New Blogging Trends for Clients

Click my post title to read what Darren at ProBlogger feels are the five emerging blog trends from his point of view. His blog is a good read and one that I routinely follow, but his is a focus for professional bloggers. So here is my list of blogging trends for clients to consider (not professional bloggers).

Trends in site and design that you should consider implementing as you set up your own business blog:

1. Slick magazine portal page style blogs are the rage right now versus the typical one or two column blog layout. Here's an example of that style to consider: http://www.problogger.net/ Notice the use of multiple columns and blocks of content and advertising.
2. Multiple writers on one blog. Routinely we have two writers on five day a week blogs, but now we're seeing blogs that we work on have more guest bloggers or staff writers post occasionally on the blog and all are listed on the mast head as writers. You can take this approach too. We'll help you get started.
3. Multi-content blogs. Now on this point, I disagree with Darren at ProBlogger. All we do is focused on search engines. You will fragment your message, your search engine authority when you start blogging on many different topics on one blog. This may be fine for some "magazine" style blogsites, but for the typical client to stay on topic is very important. You do not want a pest control blog to be blogging about shoes or how to find coupons to buy a PDA! You need to stay on pest control and service topics. To do otherwise is to chase away your readers.
4. Soft monetizing of sites. Yes, blogs are moving to include advertising, but for the typical client the only ads you should have on your blog are those pointing to your products and services. I do not know of many people who are really racking in the cash from monetizing their blog. Additionally ads can be distracting and can affect the "look" of the blog. What would work is small ads for your own products, white papers, and coupons for your services.
5. Integration with other media. Yes, this is a new trend and one you can certainly leverage for your own blog. Introduce a Twitter feed, headlines, and other widgets in the sidebar of your blog site. Connect in new ways with your readers and provide ability for them to interact with you. Get signed up for Google's Friend Connect as an easy way to implement these new widgets and features without programming skills.

The world of blogging IS changing but not all of ProBlogger's recommendations are effective for business blog owners. If you need professional writing services for your business blog, consider us first.

No More Posts Here!

We're consolidating our efforts and this week is our last week on this blog. Please click our post title to go to the blog that we will be updating for our readers. After May 24th all posts will only be done at our new blog The Web Authority.

We've migrated all of our posts and content, so you'll be sure to find what you want. In the meantime, please bookmark this page: http://www.mccordweb.com/weblogs/ and add our feed link http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheWebAuthority.

We won't be deleting this blog, but we just won't be updating it.

We've just finished updating our new blog and hope you'll like the design and improvements we've added.

See you there!

Blogging For Hire - A Note to Professional Writers

If you are blogging for clients professionally be aware of several potential pitfalls that we have experienced - the unexpected use of your blog content.

You won't care if you are "working for hire", how a client uses your blog posts, but if you also sell your services to create press releases and web content, if you do not license your content or contractually state how your content is used, you may end up hurting yourself. What I specifically mean is that without restriction a client can build website content at the price of your $10 or $15 each blog post price, can get a press release written on the cheap, or even get content for their next how-to book at your expense.

Certainly this is not what you expected when you started blogging at $10 or $15 per post, but this is what has happened specifically to us, so learn from our experience! Although each client contract is different and we can be flexible, now, our standard contract states that our created blog content is licensed only for use on th client's one blog and to see us for prices on web content and press releases created from blog posts.

If you don't care that the going rate for press release writing is around $250 and you are potentially supplying a press release at your blog post price of $10 to $15, then go right ahead. If you don't care that the going rate for 450 words of content is around $250 and you are supplying it for $10 to $15, then go right ahead. Just be aware that there are some potential clients who WILL make an effort to build their site, book, or press release arsenal at your expense hoping that you simply won't be savvy enough to know any different.

We even had a client even gloat to us about the fact that they compiled our created blog posts into a book and published it as a "how to book". The nerve! If you don't spell it out in your contract, you are simply setting yourself out to be taken advantage of unfortunately.

Be particularly careful of clients who are very specific of what they want you to write in a post as they may be using it for a press release. Don't be afraid to ask why and what the use will be. Be careful of clients who give you a list of topics that look like chapters in a book, or steps to follow in a process. They may be writing a book from your content.

The bottom line is if you are contractually working for hire, you have no rights, but be aware that the price for a blog post is way, way, way below the average established market price for press release writing, book authoring, and web content creation. Don't sell yourself short or give away your intellectual property too cheaply. If you are not sure if your client is taking advantage of you, do a web search on a verbatim phrase from some of your work quoted like this "search phrase in quotes" on Google and see what pops up.

It's time to take a careful look at your contract or if you are writing without one, to get one in place.

Building Blog Traffic - Best Practices

Our own blog is a case in point, maintaining and building readership is an important and tough job. In 2006 and early 2007 nearly 40% of all of our website visitors were reading our Web-World Watch blog (our only blog at the time). Then our business grew dramatically and we had some personnel related issues and our own blog got pushed to the bottom of our priority list. We lost major readership and blog traffic by the end of 2007 due to infrequent posting.

Since January 2008, we have been focused on building back what we lost and I have to tell you, it is a tough road to hoe. Here are some of the lessons that we have learned in the process that you may find helpful in regard to building your own blog traffic.

1. Don't get hung up on Feedburner subscriber stats. Stats here only reflect your blog readership using RSS news feeds which is still only a 7% reflection on the real marketplace. Yes, keep an eye on RSS subscribers, but know that the majority of your traffic will come from readers using browsers so make sure you have website analytics installed to track this larger portion of your readership.

2. Stick with it, to build traffic you really need to post 5 days a week. Yes, I know this is a real grind, but you've got to have content for people to read to want to follow and subscribe to your blog.

3. Don't get disappointed by the lack of comments. People are reading, I know this from experience, but rarely will they leave a comment unless you really hit a nerve, strike a chord, or have a controversial topic.

4. Make sure your content is good. This is crucial, you cannot build readers if you have drivel or derivative posts.

5. Leave comments on other blogs that you are following pointing to your blog. You may not get search engine benefits due to "no follow" tags, but you may point readers to your site. The other benefit is that you will connect with others in your field and keep tabs on what is happening in your industry and you may actually learn something new.

6. Embrace new things on your blog. Add widgets, test applications, use all these tools to not only keep your blog up-to-date, but give you fodder for new posts and new ways to engage readers.

7. Watch your stats and cater to your audience. If you don't watch your stats, you won't know what your readers consider important. I have learned that my readers like best practice blog posts and that out of my three blogs, this one Blog-World Watch is my most popular, and so this is the blog I invest the most time in, and use to publish my most interesting posts. Do you know what your blog readers want? Watch your stats to see what posts generated the most traffic and build on your success. What you find may totally surprise you, but use that information as a building block for building blog traffic.

If you have your own best practice approach for building blog traffic, leave a comment (really do it this time as I really want to know). Leave a link, and I'll make sure to visit your blog, possibly subscribe to follow it, and write about it one of my future posts. Good blogging everyone!

How to Write Effective Blog Post Titles

Getting search engines to your blog and getting readers to click into your blog post are all based on your title and the first 250 characters of your blog content. Your blog post title is important and can generate traffic and interest so it's important to take time to make it winning.

Most of our clients are blogging for search engines and so here are a few tips to creating a good blog post title that works well for readers too.

1. Consider making your blog post a question. Think of search query phrases that a reader may use to find your information on Google and make that your post title.

2. Consider adding "How to" or "Review" in your blog post title depending on your content.

3. Include keywords in your blog post title but not as a list rather as a keyword dense phrase.

4. Consider creating a catchy title one that grabs attention.

5. Consider adding "Best Practice" in your blog title.

What is key as you think about your title is that it is keyword dense and could possibly match a search query that may match a phrase that many people are searching for verbatim. On your own blog try out different variations and see what works for you by watching your blog site traffic statistics. You'll quickly find out what content your readers are most interested in and then be able to build blog post series around that content to garner even more traffic.

Best Practices for Website Navigation

We've got six tips to consider as you plan your website navigation. Find out how you can make your website better for search engines and readers with our best practice tips.

Feedburner PRO Tracks Feed Visitors

If you are blogging and don't have Google Analytics installed in the footer of your blog and don't have your feed URL wrapped by Feedburner, you are missing out on great information that will help you to understand your readers better.

In my own personal case, I used to blog Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at Web-World Watch and only on Tuesday on Blog-World Watch and only on Friday on Design-Wold Watch. After watching my Feedburner stats, I found out that Blog-World Watch was my most popular feed and changed my writing schedule for increased writing frequency to feed my audience. With these great free tools installed what could you find out about your own readers for your own blog to help you blog more effectively?

Lots! Feedburner used to charge a monthly subscription charge to have PRO level stats. Since being purchased by Google, Feedburner PRO stats are free. If you are already using Feedburner, you just need to click the PRO link in the control panel to be able to get more information about your readers like how many are subscribed, what pages the aggregate audience has viewed, how many have clicked in. Don't worry, there is no personally identifiable information just summaries. But the summaries can help you to identify is your audience growing, shrinking, and what do they like to read.

Knowledge is power! If you want to grow your reader base then you need to understand why people read your blog. Once you know, take concrete action to improve your writing for your audience.

So, as in my case wrap, your feed with Feedburner, enable PRO tracking, and make sure to install Google Analytics, and then you to can blog for your audience more effectively.

Use Labels Effectively

If you are using Blogger or Blogspot as your blog platform your option is to create labels at the bottom of your blog post. It is important to use this feature to help search engines sort your posts and for users to navigate to other blogs of interest.

Label Name Selection
Choose keywords as your label names. I like to use all lower case for my label names as then my words will match more potential search queries than proper case or all capitals. Sometimes even I forget, but try to stick with lower case

Labels as Navigation
I've worked on some blogs where we pre-select labels and only use this labels as we are using the labels as a type of blog navigation. This is a good idea if you are really working on SEO tactics and are employing a ghost blogger to one help give them focus and to prevent label bloat.

Choose Labels Judiciously
If you are having trouble with Blogger publishing your posts, it is time to change your label program. Get in and delete labels, regroup posts and chop your label bloat. Blogger simply has real trouble in publishing custom FTP blogs where you have more than 20 labels. Watch your publishing screen if you are having trouble, you will see that every time you publish Blogger has to reload all your labels and appears to get hung up here if you have lots of labels on your posts. If you have four, five or more labels on each post, Blogger will definitely have problems with custom FTP publishing.

WordPress Categories
This is somewhat the same as Blogger Labels. However in WordPress you won't have the publishing woes that Blogger custom FTP does when you get a lot of categories on your blog. Still keep in mind some of my tips about navigation, capitalization, and keyword use.