All Entries in the "Blog Design" Category

3 Things Your Blog Needs To Succeed

When it comes to business blogging, or commercial blogging, it’s not the same thing as personal blogging or blogging to make money. You are blogging to make money, but you are not trying to squeeze out revenue from your blog. You are using your blog as a marketing tool to lead people to your website so that you can close the sale and make money on your products and services. Your blog is the lead generator; your website is the salesman.

So what does your lead generation blog need in order to do its job well? Here are the three absolutely essential ingredients to make sure your company blog stands out and drives traffic to your website:

1. Quality, original content – Every day. We’re not talking about private label rights or recycled eye candy. Graphics are nice, but content is better. Eat a meal and not just a snack! Take your company talking points and turn them into a blog by getting into a real conversation with your customers about their needs and your desire to fill a niche within the marketplace. It all starts with quality, original content.
2. Links – You need to link to your website. Not just the home page either. I’m talking about real links to every page that is important on your website. And your links need to be in the body of your blog posts as well as in your sidebar blogroll. Take your important keywords and turn them into anchor text and link to each page on your website using the appropriate anchor text.
3. The right template – It can be custom-made, but it doesn’t have to be. An off-the-shelf template works just as well as long as it is SEOd properly. Your blog template needs to be crawlable so making sure that the code in your template makes it easy for the search engines to find what they need is absolutely essential. Your blog template must be able to attract a reader’s eye quickly and not drive them away, so attractiveness is important but even an ugly template with the right SEO will get you the traffic you are looking for. When it comes to getting ranked in the search engines, SEO is far more important than being pretty.

These are the three most essential elements to a successful company blog. Other things are nice, but without these three things going for you, you might as well hang it up. Everything else is gravy.

Are You Protected From Blog Security Issues?

Recent news from Technorati should have all WordPress bloggers checking their blogs, particularly their blog content for any hidden links. If you have used WordPress versions pre 2.3.3 then your blog may have been compromised.

It seems spammers had found a way of getting into your posts and leaving small hidden links to sites – generally speaking, sites that you would not want to be connected to. This has several consequences which as bloggers, could be quite serious.

Google Penalty

As they are using hidden text, this could see you coping a penalty from search engines like Google. They consider hidden text within your blog content to be a black hat technique to get higher rankings.

Lose your Technorati index

Technorati will discontinue indexing blogs that are using WordPress pre version 2.3.3 because of the security problems and the potential for spam links.

These issues have serious consequences for anyone who blogs. If you rely on a blog to promote your business then you can ill afford the loss of resource such as Technorati.

The solution of course is very straightforward. Either upgrade your WordPress blog to version 2.3.3 or go straight to the top and do the upgrade to 2.5. The bottom line is, can you afford to have your blog compromised? Can you afford to have your Google ranking penalized? Can you afford to lose a valuable resource such as Technorati? Three strikes and your out. I think its time to upgrade.

Blog Template Or Original Design?

When you set up a blog you have a very important decision to make regarding design. Should you select an off-the-shelf template or select a blog design? There are advantages to doing it both ways. Here’s a run down of the benefits you can expect from going either direction:

Blog Template – If you choose a blog template for your business, you first need to consider what is the appropriate template for your blog. Not all blog templates are created equal. One of the most important considerations you’ll need to make is the optimization of your template. You can choose an attractive blog template, but if it isn’t optimized for search engines then it’s not important how pretty it is. Here are some other things you need to think about for templates:

• One side bar or two? Give this careful thought. If you have two sidebars – right and left, two on the right, or two on the left – then you have less space in the middle where your posts are. You might have more space for things like ads, blogroll, etc. but is it worth it? What will go into your sidebars? What is necessary and what is fluff? You’ll need to know. If you are running an affiliate blog then you might want two sidebars for all the affiliate banner ads you plan to display, but if your blog is a company blog for a service business then you might not want those distractions in your sidebar at all.
• Who else is using your template? Some people say if you are using a popular template then you are cutting your business short. It depends. Are a lot of people in your industry using the same template? If so then you might want to reconsider using it and go with an original design or another template. But if not then you might be OK with a particular template.
• Templates are free. You don’t have to pay for a blog template. But you will have to pay a designer to design you an original design.
• Could be easier to install. A template might be easier to install depending on how the orgiginal blog template is designed. Be sure that you understand any installation issues with a custom designed template.

Original Design – Pride of ownership is a big selling point. If you have an original blog design then you own it. It’s yours. No one else can copy it. You can boast of your originality and it can look really cool, give you a big boost in your image to your targeted customers. That’s a huge selling point. But is that the only benefit?

• Sidebars. You still have to decide how many sidebars you want. You can also give your original design other bells and whistles like dynamic footers, flash headers, etc. but be careful with those because you still have to consider search engine optimization. Don’t get so snazzy that your blog doesn’t pass the SEO test.
• Cost. Can you afford to pay a fancy designer to build you a blog design? Custom blog designs can run anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars to several thousand. Can you afford it? Many bloggers who have purchased a custom blog design have said that it was well worth the expense and that through advertising they have more than made up for it. But that isn’t the case with all of them. Plan your monetization strategy well and make sure that you can afford the expense before you invest.
• Installation. Will you be installing the design yourself or will you have to pay someone to install it. Some custom designs require that you pay a technical person to set it up just right for you. Be sure you consider that expense, if necessary.

There are benefits to having your own design, but that doesn’t mean you should do it. For a lot of people, the cost far outweighs the benefits. It is something you have to give careful consideration to before you invest in an expensive design. The content of your blog is far more important than design and that is something you should always keep in mind.

Is Your WordPress Template Crawlable?

Perhaps the most important aspect of your blog design is whether or not your template meets the SEO test. WordPress has thousands of ready-made templates that you can use for your blog. You simply install the one you want and start blogging. It’s fairly easy.

But not all WordPress templates are created equal. These templates are mostly created by independent web designers and individuals just tinkering on their own. Anyone can create a template. That doesn’t mean that all templates should be used. It may mean that the template you choose for your business blog is not optimized well for search. If that is the case then you’ll be doing yourself a grave disservice by using that template.

Some of the common problems encountered among WordPress template designs include:

• Bad code
• Ineffective php files
• Broken pages
• No 404 error pages/or 404 error pages that don’t load well
• Templates with too much code

If your WordPress template is not getting crawled by search engine bots then your pages will not be indexed by the search engines. You’ll know in a matter of weeks, sometimes days, if that is the case. If it is then you’ll want to exchange your template before you get too committed. You’re better off going with a template that is not your first choice than getting the best looking template design that isn’t crawlable.