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5 More Blog Post Tips
By Jeffery Wood | October 10, 2009
Prefer to listen? (Not a transcript) [podcast]http://www.sweatyshop.com/audio/5-more-blog-post-tips.mp3[/podcast]
Okay, everybody in any kind of internet marketing program has heard that you should make your blog post title keyword rich-yet-user friendly and that you should use your long tail keyword search terms throughout your post wherever they sound “natural”.
So I want to point out a few things that have also been around for a bit, but if you are new to blogging then you might not have run into them yet.
My suggestions are general, meaning they are good all around things, but tend more towards those with a blog that is business oriented, but still they are things everyone can use.
1) Link to your official domain.
- Anytime you are listing your URL your link should be pointing to your official domain, not to your MySpace or Facebook page or wherever your other sites happen to be.
2) Be sure of yourself.
- It’s one thing to be upfront about a lack of knowledge, it’s another to sound…wishy-washy and unsure of yourself. For example: “I am all new to this world so I’m not sure if the information I give will help you out much.” isn’t going to help you keep people around.
3) Spelling, Grammar, and Slang
- Use a spell checker and watch your sentence structure and cut out whatever slang terms you normally use. Yes I do understand that race and culture affects how we talk, but you are not talking to your personal friend nor to a group of people you know.
You want to be friendly but if this is a business website, you MUST talk in the language of business. The language of business is like learning to speak in a foreign language.
The language of business is proper spelling, proper grammar and proper words. There are some spelling mistakes everyone makes and will be overlooked, but with spell checkers available that should be at a minimum.
For example, I ask a friend on Twitter about what terms she is using all the time (I know she uses slang because of the 140 character limit, but I don’t know what the slang terms mean), that’s not what you want, you want to only have to explain terminology such as: ’straight stitch’ not slang terms that may or may not be well known or offensive.
4) Break up long paragraphs.
- There’s no excuse for people having one giant paragraph in the business world, you want to look and sound professional. Breaking up your paragraphs into short chunks will make it easier to read.
5) Length, bigger is better.
- About 500 words is good, give or take. You want to have enough to have some ‘meat’ to your post. Most word processors will have a tool to count words.
It’s hard to be informative in 200-300 words. Possible, but difficult. If you ever cruise through some of the article directories check out some articles. You’ll run into a few that were obviously written just to get a link back to their site. The article will be few on words and won’t be very informative.
I want to see you succeed in what you do. Investors, customers and other people will check out your blog so what do you want them to see and think about you? Your writing impacts what they will think.
I’m not perfect, I break some of these from time to time, but overall I follow them. I recommend that you do too.
- Jeffery
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About Jeffery: Jeffery Wood, author of "Learn How To Set Up Your Own WordPress Blog And Forum" is a Part-Time Internet Marketer. |
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Topics: Blog Marketing, Blogging Tips and Tricks, blog, blogging, business | 7 Comments »
October 13th, 2009 at 10:18
Jeffery,
Great info! Thank you. I know that I’m guilty of “talking” when I blog.
However, I think that in some cases, it makes it more personal. Because you are actually “speaking” to your audience, drawing them to you in a more personal sense.
And with that said, I’m sure that it depends on “how” we talk in the first place. Some slang can appear to be a foreign language to some of us.
Which brings me to another point – KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE. If you’re target market are folks who aren’t novice texters/tweeters, then “talking” and those are the folks that you are intending to “talk” to – then using those terms and abbreviations would be appropriate.
Just like if the author of a genius technical blog, and in real life, only uses 8 syllable words to communicate to their friends and associates – perhaps that person wouldn’t want to try to figure out “layman” speak, as they would then be talking down to their audience.
However, if that was a reverse scenario – I know that I’d find it very difficult to try to talk “up” to that audience. Therefore, it probably wouldn’t be taken seriously in the community that I wish to target.
Hmmm, I guess I’m just restating what you already wrote Jeffery – LOL, well then, I guess that means “I GET IT”
.-= janet´s last blog ..Unearthing The Secrets Of Car Auction Regulars =-.
October 13th, 2009 at 10:25
It’s a good restating
– Jeffery
October 14th, 2009 at 11:36
Informative tips Jeffery.
The length can be tricky. The key is to get your point across without being to brief or long-winded. I usually stick around the 400 word level but on occasion will go higher.
RB
.-= Ryan Biddulph´s last blog ..Don’t Confuse Cash Gifting With Other Work At Home Opportunities =-.
October 16th, 2009 at 11:44
Jeffery,
I was especially pleased to see item 3 in your list of blog post tips. Many of the blog postings I read are so riddled with misspellings, typos and blatant grammatical errors that I cringe as I read.
A mistake that many people make is not proofreading their posts before posting. They think that running spell check is sufficient, and it’s not. Spell check doesn’t catch incorrect word usage. For example, many people use the word “to” when they should be using “too”. Spell check doesn’t catch that because both spellings are correct, but the meanings are different and not interchangeable.
I’ll share a technique I use to help me with grammar and word usage. As a Virtual Assistant, I use Microsoft Word all the time in my work. I compose my blog posts in Microsoft Word and run spell check (which I have set to check both spelling and grammar). In this way, my grammatical, spelling, keyboarding and word usage errors are found before I post. After I make the necessary corrections (alas, I’m not perfect), I cut (ctrl x, on the PC keyboard) the text out of my word processing document and paste (ctrl v) it into my blog.
=>Donna Caissie, the ExtraOrdinary Assistant
va@extra-assist.com
.-= Donna Caissie´s last undefined ..If you register your site for free at =-.
November 18th, 2009 at 02:24
YOUR TIPS ARE U TO THE MARK.VERY USEFUL.WE ALL SHOULD SAY THANKS TO YOU FOR POSTING THEM.KEEP IT UP.
December 7th, 2009 at 00:56
nice blog thanks for enlightening read provided.you are here with such a good information .i shall repeated here soon and recommend this to others as well.please keep adapting it.thanks for sharing your knowledge with the readers.
.-= monika@Tunnel Design Engineer Jobs´s last blog ..Special offer =-.
January 9th, 2010 at 02:49
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.