher
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Part 1 of our Blogging Tutorials: You have probably heard that by having a blog, you can increase traffic to your website and the chances are pretty good that you may have even tried your hand at blogging. Starting a blog without really knowing what to do is a common occurance, but unfortunately the chances of your blog helping out your page rank or sending you more traffic may not happen.
Following are some tips and resources that will help you start a blog that will help your business:
Decide on the topic for your blog: If you already have a website, then hopefully you've done your keyword research and know the keywords and keyword phrases that your target market is looking for in the search engines.
Choose a blogging platform: There are many free blogging platforms available, some of the best known are Blogger and Wordpress. Wordpress is a fantastic blogging platform that gives you the option of either hosting your blog on your own webspace, or using their hosted version. After hosting my own Wordpress blog, I was disappointed in the limited features offered by the hosted version, but for beginners, the hosted version may be perfect for you. One main drawback is the limited selection of templates available, and the lack of a way to edit the templates in any way (other than adding sidebar widgets).
Blogger however is extremely easy to use and offers a terrific set of features. You can start off with one of Blogger's basic templates and as you become more comfortable with it, edit the templates to truly make them your own, or even use your own template to match your website (though a little more advanced html knowledge is required).
Choose A Blog Title: When choosing a name for your blog, make sure your keywords included in the title. For example, if your website is about learning how to swim, then try to make sure the keyword phrase 'learn how to swim' is part of your blog title. On Blogger, your page title will look similar to this: http://learnhowtoswim.blogspot.com. If the keyword phrase you have chosen isn't available as a title, change it a little bit by including a dash in between the words. For example: http://learn-how-to-swim.blogspot.com or even http://learnhowto-swim.blogspot.com.
Create Your Content: Content is the most important part of blogging. Your goal when creating your content is to keep it personal, yet you still want it to be professional too. There can be a fine line between your blog posts being too personal, or not personal enough. It may take some time before you find the right balance.
Do you remember way back in high school when you had to write short stories? The same principles apply to blogging. Write a story in such a way that it's helpful to your readers. Never be afraid to link to content on someone elses website or blog, if you feel that it will be beneficial for your readers. For a terrific description on creating content, visit Mike Mindel's niche blog on How To Write A Story . Mike is the co-founder of Wordtracker, the keyword research tool. (Notice that Mike's blog has been created on the hosted version of Wordpress!)
Where To Find Ideas For Content: Ideas are literally everywhere! With all the terrific websites on the internet today, if you're stuck for content ideas for more than oh, say, 30 seconds or so, then we really need to talk :) But just in case, here are a few ideas that I use on a regular basis:
Google News & Google Blogs: Google has two terrific features where you can enter your keyword phrase and save the search results as RSS feeds in your favorite feed reader. I save keyword searches in both Google News and Google Blogs and as I always have my feed reader open, I'm notified instantly when ever there is news containing my keywords or when someone creates a blog post that contains my keywords. Very handy indeed!
Technorati: Technorati is an amazing search tool that indexes blogs. They have over 11 million blogs listed. Enter in your keywords and search through the blogs listed for more great content to use.
YouTube: Add video's to your blog with YouTube's embedded code option. There are literally millions of video's on just about every topic you can think of.
Finally, make sure that you post to your blog as often as possible - at least several times per week. Link to your blog from your website and vice versa. Just remember, the key is to create relevant content that your target market is looking for. Oh, and don't forget that content doesn't just have to be text! Audio and video is also content ;)
Stay tuned for Part 2 which will explore getting the traffic to your blog!
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