Who Says a Typo is a Bad Thing
Over the years, my life has been made a living hell by clients who insisted upon perfection in their websites. It’s one of the reasons I joyfully made the switch from static HTML websites to self hosted Wordpress blogs.
See, in the past, the client would send me a file, usually a Word document. So, I would strip the code, then copy and paste their words into the static HTML template. (I copy and paste because I’m not anyone’s ideal secretary!) Then, the client would begin proofreading their work which would turn into revision after revision of the original content.
Well, about 6 weeks ago, I was researching keywords using Wordze for the keyword business. I was looking for search terms around which to write blog posts.
In the course of that search, I found a promising keyword. The search volume was high as was the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) for the term plus size business suits . When I checked for the domain name, it turns out that plussizebusinesssuits.net was available.
I am a big fan of Courtney Tuttle and at that moment, I decided to engage in a Keyword Sniping experiment.
I registered the domain name and in my haste to post content to the site, I ended up creating a couple of links for plussizebusinesssuites.net instead of suits.
Today, 6 weeks later, the site is #103 on the Google Hit Parade for plus size business suits… and is #6 for plus size business suites. The thing is, the site is getting nice traffic as the result of that typo.
So who says a typo is a bad thing? In the case of the site above, it’s providing the BULK of the traffic for a very, very new site.
What’s even more amazing is how quickly that site is raking in the Adsense revenue. It’s my first attempt at a market outside of dogs or internet marketing. Turns out, there are a lot of ladies out there who don’t fit the NY fashion elite’s ideal body type who are searching for answers on the internet. Right now, I’m reaching the ones with typing skills similar to mine with this site.
How Should You Start a Blog Post
It’s no secret that I adore blogs as marketing tools, but sometimes the hardest part of blogging is knowing where to start. I frequently have clients ask how should you start a blog post… and they’re not talking about the mechanics of blogging.
How should you start a blog post is actually a GREAT question… and you might be surprised at the answer. You should start a blog post by thinking about your blog’s reader… your target audience.
What information do your readers want to know?
(Hint, in order to do this, you need to know who your target audience is. If you’re a business owner and you need help with this, pick up the book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results.)
Once you know who your target audience is and what information your readers want to know.. then you need to find out what keywords they’re using to find that information.
There are lots of free tools which you can use to find keywords… but the figures vary widely and most importantly, the free tools don’t show you subtle variations of keywords.
For example, I have a client who is selling a dog product. Various free keyword tools gave her widely varying figures. One said there were 600 searches being done daily… one said 1200 searches monthly… yet another showed 25 searches monthly.
WHICH ONE DO YOU BELIEVE?
There is a tool that allows you to “see” inside your target blog audience’s mind… it’s called Wordze.
Wordze gives you the INSIDE SCOOP on keywords being used by REAL people. It tells you where people are located who are searching those keywords. It tells you the sites that already dominate those keywords… and lets you see the opportunities within.
If you go straight to Wordze… you’ll pay $45 per month for this service. But, if you use the link above you’ll get a special discount for readers of this blog and you’ll only pay $35 per month.
Start your blog post by researching keywords. Find out the words your target audience is using to find information just like you’re offering.
Blogs are great easy marketing tools for any business. You’ll increase the power and efficiency of your blog by targeting the right keywords for your blog post.
Digging for Gold in Old Content
Once you’ve been blogging for a while, you may find you’ve got lots of GREAT content that is “hidden” in the archives. Blogtrepreneur offers some helpful tips including linking internally to your old blog content.
Internally linking to blog content means simply creating a link inside your post to another post. For example, I have an older post called “5 Easy Ways to Create Content for your Blog.” It was written back in June 2007… and I think it’s a helpful post. Since my blog has a lot more readers now than it did then, I can draw attention to my old blog post by creating this internal link.
However, internal linking will also help your Search Engine visibility… a fact that is NOT lost on tech blog owners. This technique is so powerful, there’s even been a Wordpress plug in developed to make it easier for Wordpress blog owners to do this.
Of course, Daily Blog Tips offers the BEST reason for linking to internal content: It keeps readers on your blog for longer!
My favorite tactic for resurrecting old content is when I leave comments on other blogs (whether they’re do-follow enabled or not) is instead of linking to my blog’s opening page, I’ll link to a post with similar content. That way, when someone follows the breadcrumb trail I leave via commenting on other blogs… they’ll come directly to a post of great interest.
What’s your tip for reusing old blog content?
Why Mark Cuban started his blog
Fast Company has provided a transcript of Mark Cuban’s closing keynote speech at the 2007 Blog World Expo. Included in the transcript is the reason Mark Cuban decided to launch his blog:
I started my blog in 2004 because I did an interview with the Dallas Morning News about the Dallas Mavericks. I expected to see a write up that equated with the conversation. What was written was different than the email exchange. I decided it was time to start a blog. I put up a link to the article and then put up the email exchange. The response was amazing and was an accelerator for me to start blogging.
All of a sudden they realized they weren’t in charge of me. They had to realize they had to pay attention to people. Blogging isn’t just about people getting things off their chest, it’s a way for ideas and the truth to come out.
Mark has since used his blog for fun (to pimp for votes on Dancing with the Stars) and for more serious fodder (An Open Facebook API vs Google OpenSocial for example). However, Cuban is quick to point out that the content you post to your blog is there FOREVER! When he hires someone, he Googles them first. It may feel GREAT to get a rant off your chest, but at the end of the day, what you write is there FOREVER.
Somce people are blogging in hopes of generating $$$$. Others are blogging in hopes of achieving fame. However, keep in mind that you are documenting your thoughts for posterity. If you’re an independent service professional who is selling his/her expertise in exchange for $$$, blogs are a great marketing tool. They allow you to showcase your expertise to inspire confidence amongst your potential customers.
Case Study: an avalanche of traffic
When Andre Guthre casually wrote a post about the most common pitfalls in photography, he truly didn’t think this post would be the one that "launched" his blog. As a matter of fact, he confesses that he had written the post a long time ago, but had never gotten around to posting it on this site.
Shortly after posting the article, the article was submitted to Digg by simply clicking on the button that the blog software puts below each post. One thing led to another and before he knew it, his post ended up on the front page of Digg. Not only did the article stay on the front page for nearly 12 hours, but it was also picked up by a bunch of secondary sources. The result was 100,000 Visitors in a single day, most of whom came within the first 12 hours of the post to Digg.
That kind of traffic caused real problems for the poor web site owner, but his post is an excellent example of a pillar post. A pillar post is a how-to or a tutorial which helps readers find answers to common problems are GREAT pillar posts.
In the end… the Digg effect moved the blog into Alexa’s top movers and shakers list, coming in at #4 with a 4,100% increase due to being "Dugg". It also shows the power of creating an article that either teaches or illustrates "how to" solve a problem or do something better.
Have you created a pillar article for your blog or website yet?
Want more readers for your blog?
In his Ten Tips for Blogging Thomas McMahon’s eighth tip for building your blog (and your blog’s audience) is:
Post Frequently
A blog isn’t a magazine. It doesn’t come out once a month with a bunch of great articles. You should post once every other day to keep it fresh and alive. Preferably once a day for best results. Only going to post once a week?! It better be a good, original and well thought out post as it has to last for seven days.
Posting frequently will help you in two ways.
The first way posting frequently to your blog will help you is that you will be providing regular content for the human readers. Never underestimate the power of having a reader arrive to find a well populated blog with lots of information.
Readers who are looking for information will find plenty to choose from while visitors who are looking for back links will also find a variety of posts from which to link.
In my ebook about Google, one theory that is not discussed in is the preference Google has for LARGE sites. Google seems to love tightly targeted content and LOTS of it. While thousands of "small" publishers were being pummeled by the Google Slap, mega sites continued on their merry way on auto pilot as if nothing had changed.
Which brings us to the second way frequent blog posting will benefit your blog which is this: by posting to your blog frequently, you are creating content…. and eventually you too will have a large site which gets favored status amongst the search engines. Lots of content means, assuming you have your blog set up correctly, that your site a has, by nature, a LOT more search engine fodder.
In other words, the more posts you have in your blog, the greater the likelihood that a FEW of those posts will rise to the top of the search engine rankings for your desired keywords.
I never cease to be amazed by the bloggers who, with only a few blog posts to their credit, start complaining ON THEIR BLOG about their lack of readership.
Start posting. Put your head down and start running. Promise yourself that you won’t "look up" until you’ve been blogging for 3 months. Set a posting goal. I encourage my clients to start with a goal of posting to their blog 3 times a week. Then start posting to your blog.
In other words, don’t start worrying about building a reader base UNTIL you’ve been posting for at least three months. By then, the "blogging habit" has been established and then you can add the next task to the list…. building a reader or subscriber base.
Does it take a village to create a blog?
Ever wonder how some of the top blogs made their rise to the top?
One secret to success that top blogs know is it takes a LOT of posts to provide a robust offering of content for visitors. In addition to providing lots of material for visitors, frequent posts and lots of content help to generate the inbound links that are essential to getting your blog to rise above the rest and be found via the search engines.
Micheal Arrington, founder of Tech Crunch claims to have worked 16 hour days 7 days a week to launch his mega blog but one not so well kept secret used by top blogs is that instead of relying upon a single person to create all that content, these top blogs rely instead upon a team of people working together.
Gotta Quirk is a South African blog with a PR 5 that’s been online since September of 2002. This ultra popular blog with an Alexa ranking of 65,057 relies upon a team of 24 bloggers to fill almost every day with a new post.
Most people don’t have the drive or the inclination to put in 16 hour days 7 days a week that Micheal Arrington did to build a mega blog…. but chances are you too can put together a team of bloggers whose skills and abilities complement each other and can combine to create a great blog resource.
If you’re finding it difficult to get started blogging, volunteer your services to an established blog. You might be surprised at the grateful reception your offer to guest blog may bring.
5 Easy Ways To Create ORIGINAL Content for Your Blog
Since it’s launch in January 2007, Acumen Web Services (and it’s joint venture sites such as Easy Coaching Websites and Easy Chiropractic Web Sites) have launched over 30 blogs. In the past 6 months though, a serious issue has arisen… many of those blogs still sit empty and without content. I wouldn’t be concerned if I hadn’t gotten an email from one of those blog owners who wrote, "I just searched Google for my blog’s name and my blog didn’t come up!" This blog site owner still had as her only post the "welcome to Word Press" post.
Meanwhile, I got another email from a DELIGHTED client who was THRILLED to discover that only two months after her blog’s launch, she was coming up as the first result in Google for her name. She, on the other hand, had only made four posts to her blog but that was enough to get her "about Sara" page listed with Google. Despite the fact that she has a very common name (http://www.sarahealy.com), she still shot to the top of the Google SERPS for her name. Now, if a potential client hears her speak and wants to find her blog, they can easily do so.
When we launch an Acumen Web Services blog, one of the features we include is the Google Site Map plugin. What this wonderful little bit of extra programming does for your word press blog is to create an XML site map of your blog so Google can easily and efficiently index the content (a.k.a.BLOG POSTS) of your site. However, in order for that to happen, you first must begin POSTING CONTENT to your site.
So, with this in mind, here are 5 easy ways to get started creating ORIGINAL content for your blog.
| Original Blog Content Creation Tip #1:
Use outgoing email messages to create content for your blog. |
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| Whether it’s outgoing email to clients or outgoing emails to friends and family, sort through your "sent" box and look for instructional emails you may have sent in the past 30, 60 or even 90 days.
For example, by looking at your outgoing emails you’ll probably see several topics that come up frequently as you communicate with clients. Start addressing those issues on your blog. One client of mine is using this technique with great success. By using outgoing emails to create content, Breakthrough Performance Group has built great blog content… the kind of content that has increase RFP (request for proposals) significantly since launching the blog. It’s a VERY easy way to share your knowledge which is essential for an authority style blog. |
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| Original Blog Content Creation Tip #2:
Use incoming email messages to create content for your blog. |
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| Incoming emails can be just as For example, if you have a blog web site dealing with Wellness Issues, check your incoming emails for various "health" tips that are passed along from people you know.
When you use incoming emails, remember that you will have to rewrite the content into your own words. However, if someone sends you an email about a subject you know alot about, you can easily rewrite the incoming email into your own words and post it to your blog. |
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| Original Blog Content Creation Tip #3:
Use your own ebook or book content for your blog. |
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| If you’ve created an ebook, then you have a great resource for content for your blog. Just take individual paragraphs from your ebook and post them to your blog. Surprisingly, this strategy has been used with GREAT success in actually INCREASING EBOOK SALES! It turns out people WILL pay to have all your blog posting nicely contained in a single easy to use PDF.
Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki are just two authors who post snippets from their traditionally published books on the web to successfully help them promote sales of their books. |
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| Original Blog Content Creation Tip #4:
Use other blogs as starting points. |
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| Don’t copy and paste other people’s blog posts (that is WRONG) but you can use another blogger’s post as a starting point for your own.Begin by acknowledging the other person’s blog…. this builds a link and possibly a relationship…. and then, offer your own point of view. If you agree or disagree doesn’t really matter… what is important is that you offer YOUR take on the post. | |
| Original Blog Content Creation Tip #5:
Pay attention to articles in the newspaper/magazines/television. |
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| When Oprah speaks, America listens. So if you happen to see in the television listings that Oprah is doing a show on the benefits of acupuncture and YOU just happen to be an acupuncturist with a blog, well….set your VCR (or DVR) to record the show. Watch the show and then start blogging about it. (Providing a link to the show’s web site is another way to build credibility.)
The same holds true of newspaper articles and magazine articles. If someone is writing about YOUR area of expertise, offer your unique take on the topic and start blogging about it. |
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These are 5 easy ways to create ORIGINAL content for your blog. Once you start populating your blog with your own original content, then you can begin bringing in guest authors to help keep the ball rolling.
Creating Your Blog’s Content: Creating Value
When you’re creating content for yoru blog, be sure to make it valuable to your target audience. Don’t just write for the sake of writing. You’ll be wasting people’s time and THAT makes a bad first impression. You can’t expect people to come back to your blog if you’ve got nothing of value to share.
If you so hit a brick wall and find you really don’t have anything to say, then tap into the hundreds of thousands of other voices on the web. There are plenty other bloggers who do have something to say.
- Use your blog to share their videos and/or their articles.
- Use your blog to post reviews…. not only of books, but of software and other products as well.
- Invite guests to post entries on your blog.
In the end, a blog is a communication tool. What resources do you recommend to your customers/family/friends? What products/services do people look to you for advice prior to purchasing?
The next time you offer a recommendation, whether it’s a book or a piece of computer hardware, create a category called "recommendations" and start posting blogs on the subject.
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