Don't Plagerize

Running out of letters,
originally uploaded by mike912mueller.

I can make this simple crystal clear.

Write your own words.
Don't cut and paste.

If you want to cite an article you may take a snippet,
"put it in quotations" and then make sure you are linking back to original article.

White Space

If you are anything like my wife (a writer) or her mother (a retired publisher) I'm sure you have blogging issues.

Blogging breaks rules. 

It breaks all sorts of proper english rules.

Get used to it.

What was right in your high school composition class is wrong in blogging class.

What determines a paragraph break?

• To the blogger it's the number of words
• To the english lit professor its a break in idea 

Bloggers fight to capture and keep the readers attention.  To do so, we add pictures, we bold words, we highlight in color, and we create paragraph breaks where no paragraph break should be.  It's called the wall of words and we bloggers will have nothing to do with it!

  What would you rather read? 

• The words above? 
• or the words below?

Which one is more appealing to the eye?

(both have the exact number of words)

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Pellentesque feugiat. Nam purus nulla, varius blandit, aliquam sed, dignissim quis, elit. Vestibulum eros nisi, suscipit viverra, rutrum sed, ornare in, ligula. Nam aliquam, velit ut ullamcorper gravida, sem elit fringilla dui, ac ultrices velit diam nec sem. Donec elit massa, interdum a, placerat ut, blandit sit amet, metus. Donec urna justo, faucibus eu, posuere non, pellentesque eget, leo. Proin sit amet neque quis justo bibendum pretium. Nullam dapibus tincidunt magna. Nullam leo mi, pellentesque ac, viverra scelerisque, porttitor non, magna. In molestie, metus vel fermentum interdum, diam turpis euismod urna, in blandit ante odio cursus diam. Donec massa dui, venenatis eget, pulvinar nec, porttitor eget, tortor. Nulla aliquet. Etiam nisl. Phasellus consequat sapien vitae nibh. Vivamus ut lacus. Donec dictum, libero at bibendum convallis, arcu nisl euismod dolor, eu fringilla risus lorem eu.

Go ahead, Break the Rules!

Links - What to Link?

Blogging creates LINKs.  It does so naturally and it does so with human intention.

Linking is the second most important part of SEO.  I'll discuss the linking that blogging creates naturally in a later post.  Today we're talking about links that we, the writer create and more importantly why.

Lets' look at some examples.

1. Citing a Reference.  "I was reading in USA Today about poor Michael Johns' elimination from American Idol and they brought up a very good point."
2. Defining a Term.  "We were in a heavy discussion on the volumetric heat capacity of Elkhart Lake and..."
3. Geographic Reference.  "We were in a heavy discussion on the volumetric heat capacity of Elkhart Lake and..."
4. The Redirect.  "When you are ready to secure the best loan for your situation - Contact Mike"
5. The Image.  Any image can be a link as well.

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In each instance listed above you are providing your reader an easy way to follow. 

If they wanted to read the same article - you've made it easy. 

If you used a term that they might not understand, you've provided the definition. 

If you want to show them where a particular place is, they can find it easily following your link. 

Instead of showing an email address, you can do it as a link making the text look cleaner.

We are trained to click on an image.  Where that link leads is up to you.

Content is King

With any blog, the single most important item is adding real and fresh content on a regular basis.

This is also why most blogs fail after thirty days.  The blogger runs out of things to write about. 

The truth is their imagination runs out of topics, that's all.

I have a mortgage background - I have plenty of fresh content to go around. 

What about other professions?

I was talking about this to a book seller.  She runs a small online bookstore.  We developed a plan for her to blog 3 times a week and drive specific traffic to her online store.  She was naturally panicked.  What would she find to write about?

"How many books do you read?"

2 to 3 a week, she said.

There's 2 to 3 topics a week for you to write about.  Simple.

Categories, Labels and Tags - OH MY!

This is probably the most confusing item for the new blogger. 

1. What are they?
2. Do they matter?

Let's answer the WHAT first.  They are all basically the same thing.  Depending on the particular blog platform they might be called one thing and on another something different. 

• Blogger calls them Labels
• WordPress calls them Categories (and just to confuse you they have a plugin for a separate class for tags)
• TypePad calls the Categories as well.
• Other platforms vary but seem to like the word Tags

Whatever they are called, they are simply a series of words that sum up what your post is about. 

How about the WHY?

They do matter.  They matter for a couple of reasons. 

To your readers, this allows them to quickly sort your entire site and see only those posts that are "labeled" with the word(s) they want.  For instance, this post is Categorized as "Better Blogging".  To see all the post that have something to do with "Better Blogging"  just click on the Tag.  The page will reload, in chronological order with every post that deals with better blogging.  Pretty neat,eh?

For the Search Engines.  To Google, Yahoo, and MSN each label is a link.  Each link adds search engine juice to your blog.  Links are crucial to SEO (which is why this post is also tagged with SEO).

We use the power of this linking when we design your personal Keyword Optimization Plan. 

Building Search Engine Traffic Takes Time

 

We can get you up and running on your blog literally overnight.

You can start posting the minute it's up.

But what about the Search Engines?  How long till you are in their fold?

Blogs generally take several months before the Search Engine has enough trust in you to start sending any reasonable amount of traffic your way.   That's because they know most new blogs cease to be updated shortly after they start.  

We recommend for the first couple of months, to all new bloggers, don't sweat it.

Instead of worrying about SEO, SER, and keywords.  Concentrate on your posting on a regular basis first.  Get your content happening.  Then when Google decides to let you out of the sandbox, your content will be there and done!

Mike Mueller

Improving your readers experience

You should have an About Us page for every blog.

HINT: We've renamed ours

This is especially easy to do on a WordPress platform as it's built right in.  On a Blogger platform it can be added as well but takes a bit of work.

If your reader stumbles upon your site, they may be very interested in who you are.  The About Us page does that for you and provides easy contact information.

Easy to find Contact Information is something every blog should have.

Blog Better!