All Entries in the "Blog Optimization" Category

Why You Need A Guerrilla Blogging Plan

While not getting into the nitty gritty details of guerrilla blogging (because if you click the link you’ll get them on the other side), I would like to discuss briefly why you need a guerrilla blogging strategy.

Guerrilla blogging is a term I use to describe a method of blogging based on technical SEO tactics without ruining your content for human readers. It’s a difficult thing to master, but essential (and becoming more essential every day).

So why do you need a guerrilla blogging plan? Because you want to beat the competition in the search results. Plain and simple. The Web is a very competitive environment and you need to start thinking of everyone online as your competition. The basis of guerrilla blogging is the assumption that anyone can target any key phrase at any time and try to rank in the top positions of the SERPs for that key phrase. Whether they are successful or not is another matter. But the fact that they are targeting that phrase makes them a competitor if you are also targeting the phrase.

In order to succeed at guerrilla blogging, you’ve got to blog in such a way that your own SEO benefits are maximized while everyone else’s are minimized. And if you do it right, you’ll see your web pages rise in the search engine rankings while everyone else’s falls. Guerrilla blogging works for those who use; it doesn’t for those who don’t.

Keyword Management: How Should A Blog Be Written?

I manage a handful of bloggers and have managed more than 100 blogs in the last couple of years. I also read a great deal about blogging and copywriting from other bloggers in the industry. I’ve noticed that there are two general views regarding how to write a blog. Those views can be summarized below:

• Valuable Content View – This is the view that your content should be written with your readers in mind, not the search engines. The idea is that keywords are necessary, but not so important that you forget about the needs of your readers. You aren’t writing keyword fluff. You’re writing content that will be deemed valuable by human readers and not just words on a page driven by keyword usage
• Keyword-Rich View – The keyword-rich view is just the opposite. This view presupposes that SEO is everything. Without the right mix of keywords and the correct density patterns and so on you might as well not even blog. If you don’t optimize every single blog post to the utmost then you aren’t really blogging, according to this view. The weakness of this view is that optimization may get you good rankings, though often you can end up hurting yourself by over optimizing, it won’t endure you to your readers and what good is a blog if it has no readers?

Here at Blog Content Provider, we believe in SEO content. We are an SEO company. But we also believe in reaching readers at a gut level. That’s why I like to stress valuable content first and SEO as an additional benefit. Because if you do it right, your blog will attract readers and when it does it will increase in SEO power by sheer authoritativeness.

Should You SEO Your Blog?

Lately I’ve been speaking to quite a few more people than I’d expect to who write blogs, but don’t SEO them. I’ve even heard a few debates about whether or not you should SEO a blog. The pros and cons and yada yada yada. Quite frankly, I find the discussion just silly. Why wouldn’t you SEO your blog?

The thinking behind not SEOing your blog boils down to one thing really: The blog owner doesn’t want to appear like they are spamming. They want their content to be “readable”. Well, who doesn’t?

By “readable”, those who argue against SEO for a blog do so on the basis that natural language writing is best for humans because it is more interesting, thought provoking, and inviting. I agree. You should always write your blog in a natural way. Natural language writing is better for humans and, here’s a little secret, the search engines like it too.

The whole argument about SEO on your blog is really missing the point. Those who argue against SEO don’t really understand SEO. It isn’t about tossing in keywords where they don’t belong. In fact, if you toss in keywords just for the sake of it, you are likely to do yourself more damage in the search engines than good. That’s not what SEO is all about.

Effective SEO is natural language writing. But it’s natural language writing that is cognizant of the SEO benefits. If you are aware that the words you use will be ranked in a certain way then you’ll use those words in such a way that they benefit you while you write in a natural language way.

So the next time someone invites you into a discussion about SEO vs. natural language, just grin and say, “I’d like both please.”

Why Do I Need a Blog?

Why do I need a business blog and why should I hire someone to manage it for me?

By now, most business Website Owners have learned there are advantages to having a company blog. But why do I need a company blog? How will it really help me?

Most bloggers, even those who have been blogging for a long time, do not truly understand all of the ways a blog can benefit your business. They are good bloggers. They even may know a little about SEO and can put all the keywords and phrases into your blog. But do they really know about blog marketing and what the benefits are for their clients? Do they really know SEO or the technical aspects of operating a blog?

Do you know all of the benefits of having a business blog?

Let’s see;

Why does my Business need a Blog?

A business blog is the most cost-effective way to add fresh content to your website daily.

It is the most affordable way to build link popularity.

A business blog can make you money through Conversational Marketing.

A business blog will help drive more traffic to your website.

It gives you a place to offer special deals, make announcements, issue press releases, and get feedback from customers.

You can have a private blog that your employees or shareholders read.

There are way too many ways your company can benefit from a business blog to list on one page. As they say; “Think Outside The Box” and create new ways blogs can be used. All the uses for a blog have not even been invented yet. Be the first to try something new. Call us at 786-317-8774 and get a free business blog consultation. We’ll brainstorm with you!

Your business blog can be within your website or on it’s own domain name.

Your company blog can be used to help capture a specific search phrase or phrases in the search engines.

You can have a company blog in your website and one on its’ own domain name, each achieving a different purpose.

You can have multiple blogs all working for you at the same time. The options are endless.

It is not a one-size-fits-all deal. Our Blog Consultant will talk with you, analyze your business, and come up with a strategy that benefits your business. Click here to get a free business blog management quote.

Blog Management and Marketing

Blog Content

Your blog content will make a lot of difference to how well you do with both the search engines and with visitors. Whatever your goal is for your blog, to make your blog popular to read, to make sales, to drive traffic to your website, to get people to sign up for something like a newsletter or affiliate program, or something else, you will need good, original content.

Not only do you need good original content on your blog, you need it every single day.
Blog search websites like technorati.com and Google’s BlogSearch list blogs by the most recent posts that match the user’s keywords. If you are not posting daily, you can get buried beneath all of the other blogs that do one post or more every day. Our daily blogging service will make sure your blog is updated every day or more often if you choose that option.

Blog Posting is more than just writing. If you want your blog to be interesting to user and also rank well in the search engines, you need to know how to structure your blog posts properly.

Do you know the proper way to write your blog post titles?

Do you know how to use keywords in your blog post for the search engines without seeming spammy or obvious to your readers?

Do you know how to use good anchor text and a proper linking strategy?

Our bloggers are trained to write relevant, interesting blog posts that are also optimized for the search engines. Read more about our Daily Blog Posting Service.

Social Bookmarking and Social Networking

Social Bookmarking and Social Networking are extremely beneficial to your blog. It can help you with link popularity, attracting more visitors to your blog, more comments on your blog posts, and even help you rank better with the search engines. However, social bookmarking is time consuming.

Many people try to automate the process for that reason. Automated social bookmarking will not get you all of the benefits that social networking will get you if you take the time to do it yourself. Most business owners do not have the time it takes to participate on these social networks. That is why Blog Content Provider does it for you. Our basic social bookmarking package comes with our Daily Blogging Service, but we also offer social bookmarking as a standalone service. Read more about our Social Bookmarking Service.

Professional Full Service Blog Management

Let our staff completely manage your business blog for you. We will handle everything. We will choose a domain name for you where necessary, provide blog hosting, do the installation, create or choose a blog template, optimize your blog for the search engines, provide the daily content, and do the social bookmarking. You turn your business blog over to us and we do it all for you. Read more about our Complete Business Blog Management Service.

Blog SEO and Programming

Blog Installation

WordPress claims you can install wordpress in just 7 minutes. Some cpanels have fantastico that will automatically create a database and install wordpress for you. But is that all there is to installing a wordpress blog? No. There are better ways to securely install a wordpress blog on your server.

Then you need to choose the right plugins to enhance the usability and improve the SEO of your blog. Every blog is different. Every blog has different goals and obstacles. So choosing the right plugins is more than just going to someone’s favorite list of plugins and using them all.

Some blog service companies brag that they install wordpress with more than 80 plugins! Wow! 80! How many of those plugins do you really need? Usually just a few. We securely install your wordpress blog and choose plugins for you that fit your specific needs. Read more about Blog Installation.

Blog Setup and Configuration

A lot of people will tell you that choosing the settings in the admin area of your wordpress blog is self-explanatory. To who? There are a lot of choices to make in the admin area.

An experienced Blog Manager knows which settings are best to use from experience. For instance;

Do you know the best sites to put into your ping list?

Do you know the proper way to create categories?

Post Slugs?

Is time-stamping a good idea?

Do you know how to configure all of the plugins or get an API Key?

Our Blog installation specialists will set everything up for you. Read more about Blog Configuration.

Blog Theme Installation and Editing

Here again, it sounds easy. You choose a theme, upload it to your themes directory, and voila! You’re done right? No. Choosing a theme isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are tons of free themes on the web. You could buy one from a designer. You can have one custom made for you.

Do you know a good theme from a bad one? I mean besides how pretty it is. Did you know that sometimes free themes have hidden malicious code in them, put there by the programmer/designer?

Are you able to determine good code from bad code? Is the code in the theme written in a way that will hurt your chances in the search engines?

Do you know how to edit the php in the header.php file, sidebar.php, or footer.php to add the enhancements that will make your blog both more attractive and more productive?

Choosing the right theme for your blog is more than just finding one that looks nice. You do not need to have a custom blog theme built. You can use a free blog theme. But you need to know how to choose the right one. Our Blog Installation Service includes choosing and installing the right theme for you. If you want a custom theme, you can read more about Custom Blog Themes here.

Blog SEO

You need to optimize your blog for the search engines. That means editing the code of your blog theme, setting up proper permalink structure, creating the right categories, and even choosing the right plugins, among other things. Our Blog SEO specialists go over your blog theme line by line to get rid of unwanted or unnecessary code.

We fix the blog title structure. We install and configure your blog plugins. We create a proper permalink structure. We edit your blog template to install feedburner, email scripts, affiliate buttons, or whatever else you need. Our clients are very happy with the search engine rankings their blogs are getting. Let us show you how we can improve your results. Read more about Blog SEO.

If you are not sure what you need, call us at 786-317-8774 for a free business blog management or SEO consultation.