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In response to this blog post at EzineArticles, the Article Marketing Blog had an excellent post this morning on when bold text is appropriate for articles. I wanted to take time out just to say that the same principles apply to blog posts.

The matter on SEO, I’ve seen blog posts hit higher in the search results for bold and italicized keyword text. That doesn’t mean I would bold text just so I could get additional SEO juice. I do want my human readers to get benefit from my blog content. For that reason, I think it is always best to write to human readers first and to spiders secondly. That doesn’t mean that SEO is never a consideration. It just isn’t the most important consideration - always.

When you write your blog posts, the following elements can help you make your points to the readers of your blog and keep them interested:

• Keyword-rich blog title
• Subheads that use h2 or h3 tags
• Ordered and unordered lists
• Blockquotes
• Photos with alt tags
• Italicized phrases

While you don’t want to overdo these elements - usually, included every one of these in every blog post you write is overdoing - these are elements that are available to you when writing your blog that allow you to provide visually appealing content that is readable to humans and provide search engine spiders the SEO manna they need to rank your blog posts. Keep in mind that people scan first then read what they find interesting. Make your blog posts scannable and rich with useful information. If you can do that with these elements then you’ll attract more readers to your blog.

Yes, I think we can say that video blogging is starting to rise. In November 2007, there were 9,299 votes cast for 10 nominees for the best video blog in the 2007 Weblog Awards. In 2006, there were 6,434 votes. And in 2004 there wasn’t even a video blog category.

Are these facts in and of themselves evidence that video blogging is on the rise? No. But if you Google “video blog” you’ll find over 100 million results. The top results include some of the biggest names in search - Google has a video blog, AOL has a video blog, and online news source WebProNews has recently started adding video reports to its website. Many bloggers and blog consultants are now starting to experiment with their own video blog posts, such as Michael Martine at Remarkablogger. I think it’s pretty obvious that video blogging is certainly becoming more popular. But will it transform blogging as we know it?

I think the next two years will be a stepping out period for video blogging. I believe you’ll see more video blogs on the rise. There will be good ones, bad ones, and mediocre ones. There will be a lot to learn about video blogging - camera angles, lighting, pacing, scripting, editing, and even SEO. But I don’t think every company online will need a video blog. It will certainly benefit some companies, but it won’t be a necessary element for all. It will be interesting to see how video blogging matures and whether YouTube will be the host of choice for videos that companies put on their blogs.

I’m a big proponent of video. I think the future is here and it’s in video. Video blogging, video marketing, and even video SEO. Only, video SEO hasn’t happened yet. Unless you believe some people starting to rear up their heads now - like Divinity Metrics. I’d give them a link back, but if they can’t even get their own links then I’m not going to help them out with a freebie.

This website - you can Google ‘em - promises the sun and moon through some abstract term called “video metrics.” You are supposed to believe that they can SEO your video content and get you magical results in Google and every other search engine just because they say so. The problem is, no one knows how SEO video content. No one. Not us. Not Matt Cutts. And certainly not Divinity Metrics.

OK, maybe Matt Cutts knows. But he’s not telling. So the rest of us have to guess. Divinity Metrics wants you to believe that they have the secret. And if you go to their website and examine it for best practices of SEO, not only will you NOT see anything even remotely resembling SEO, even traditional SEO, but you can’t even tell that they know what SEO is. The index page has - count ‘em - five, yes 5, meta tags with it’s whopping PageRank of 1:

< meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" >
< meta name="Author" content="Divinity Metrics, Inc." >
< meta http-equiv="Expires" content="Fri, 1 Apr 1999 23:59:59 GMT" >
< meta http-equiv="pragma" content="no-cache" >
< meta name="viewport" content="width=1024" >

Of five meta tags, they can’t even squeeze in one useful one? No title tag? Where’s the description. You’d think they could at least give their index page a keyword tag. Nope. No useful meta tags. Just these silly tags that no search engine robot cares about. And they want your video SEO business.

Visit the company’s blog and you see blog posts all the way back to March 2007. They look busy. Again, PageRank 1. In one year’s time they’ve only been able to muster a PR1? I have a blog I started in November 2007 and it’s already at a PageRank 4. My guess is they backdated those posts this past week to make you think they’ve been online awhile. Sorry. I’m not fooled. Are you?

When it comes to video SEO, I’m all for it. But I’m not looking for Cinderella’s slipper. And you shouldn’t be either.

The latest figures telling who subscribes to RSS feeds show that only 20% of blog readers actually subscribe to RSS feeds. That means the other 80% of your blog readers are likely arriving to your blog from search engines and other advertising that you are doing. Some of them may be entering your URL directly into their browser. But you can increase your blog readership with one simple tool for only $100 per month. This offer is good for all current blogging customers of Blog Content Provider.

Everyone uses e-mail. Even if they don’t understand RSS technology or blogs. They still read e-mail. Chances are, you have an e-mail list, a list of subscribers to a company newsletter or addresses that you’ve collected over the years. Don’t just let it collect dust. Put that list to good use.

Yesterday I wrote about a satisfied client of ours who promotes her blog through a blog promotion newsletter. I believe this is the best way to promote your blog today. Let your e-mail subscribers know about your blog posts. Otherwise, they may not be reading it.

If you have a daily blog, one way to keep readers coming back to your blog each week is to promote it through a newsletter. A blog promotion newsletter can do a lot to increase your readership, your comments, and your bottom line. One happy customer has seen a huge increase in your blog readership and participation since starting her newsletter in January. Carolyn Melberg says:

Thank you!

I’ve gotten great feedback on the new format for the newsletter. People like the added value of all the articles (rather than just one per week), and the short blurbs so they can choose which ones they want to read on the blog.

Great work!
Caroline

The blog promotion newsletter is a unique product because it consists of nothing more than a link to every blog post from the past week. We include a short synopsis of each blog post, or a snippet from the blog post, in each newsletter along with the title of that post. The intent is to interest the newsletter reader in the blog and drive traffic to it. It works!

If you’ve noticed, that’s how we promote our blogs. Every week, Tuesday morning in fact, the NameCritic newsletter, “The Content Letter,” is sent out and we highlight three blog posts from each of our company blogs - SEO Service Provider, Blog Content Provider, and Article Content Provider. The readership at each blog has grown since we started doing this.

Why A Blog Promotion Newsletter Works
If you’ve been in marketing for just a short time then you’ve likely heard of a marketing funnel. Your marketing funnel is your plan for driving your customers deeper into a relationship with you. Online, the typical marketing funnel consists of offering free content or free information. Of course, not everyone will take your free offers, but by offering something free in exchange for an e-mail address or other valuable information, you ensure that you at least start a relationship with your target customer.

The next level in a marketing funnel often consists of a small purchase. After that, you may offer a larger purchase, and keep bumping your customers up a level as they learn to trust your knowledge and insight and want more benefits from your offerings. Businesses have been using the marketing funnel since the earliest of times.

Your blog promotion newsletter should be a part of that marketing funnel. You already have their e-mail address, right? What are you doing with them? Are they reading your blog? Why not?

The NameCritic Marketing Funnel
Most of our customers understand the two types of blogs: Onsite and offsite. The onsite blog is typically called a company blog and the offsite blog is called a promotional blog. They have different focuses in terms of how we communicate with customers and use SEO for your benefit. But sales usually don’t take place on either blog. What you really want to do is drive traffic to your website from your blog. The blog is a way to provide useful commentary on your business offerings and the benefits you offer, but it isn’t typically a sales tool. It’s a pre-sales tool. The website is where you close the sale.

But you still need to get your audience to your blog. Many people will subscribe to your RSS feed and read your blog daily because they follow it. Most readers, however, will not subscribe to the RSS feed because they don’t understand it. The latest figures show that only about 20% of blog readers actually subscribe to RSS feeds. That leaves 80% of your potential readers out there looking for your blog. How will they find it?

If they aren’t on your e-mail list, they’re finding your blog either through organic search, PPC if you are driving traffic that way, and social bookmarking sites. If your customers aren’t searching for you that way then they likely aren’t reading your blog. That’s why you need to use e-mail to drive your current customers and potential customers to your blog.

Everyone is using e-mail. And since everyone uses e-mail, why not communicate with your audience that way?

In a separate e-mail to us from Caroline Melberg, she had this to say:

Just thought I’d drop you a note of thanks … I’ve had a great increase in comments on my blogs, and I’ve noticed a definite increase in my search engine rankings since you started blogging for us.

The strategy we use for Caroline’s blogs are the same we use for all of our client blogs - well-optimized content, social bookmarking (an add-on service), and driving traffic to her website by writing intelligently about her service offerings. There is one additional service we provide for Caroline that some of our customers have not tried yet - we use a blog promotion newsletter that goes out to Caroline’s list once a week and promotes her blog to her current list of customers and potential customers. We didn’t build the list. Caroline did. But we use the list to promote her blog and it looks like it’s paying off. I’m not a bit surprised.

Chances are, we can do the same thing for your company or promotional blog. If you have an e-mail list that you communicate with on a regular basis, or a list that you are not using, give us a shout and learn how a blog promotion newsletter can benefit your business.

When you set up your company blog, should you set up a blog on your website or at a separate domain name?

Good question. It depends.

There are advantages and disadvantages to both blogs. Many companies could benefit from both types. An onsite blog will get you original content on your website every day and give you more web pages indexed at the search engines on your domain name. That’s a big benefit, especially if you have a small, static website that doesn’t get much attention otherwise. On the other hand, if you have a large website that needs some inbound link juice then an offsite website can help you with that. The offsite website will add pages to the search engines’ indexes as well, but since it is on a separate domain name it won’t help your website any. But the links that you build from your offsite blog can boost your PageRank with relevant links and if you have a high enough PR then that will help build quality links as well. Plus, you can use the offsite blog to drive traffic to your website.

In many cases, a combination onsite company blog and an offsite blog can give you maximum benefits as you build quality links and keyword-rich web pages through your blog. For a consultation on which type of blog is best for you, visit Blog Content Provider and fill out our contact form.