Blog writers: What to do and not to do

Blogging has emerged as the best way to get more visitors to your site. Each blog posted is considered another indexed page to your website. It provides the opportunity to establish organic SEO for an additional key word/phrase. The more a blog writer post, the greater the opportunity for attracting new visitors. A goal of 1 – 2 blogs a week should be incorporated into your marketing program strategies. Blog publishing consistency is critical.

This blog contains some guidelines for the blog writer to craft an effective blog. For many readers, this is basic information. True but do you practice them. Like the beginning of a sport’s training season, it is the practice to always return to the basics.

Optimizing Your Blog Post

• Select one relevant, long-tail keyword per post
• Include your keywords in:

Blog Structure (400 – 600 words)

• Pick your blog title – 70 characters or less
• Intro – 2-3 sentences describing what will be covered in the post.
• Body – 3-5 paragraphs that go into detail on the topic and provide valuable information to the reader.
• Closing – 2-3 sentences wrapping up the post and asking a question to encourage the reader to comment (or more importantly to share).
• Call-to-Action – provide a CTA to get the reader to take the logical next step after reading the blog posting.

Analyze Results

• Using your blog writer and publishing software see how many views, comments, links and keywords each blog has.
• Sort by view to determine which post has gotten the most traffic.

Check List

1. Include a keyword in your title to make it clear and optimized
2. Add a relevant image with an alt tag and file name that describes the image. Include your keyword here too.
3. In your introduction, relate to your audience and introduce the information to be covered in the rest of the blog.
4. Use headers throughout your post to help people understand, at a glance, what is covered where
5. Formatting, like bullet-points, help break-up the post to make it more digestible for your reader.
6. Ask a question at the end of your post to encourage people to comment and engage with you.
7. Include a call-to-action at the bottom of the post to send the reader to a next step, related to the topic of your post. This CTA should send them a landing page where they can download your content offer.

To all blog writers or future blog writers, do you have any additional guidelines that you have found effective.