As promised a while back, I’ve finished editing the Corporate Blogging Guide in PDF eBook format. So, today I give you the chapters you’ve had the chance to read online plus a whole new chapter (8. Technical aspects) and some bonus tips to guide you in your corporate blogging adventures!

How to download the eBook?

In order to download the ebook, all you have to do is to subscribe for free to Blogsessive’s RSS feed (if you haven’t done so until now) and you’ll find the download link at the end of each article in the feed.

eBook preview and contents

Here are two screenshots of the book’s cover and the contents page:

Don’t forget to subscribe…

… to Blogsessive’s RSS feed to download the eBook and to stay updated. There are plenty more freebies in the works, including a new WordPress theme and my second eBook: “From Zero to Blogging Hero: 100 Blogging Tips”

Enjoy the eBook friends!

PS: Please do not link to the download link in the feed. Instead, if you wish to promote this ebook, link to this post. Otherwise, I will consider it spam and wrongful usage!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

A blog’s success is measured through both its number of active readers or of RSS subscribers and its performance in traffic: number of page views, of unique visitors, popularity, page rank and many others.

There are a few methods to obtain the needed statistics to track and measure such indicators.

1. Access and traffic statistics

Google, the most powerful and popular search engine in the world, provides bloggers with traffic statistics though its free Google Analytics service.

By choosing a free Google Analytics account, you can view stats regarding your blog’s page views, number of unique or returning visitors, keywords used to reach your blog, the most visited pages you have posted, geographical tracking of your visitors and much more.

Google Analytics is currently considered to be a very accurate and relevant tool. Other services you might consider are StatCounter or Woopra with its live tracking and analytics features.

2. Indexing statistics

The number of pages indexed by a search engine and their position in search tops reflect the indexing rank of a site.

Do you want to find what your indexing results are for two of the most important search engines are? Google and Yahoo offer you two critical tools for any website administrator:

1. Google Webmaster Tools (XML Sitemaps)
2. Yahoo! Site Explorer

You can check the number pages from your website indexed by Google by typing the following in the search box:

site:www.domainname.com

You can also check the number of outside links your website’s pages receive by typing the following:

link:www.domainname.com

3. Popularity statistics

Traffic, accessibility, search engine exposure levels as well as content relevancy and its focus on certain niches all contribute to your blog’s popularity.

The popularity is statistically tracked by a range of online services, of which the most relevant are:

1. Alexa
2. Compete
3. Quantcast
4. Technorati (Blog dedicated service)

4. Statistics’ relevance

A thorough analysis of your blog’s stats will help you identify its strong spots and the type of content best suited for its audience. It will also help you determine its weak spots or to improve your content and focus more on covering certain areas of interest.

Yet make sure you never forget that blogs are maintained through relevant, interesting and fresh content, not statistics!

This concludes the “Corporate Blogging Guide”! I hope you all found it useful and share it with those who you think might need the information provided here. A PDF version of the guide is also in the works and will include an additional chapter.

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools (current)

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Happy Halloween folks! As you might have noticed, Blogsessive has changed its “clothes” on this special occasion. Don’t worry, the nerd will be back tomorrow, when Dracula “leaves the building”.

Now, since this is a special occasion, the topic for today’s article has been inspired by a comment I received on part 6 of the Corporate Blogging Guide:

I think we all start our blogs worried people might not like us and when they do, we don’t want to change for fear of losing readers. I’ll take experiments to stagnation any day.
David Walker

The moment I read David’s comment I knew he made a really good remark. It is fear that keeps us in place. It is fear that keeps us from “spreading our wings”. We abide all the rules and all things that we know for sure will work and hope to be the next blogging “rockstar”. But, do you really believe those “rockstars” we all follow are there because they are copycats? Because they follow rules? Or might it be possible that they are the ones creating new rules? Might they be the ones revolutionizing the concepts?

Do you want to be a better blogger? Then…

Don’t be afraid to stray from the pattern!

What worked for other people, might work for you. But it might not also. Do you want to be another face in the crowd, or “the inspiration” for the crowd? If you want to inspire, then find the unexplored paths. Lead people to places they did not visit before! Try, try, and then, try again. Who cares if an experiment fails? You lost 3 subscribers? OK! Move on, fight to find that something that will get you 300 subscribers in return!

Don’t be afraid to be yourself!

It’s your blog! I’m not saying you should be an a*s, but if you have an opinion, put it out there. If you’re not comfortable with your own views and opinions you should not blog. Blogging is about being personal. You need to have your own voice, different than the voices you hear in the crowd around you! Out of 10 people that say the same thing, only one will go down in history for saying it the best way, his way!

Don’t be afraid to lose battles!

No one is victorious every time. It’s all about winning the war, right? I’ll give myself as an example here. I’m still “fighting this blogging war”. I lost battles. You’ve noticed the time I spent away from the blog. It was a lost battle. So, I took the time to find the right resources to continue “the war” and I’m back. Have I lost something along the way? A couple of email subscribers. I do get why they are not subscribed anymore, but those who believe in you and support you will be there, for better or worse. (Thanks again folks!) Everything that you lose, can be built again. We’re not born with these. We’re born naked. With the right mind set on it, we can overcome loses.

Don’t be afraid to dream!

Dream. Hope. Believe! If you don’t set your mind to the higher target, you’ll never achieve it. Know your limits, and when you know them, set your standard above them. It’s the only way you can actually reach your limits, because it’s hard to avoid falling in the trap of indulging into small victories or sufficiency.

It’s Halloween folks, but on this day, you should NOT be afraid!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Regardless of the blog type you choose, be it personal or corporate, the following pieces of advice are meant to guide your steps in your future blogging activity. These are the most important blog tips you’ll need to follow when starting a new blogging adventure!

1. Look for ideas at any time and in any place

A conversation in the subway, a debate or piece of news heard on the car radio, anything can turn into a new topic for your blog. Keep your mind open and tune your hearing, combine them with good analysis skills and you will have some killer weapons in your arsenal.

2. Raise and maintain interest

An attractive first paragraph is not enough to maintain the reader’s interest throughout your blog post. “Start big, finish bigger”. Provide new hooks in small doses to keep your readers interest throughout the article.

3. Generate the conversation and take part in it

Often times, bloggers are compared to journalists, and their blogs to newspapers (usually tabloids, not broadsheets). Yet blogs and online newspapers differ exactly where they are also alike – the comments section. Newspapers use the comments section to allow users to express their frustrations and almost never moderate them. The classic journalistic style rarely requires an answer or any feedback, usually being limited to presenting the facts or expressing an opinion.

The main ace bloggers play is their power to start conversations and to keep them going by being part of them.

4. Make sure you provide quality information

If your new blog post is based on personal opinions, make sure they have the required features to become points of reference. If you’ve used other sources for it, make sure you check their credibility and quality first.

5. Never promise more than you can give

Failing to deliver everything you have promised will lead to a significant decrease in a blog’s credibility and popularity. Teasers do work, but only if what you were teasing readers with becomes reality.

6. Offer help

Nothing pleases blog followers more than getting help from a field expert. Whenever you have a spare moment, help those in need of your professional help. Make sure to reply their comments and their emails.

7. Links are sacred

Are you quoting a source? Then link to it! Are you publishing survey results or statistics? Link to those who have created them. Are you expressing your opinion regarding something that has been published on another blog or online outlet? Link to the initial article. Why?

1. Because it helps prove the quality of the provided information and places them in a broader context;
2. Because it is a nice way to thank those who have inspired you to find a new topic for your blog.

If you have already discussed a certain topic in previous posts, link to them at the end of the current article. This helps those interested in the topic to get more details on it.

Additionally, a solid inbound and outbound linking policy will help your blog rank better in search engines.

8. Never, ever…

Do any of the following:

1. Attack someone else’s stand on an issue if you are not 100% sure of your own. Make sure to provide arguments to sustain it;
2. Publish someone else’s content without having their permission to do so.
3. Start open conflicts with your blog commentators. Keep your cool!
4. Allow the needs vs. solutions balance incline towards the former in your posts. Provide more solutions than debates over what’s needed.
5. Shy away from commenting on similar or competing blogs. As long as you don’t do it to shamelessly plug your blog or attach the author, your contributions will be valued and will direct more readers towards your own posts.
6. Take all blogging advice as laws. They are only pieces of advice. Experiment with them and see which work better in your case.
7. Fill your blog up with plugins, widgets and other useless elements. We are ultimately talking about a corporate blog. You really do not want to compete in MTV’s “Pimp my blog” competition!
8. Postpone for too long your blogging platform and plugins update. Don’t be the first to do it either, to make sure bugs are found and solved, but don’t be the last one either!

9. And the most important piece of advice…

….I’m going to ever give you is to never be afraid of EXPERIMENTING. Experiment with different tones, new post types, new topic approaches.

Stay fresh!

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started (current)
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Depending on the type of corporate blog you’re targeting, you can then put together an editorial team. To make sure you correctly appoint those in charge of content generation and blog management, you need to consider the following criteria:

1. Criteria to help build the editorial team

The future bloggers needs to be/have:

1. Experts in the filed they are going to cover;
2. A good communicator, able to manage potential communication crises arising from dialogues and feedback generated by the blog;
3. Concise, clear and explicit when they express themselves, as they will not target only those who are in their turn experts and are acquainted to the field’s jargon;
4. Believable and genuine in what the provided information is concerned;
5. A human touch and a pleasant manner of writing;
6. Ready to face a reduced level of privacy in their lives, at least in what the online world is concerned.

2. PR department involvement

Most communications through the corporate blog usually abide by the general public relations policies within the company, thus it is strongly recommended that your blogger(s) work together with your PR department. Their collaboration helps:

1. abide by the general communication tone imposed by company standards;
2. prevent or, if needed, manage possible communication crises;
3. develop the bloggers’ communication skills and ability to generate valuable content.

3. The blog’s tone

Depending on the type of blog and target audience, the tone and style of the blogger may vary.

Usually, a relaxed, human voice and an openness to communicate and interact with all those providing feedback or reactions within the comments section or on other blogs guarantees your blog’s success.

Staying clear from “corporate speeches”, what is communicated through the blog should have an equivalent in day to day life, such as:

1. A relaxed conversation with one or more friends;
2. A conversation with in a larger group comprising both good friends and recent acquaintances;
3. A first meeting with one or more persons that you have never interacted with.

To find the right tone or voice, the term “conversational” should always be your reference. Using words such as “I”, “you”, “us” adds more personality and openness and, thus being highly recommended.

Further reading recommendation: Finding Your Reader-friendly Blogging Tone

4. Content generation

Generating content for a blog is an activity that uses up a lot of resources, from time to information. The most common sources used to generate new debate topics in your articles are:

• your own area of expertise;
• news and events related to your company;
• the evolution of your products and services;
• industry events;
• industry press releases;
• debating your own opinions with other industry representatives;
• the analysis of industry statistics and forecasts;
• analyzing pieces of news published by the media;
• attending fairs;
• guides to success – tips & tricks;
• lists of preferences and recommendations, etc.

Mashable.com has published a comprehensive article providing over 40 sources you can use to generate content: http://mashable.com/2008/08/11/topics-for-corporate-bloggers/

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy (current)
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

So, you think you are ready to launch a corporate blog for your company? Based on previously set goals for your blog and the available resources, the most common types of corporate blogs from which you can choose are:

CEO blog

The CEO blog is the blog authored by someone from the company’s top management. The general trend for such blogs is to publish analyses of the main events in a certain filed, forecasts and statistics, this content pattern thus positioning the author as a thought leader.

Often times this type of blog will be strongly related to the company brand, its products and services.

A few famous examples of CEO blogs:

1. Jonathan Schwartz (President & CEO, Sun Microsystems)
2. Craig Newmark (CEO, Craig’s List)
3. Jason Calacanis (CEO, Weblogs)

Entrepreneur blog

Similar to the CEO blog in what the editorial style is concerned, the entrepreneur blog is set apart by a significantly larger volume of information relevant to the author’s field of expertise and by diary-type entries describing the ongoing projects the entrepreneur is focusing on at the time.

A couple of examples of entrepreneur blogs:

1. Guy Kawasaki
2. Jeff Pulver
3. Kevin Rose

Multi-author company blog

Several authors – company employees from different departments – publish content on this type of blog, each of them writing articles that cover their area of expertise. Often times these types of blogs turn into blog communities aggregating content published by individual, single-author blogs.

Example: Google Blog

Department blog

This type of blog is almost exclusively authored by leaders in certain company department and it is focused on the activity and expertise of said department.

Example: Kevin Lynch – Chief Software Architect at Adobe Systems

Employee’s blog

This is the semi-professional blog of one of the company’s employees and it will use the company’s brand and image to promote the author as a guru of his field. The content of such a blog focuses almost entirely on job related topics.

Example: Lori DeFurio – Adobe Systems

Product/Service blog

This type of blog is dedicated to a certain product or service provided by a company, and it’s meant to help promote it, create a community around it and obtain feedback from the customers.

Example: WordPress Blog – Automattic’s corporate blog dedicated entirely to the Wordpress blogging platform

Human Resources blogs

Although not a very common type in the corporate blogging world, the HR blog is characterized by its efforts to present a company’s team and the events they attend as casually as possible, thus opening the company up to potential employees who might be attracted by what they are being offered and the light atmosphere in the office.

Example: Astraware Team Blog

Choose wisely and make sure that the blog type you choose matches your goals and the resources you have.

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs (current)
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

So, did you ask yourself if a blog is the right thing for your company? Is it a solution that will boost your business instead of being a resource consumer? If so, it’s time to find out what options are there in terms of positioning a corporate blog.

Each company has its specific communication needs. Based on said needs and other established targets, a newly launched company blog can help achieve specific goals, such as:

• Becoming an alternative, and dynamic method to publish content;
• Positioning employees as thought leaders and experts in their respective fields;
• Building a community around a company, product or service;
• Boosting sales;
• Encouraging customers to send their feedback;
• Speeding up customer service;
• Gaining you exposure through both new and traditional (print press, radio, TV) media;
• Positioning you as a trendy company that keeps up with new technologies;
• Becoming and effective channel for crisis communication;
• Supporting your HR efforts by offering an “alternative” look at your team and thus attracting new job applications;
• Helping your company rank higher for specific search phrases and attracting new backlinks.

It’s highly recommended to establish a set of complementary goals. If a company manages to focus on and reach its main goals, the adjacent targets will also be achieved at the same time.

Here are a couple of examples of complementary goal sets:

• Building a community + boosting sales + attracting feedback
• Positioning yourself as a thought leader + building a community + gaining media exposure

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning (current)
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Not all promoting and marketing techniques yield results in any given situation and likewise blogs aren’t always the best solution. In certain cases, a blog can become a useless investment, or worse, a way to boost the already negative view the audience has on a company.

Before launching a blog, each company needs to ask the following questions:

2.1. Is the blog a necessity or just a whim?

A company’s decision to launch a blog may be based on obvious advantages generated by the freedom of communication and by its being given a human touch. Considering these advantages or failing to do so, we still run into situations where a company chooses to launch a blog because of reasons such as:

• Our competitor X has launched a blog;
• It’s trendy, any teen has one. Why can’t we have one?
• We want to look high-tech / tech savvy.

In theory, none of the reasons above is a real obstacle, given it’s associated with and supported by other factors such as having the necessary resources to create and maintain a blog or a positive or neutral image in the market.

2.2 Do you have the needed resources to launch and maintain a blog?

Unlike classic company website, blogs keep consuming resources.

Blogs imply costs. Be it the technical side – design, development, hosting, be it hiring an experienced blogger to maintain it and publish fresh content, a blog needs financial resources.

Blogs take time. It takes time to create and publish content; it takes time to research, write posts, update them and maintain the blog. And for any company with a sense of business, time always means money.

Blogs need dedicated personnel. While there are quite a few tools to render content publishing automatic, the best results in corporate blogging are harvested by those publishing customized content, created by their own people. Are there people in your team who can maintain the blog? If not, do you have enough resources to bring in someone new?

Blog require information. And information is either created or needs to be searched for, analyzed and filtered. These steps also take time and need to be carried out by people who need to be effective and thorough in research, data filtering and content creation.

2.3 How does the online audience feel about your company?

We are talking about the online world, where the fastest and most relevant reactions are being published. How do we track them?

2.3.1 Reactions in the blogosphere: Technorati

Technorati.com is at the same time a blog search engine and a blog content aggregation service. According to the latest data, Technorati indexes and analyzes the activity of about 110 blogs from around the world.

Through a system reviewing both post tags and inter-blog links, Technorati returns relevant search result in a reverse-chronological order, the most recent ones being displayed first.

2.3.2 Reactions in the blogosphere: Google Blog Search

The world famous Google has a search engine entirely dedicated to blogs. Using the traditional search algorithms it’s already known for, Google Blog Search allows you to filter results based on multiple search parameters as well as on the date when the blog articles and reactions have been published.

Running a search for your company’s name will most likely return relevant results which are usually very personal, as they are reactions from within the blogosphere. If your brand mainly targets domestic customers, the wisest choice is to use the local version of the blog search engine.

And of course, running the search directly on the main Google search engine can return similarly relevant results.

2.3.3 Reactions in the online press from your field

Although it is not always the most relevant source, as it is often affiliated to certain trade groups or biased by advertising constraints, the online press covering your field can be an effective indicator for your company’s image by taking into account what their experts and analysts have to say about you.

2.3.4. Quantifying the risk factor

Based on the results obtained after analyzing all these online reactions, one can quite accurately quantify the risk factor their company is exposed to by publishing a blog, especially if it is a blog that allows comments to be posted.

A negative online image can lead to a virtually unlimited series of negative comments which rarely have to do with the actual content published on the blog. Visitors would have thus found a way to express all their frustration caused by real or imaginary flaws they see in the company’s products and services.

2.4 Interpreting the answers

It hardly takes a genius to determine if the blog is just a whim with a short life span and inexistent success in communicating with customers.

Also, it is obvious that without the necessary resources, a blog cannot be launched or it will be launched while lacking any real possibility of it being maintained in the future.

And who would ever want to help spread an already bad image through exposing themselves to ever present negative comments, especially in their own “online home”?

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog (current)
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Photo credits to Johanna Ljungblom

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

A few months back I was invited to attend, as a speaker, an event on corporate blogging where the people in the audience were mostly PR Managers for different companies in my country. Along with the PowerPoint presentation, I have decided to also give those who attended the event more information on corporate blogging through an eBook I wrote at that time.

The following post is the first chapter of that eBook, translated into English. The rest of the chapters will be also published, over the next few days, except for the weekend. Now, let’s see what corporate blogging is about and if it is the right tool for you and your business.

1.1 Blog, Blogging, Blogosphere

The term blog, contracted form of weblog, defines a certain type of website where texts, photos, audio or video content are published in chronological order, much like an online diary.

The first blogs date back to 1993 when the term was first introduced, but they only started to be used more frequently in 1998 when the first blog community, Open Diary, appeared.

The true hit of the online mainstream happened around 2002-2003, when the first blog reactions regarding the Iraq war were published and when Google acquired the Blogger.com platform, which allows any person with Internet access to create and maintain their own blog.

The Blogosphere comprises all public blogs and is defined as a community based on the theory that all existing blogs are somehow interconnected, often through blogrolls or links inserted in their content.

A blogroll is a list of links, commonly displayed in a blog’s sidebar. The links usually point to blogs the author deems relevant to the content of their own blog or simply wants to recommend to their readers.

Therefore, through blogrolls, it is believed that any two blogs can be connected through one or more intermediary links.

Blogs allow publishing content in a wide range of types and formats, and these types of content lead to a first classification of blogs:

1. a. Classic blog – text content
2. b. Photoblog – publishes photo content
3. c. Videoblog – publishes video content
4. Audioblog (podcast) – publishes audio content

Microblogs and tumbleblogs, both defined as blogs with extremely short entries, are two other blog formats gaining more and more popularity in the past few years.

Regardless of information format, the online publishing of content through blog platforms is called blogging, and the author of a blog is called blogger.

1.2 Corporate blogging

Once they have hit the spotlights, the blogs’ potential to communicate effectively was immediately noticed by companies.

Initially seen as a mere tool to promote products and services, blogs gradually became part of a company’s brand. Aside from placing a name and a logo on them, blogs granted companies a persona they could be associated with. In short, they made them human. The corporate blog managed to break the barrier between the “inaccessible company” and its customers.

The true value of a company is undoubtedly fueled by its employees’ individual values. But how exactly can these values be expressed? How can they be best presented to the world?

Blogs allow companies to position their employees as industry leaders through the opinions they publish, through the breakthroughs shared on the blog, all in a human, personal form that eases communication with customers.

A few companies that have successfully adopted the concept of blogs are:

Adobe – http://blogs.adobe.com/
Microsoft – http://www.microsoft.com/communities/blogs/ and http://blogs.msdn.com/
Google – http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

The benefits of a well crafted and maintained blog are plenty, but is it the right tool for companies? Find out in the next chapters.

Other chapters of the Corporate Blogging Guide

Chapter 1: Introduction to Blogging (current)
Chapter 2: Critical Questions Before Launching a Corporate Blog
Chapter 3: Setting up Goals and Blog Positioning
Chapter 4: Types of Corporate Blogs
Chapter 5: Blog Editors & Editorial Policy
Chapter 6: Blogging Tips to Get You Started
Chapter 7: Blog Performance Tracking Tools

Photo credits to Peter Nielsen

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Tweetmeme buttons, plugins to show latest tweets on blogs, Twitter accounts linking to the owner’s blog, new posts being tweeted, and blog addresses and twitter links in signatures. If that’s not enough, I don’t know what else would show that blogging and tweeting go hand in hand for tons of people. If you think of names, blogging and microblogging, you kind of see the connection. If you think microblogging appeared later, you’d think much of the blogging knowledge is applicable. But how can you be on both platforms and make them work individually and as a team?

1. Spot the similarities

Blogs and Twitter are of the same species. They come from the world of the social web where the same rules apply. You know, give before you ask, be nice, share relevant information, never, ever, ever limit yourself to broadcasting, be conversational, help out. It’s not rocket science and it’s definitely not new. To make it more clear, here’s the example section: comment on other blogs before you expect comments – or – retweet before you expect your followers to retweet your 140 characters of content.

Catchy and interesting content is crucial for both. If your blog post is a big hit, make your tweets the same. “New blog post + link” won’t make a lot of people click. “Star Trek is real! We can all now teleport! + link + Fresh from the blog” might work a lot better.

They both need frequent updates. If you’re planning to create a blog and never post after the first time, you’ve failed. If you’re planning to get a Twitter account to say hi and have a cool button on your blog without ever doing anything more, you have failed. People expect updates from both bloggers and microbloggers.

Both need monitoring. You need to check responses, reactions and trends to be on top of your game. And if you’re blogging and tweeting right, that will take a whole lot of time.

Your blog and your Twitter account need to be welcoming and make it easy for visitors / followers to take action. Login required, captchas and about three other levels of security make it difficult to comment. Protected tweets make it difficult for new followers to 1. decide if they want to follow you and 2. actually do the following. It all has to be easy and accessible.

2. Acknowledge the differences

Blogs and tweets need different frequencies in updates. While it’s OK to post a couple of times each week on your blog, that might not work that great for Twitter. It’s more like a few posts per day. Yes, it takes time. It does take less time than to write a blog post. Plus content is readily available: your posts, industry news, tweets from those you follow. Add a few replies and you’ve got a quite active Twitter stream!

140 characters vs. virtually no limits. You need to adjust what you want to say to the platform you’re posting it to. Keep ideas short and sweet for Twitter and develop on the blog. Yes, we’ve all seen the huge ideas split into 4 consecutive tweets… But if you follow a few hundred people, you’ll see how fast the meaning gets lost in between tweets.

Different pace, different tempo! It all happens faster on Twitter. Yes, you can reply to a comment after two days. But if you reply to a tweet after the same amount of time, you have 90% chances that the person getting the response will have no clue what you’re talking about.

3. Fuel the team spirit

If it’s a team, it has to look like one! You are in the end promoting the same brand, so make sure to have common visual elements on your blog and Twitter page.

If it’s a team, it should feel like one! The style on the blog and that of your tweets need to be somewhat similar. People have to sense the same spirit behind it all; otherwise the connection between the two will be feeble. They’ll stick to one or the other, and your plan to make them work together would have failed.

If it’s a team, it should have the same purpose! Be it to promote your business, stay in touch with friends, position yourself as an expert, you need to have a common goal for both platforms. You can’t try to drive leads your way with the blog and talk about raising kids on Twitter if you have any plans to promote one through the other!

Over to you!

As it happens to just blogging, just tweeting, blogging and twitting, or any field for that matter, the pool of relevant information is always bigger than one person. What tips and tricks have you come across while trying to make your blog and twitter work like a dream team? Do share your advice in the comment box!

About the Author

This is a guest post by Alina Popescu, PR Consultant & Founder of Mirror Communications. If you’re looking for a fresh voice, balancing unique views on life with original PR and marketing tips, head over to her blog at WordsOfABrokenMirror.com, or better yet, subscribe to her RSS feed.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

A few days back I was reading this interesting post on BloggingTips.com on how to plug an eBook on your blog and I instantly remembered all those ugly looking eBook sales/landing pages that you STILL find all over the Internet, like we’re still way back in ‘98.

Do you have a good product to sell on your blog? Then why not give it a real chance. Why tell your visitors straight from the sales page that they are either stupid (“Please X, let me buy your book for only $29.99!) or that your have no idea how to make a unique presentation for a unique item!

Yes, I’m sure that almost every internet marketer will tell you how those ugly pages are effective, and how their “call to action” phrases and messages are really effective. Allow me to disagree! I hate them. You hate them. We run away the second we land on them!

A sale is not make by the number of colors and fonts you use on your landing page. It’s not made by the number of screen scrolls a user has to make in order to get to the part where the “call to action” makes him feel small and stupid compared to you, the big internet marketing guru!

A sale is made based on the quality of your products and ease of the (guided) buying process!

How can ClickTale help?

I discovered this tool (ClickTale) while working with one of my studio’s customers and i was impressed by how easy it is to use it and how much useful information it provides:

• Record and watch actual user browsing sessions (real-time);
• Link analytics;
• User behavior: click heatmaps, scrolling heatmaps;
• Form analytics;
• and more…

Here’s a quick presentation of the tool:

So, there you go. A good user tracking tool that will give you enough insight on your visitor’s behavior and will help you discover which are your sales/landing page weak spots. And the best part? There’s also an option of signing up for a FREE account (of course with limited capabilities).

Also, if you’re looking to go pro with this tool, the guys over at ClickTale have a damn good offer of 20% off for a 6-month plan and 40% off for the annual subscription.

Go, take a look at ClickTale, test it out and say NO to those ugly looking sales pages!

This post does NOT contain affiliate links and it’s NOT a sponsored post.
It’s a post about a tool which I believe will help you improve your online sales!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Let’s play! Today’s post is a fun, creative exercise that I’d be happy to complete with your help through the comments section. What is the exercise about? Blogging tips, of course.

This post is part of the change I wish to bring to Blogsessive and get closer to you folks, your needs and thoughts!

What I will do: Using the ODD letters (A, C, E, G, I, K, M, O, Q, S, U, W, Y) of the English alphabet I will list 13 blogging tips, each in a sentence starting with that letter.

What you could do: Share your tips and views by completing the sentences starting with EVEN letters (B, D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, T, V, X, Z).

I’m sure that each and everyone of you has something to share with the community, so let’s get creative!

The Blogging Alphabet of Blog Tips

A. Acknowledge the latest trends in your area of blogging. Always stay up to date, informed.

B. …

C. Connect with other people, with bloggers in your niche. Offer help. Network. Friends are some of bloggers’ greatest “assets”.

D. …

E. Experiment with different approaches in your written speech. Depending on topic, you might find that different “voices” impact people in different ways. Push your communication skills.

F. …

G. Guide your audience through your content, through your posts, or posts’ paragraphs. Make your content accessible and readable.

H. …

I. Innovate. Don’t go on the same routes as everyone before you. Find your strengths and build a unique brand upon them.

J. …

K. Know when it’s time to let go. If an experiment or an idea doesn’t prove effective, leave your feelings aside and let it go before you’ve invested too much time and resources.

L. …

M. Mix your posts. Every once in a while add a small drop of fun. Informal and educational posts are great for your audience, but too many such posts in a row can become boring. Remember when you were in school. Your favorite teacher must have been the one that knew how to make learning fun!

N. …

O. Organize yourself. From writing habits to files, contacts and even structure of your blog’s categories. Create a pattern that will save you and your readers time!

P. …

Q. Quiz your target audience from time to time. Run polls and ask for views and opinions. Or make it even better. Run a real quiz and have some cool prizes ready. It helps getting more engagement from your community, as well as loyalty.

R. …

S. Seize opportunities as soon as they come up, especially if you’re an internet marketer. We’re living in an extremely fast world and what today is opportunity, tomorrow might be old news.

T. …

U. Unburden yourself. Learn how to delegate or outsource certain tasks while you focus on those you’re more skilled at or more time/cost effective.

V. …

W. Write. Write every day. Even if it’s not going to get published on the blog. Write as an exercise. Train your creativity and your writing habit until it all comes much more natural.

X. …

Y. Yield the best results by investing in your blog. Blogging consumes resources: time, money, energy, creativity. Be prepared to use them in order to succeed.

Z. …

Contribute to the alphabet

Leave your tips and contributions in the comment area and please use your NAME, not keywords. The best contributions will be selected for at PDF mini-ebook that I’ll make available for free download on the blog, and all contributions will be attributed to their authors with name and website link.

Sounds cool? Then jump in and let’s have fun!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Most internet marketing gurus preach only two important things for your website to be successful – Great content and great promotion. All other things that you do to a website are merely complementary to either of these two jobs.

Most webmasters, in order to diversify income and minimize risk often put their eggs in more than one basket, by owning multiple websites in multiple niches. It is a great strategy, but it ends up becoming a cumbersome process in managing a gamut of websites. There are webmasters who own as many as 50-70 websites. How do you ensure that each of these blogs are updated regularly with content, are promoted equally? This requires a lot of organizing effort from the webmaster.

The first step in getting to better management is to list down all your blogs. I would recommend the use of a software like Microsoft Excel to create and manage the list. You may always use this master database to add new websites or delete domains from the list when you have decided that a certain website is dead for you.

An important thing you need to realize is that not all niches are the same. The quantity of content, the frequency of updates and the competition in each niche are all different. Let us take two niches for example: “technology tips” and “Russian Mafia tattoos”. I would classify these two websites on the two extremes of all the factors mentioned. “Technology news/tips” has a lot of content to cover, needs a high update frequency and also has an amazingly high competition. “Russian Mafia tattoos” is a niche with very little content to add, does not require frequent updates and has little to no competition.

Simple and efficient mathematics

Here is a pretty intuitive formula that you may use to manage multiple websites:

Priority = Content quantity ranking + Content frequency ranking + Competition ranking

The idea is to rank all your websites across each of these three factors and add the ranks. So, if “Technology news” is ranked 1 on all three factors, it ends up with a total 3. With 40 websites to manage, Russian mafia tattoo at the other extreme would add up to 120.

Now let us suppose a site is ranked high on content (2) and frequency (2) but less on competition (30). This would mean that this website needs a lot of content, but does anybody care, since you have little competition? You can end up on top of the search results even if you write at a lesser frequency. So, you add the three to get you to 34. Likewise, simply add up the ranks of all the websites you manage and sort the websites in ascending order.

You now have a priority list with which you may decide the frequency of updates and level of effort to put into promotion for the websites in your portfolio. A website which is ranked 12th would not be attended to before you work on the content or traffic of the website at 11 and so on.

It sure is a lot of work. By using the above method, you can ensure that your work is prioritized and hence expect to improve gradually across all your niche websites and blogs.

About the Author

Anand Srinivasan blogs on Internet related stats at TechCrunchies.com. He is soon launching his new venture on exciting facts at KnewThis.com

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

A few weeks ago I was driving down the highway. It was late at night and I was tired. The radio was starting to put me to sleep. Suddenly a song come on that woke me up – I could not believe what I was hearing. The song was that bad.

I am no expert when it comes to music. The last time I played an instrument was in grade 6 music class. It was the xylophone – I simply had to hit a a couple keys with a wooden mallet whenever the teacher pointed at me. I do not know anything about timing, rhythm or beat. But I do know how to listen to music. I know what music should sound like.

What I heard on the radio was not music – it was painful noise. No rhythm, no beat and the singing was nothing more then a girl squealing forced rhymes. I listened to the whole song just to find out if it was some kind of joke. Would the DJ admit that it was something his 5 year daughter composed and asked daddy to play on the radio? But at the end of the song the DJ only said, “… and that was The Shaggs”

The Shaggs

The Shaggs were a 3 girl band from the late 60’s. The girl’s ages ranged from 18 to 22. They had no intention of having a band, their father did. He had visions of being a big shot manager for the next big thing in music – his daughter’s band. He pulled them out of school and made them practice and play. He spent the family savings to buy instruments and record an album. The albums where distributed by the father to all the local stations.

Of course success did not come as the father had anticipated. And the reason is obvious – the music is terrible. It sounds like the instruments and singer are being thrown down a long flight of stairs. No tempo, erratic and completely off-kilter singing. The lyrics are about Halloween, a two legged dog, and how great parents are. It is simply bad music.

When I got home I was curios to find out who The Shaggs are and how they got on the radio. As shocked as I was when I heard how bad the music was, it was nothing compared to my amazement when I saw that on Amazon the album has a customer rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 and 131 reviews.

How Did The Shaggs Get On The Radio

They did not have thousand’s of hours of training, they did not have a million dollar promotion campaign, they did not have brilliant lyrics. How did they do it? How did they get popular enough to be heard on the radio?

The answer is what bloggers call a great backlink.

The famous musician Frank Zappa heard the album and publicly stated that the Shaggs are “better than the Beatles”. Why he thinks so or what he was on does not matter. What matters is that he said it. Suddenly The Shaggs were in the spotlight. People started to buy the album and listen to the music – it started to be played on the radio. Thanks to all the resulting publicity, in 1996 the Rolling Stones called the album one of the 100 “most influential alternative releases of all time”.

Terrible music but a big seller, all thanks to Zappa.

Focus on Getting the Zappa Backlink

The mantra you hear over and over again is that you need backlinks. The more backlinks you get the better chance you have of success. You might have the best blog in the world but without backlinks nobody will ever see it.

You are suppose to submit your blog to directories, make comment on other blogs, and submit articles. Accumulate as many as you can,the more the better.

True, this will increase the number of backlinks to your site. But even a hundred of these backlinks do not compare to a Zappa backlink – a backlink from a major player in your niche.

Get a backlink from the top blogger in your niche because it is worth more then the 100’s of backlinks from blog comments and directories. A nod of approval from someone famous and respected will instantaneously bring your blog into the spotlight. If they have a following of a 100,000 then suddenly 100,000 eyes will be on you.

How To Get the Zappa Backlink

Obviously the problem is getting the Zappa backlink. It is not easy and there is no step by step process to getting one. Nobody can give you advice on how to get it, there is no formula. You have to be creative and original. You have to find a way to get the attention of a big player and get them to mention you. There is the chance you will get lucky and receive one without trying, but more likely you will have to work hard for it.

A perfect example of a great backlink is this guest post. This blog is very popular with 1000’s of visitors a day. By putting in the time to create this guest post and having it accepted I suddenly get lots of exposure. The backlink from this high page rank blog can turn out to be my Zappa backlink.

You have a choice: you can either diligently spend a hours every week accumulating little backlinks that might make your blog a success over time. Or you can spend those hours going after the big score. The one big backlink that is worth a 100 little ones.

About the Author

Roman Jelinek is a new webmaster with a blog and website describing in detail what is involved in creating, maintaining and profiting from a site. Charts and statistics are used to reveal How This Website Makes Money Online. If you find the article interesting, do take the time to subscribe to his feed.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

When it comes to reader engagement, crafting an attention-grabbing headline is not the only thing you should consider. You might even write a great introductory paragraph that will make your readers click the little “read more” link on your blog, but the hard part is drawing their eyes down the page, and keeping them hooked until the final message.

Great content is essential, but it only goes so far. What your readers are looking for is a summary of the main points, in an easy-to-find-and-follow format. Just like reading a magazine, readers want to be able to skim your content and still pick up the essential points.

For this purpose, we have HTML heading tags such as H1, H2, H3, H4, and so on and so fourth. While H1 and/or H2 will be used for your catchy post titles (check out the guide on SEO-friendly headlines), H3 and H4 should be used throughout your post to draw the reader down the page and summarize portions of your content. Either tag has a slightly different purpose, and we’ll discuss how to use them in your posts.

When to include H3 tags

So when should you include these tags? There are a few instances when you might use an H3 tag in your content. The first is when you shift in the focus of your blog post – like moving from the introduction to the first main point. In addition, you should use h3 tags in the following situations:

1. When changing the main subject of your post (examples to definitions);
2. When separating quoted sources;
3. When separating unrelated information (such as in showcase posts).

H3 tags are slightly smaller than H2 tags, and will provide an obvious contrast to the surrounding content. In addition, search engines will treat them on differently than the H1 or H2 tags, making your pages more relevant.

When to use H4 tags

The even smaller h4 tag should be used within related content areas to divide content even further. You could use H4 tags when:

1. Pointing out a particular situation;
2. Separating source from content;
3. Asserting calls-to-action (“download now”);
4. Asking for feedback;
5. Separating your feed and other auto-content from the post.

H4 tags are fantastic for organizing information within different areas of you posts, such as when you present a download with specifics or a showcase with a similar layout per entry. In addition, h4 tags carry the same SEO effects as h3 tags, incurring a different kind of indexing by bots.

Conclusion

By using sub-headings in your posts, you can help the reader distinguish the main ideas in your content more easily, and improve the layout of your content overall. Sub-headings are especially essential for longer posts, such as pillar articles or reviews. Consider them not only for their SEO value, but also for their blog post sculpting usefulness.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Yesterday, Syed Balkhi published one of his best posts lately: “Consistency & Frequency Are The Ultimate Downfall of Blogging“. While Syed was probably looking – as he stated at the article’s end – for a bit of controversy, he actually managed to create a very thoughtful post that made me write a follow up, something I rarely do.

Blogging “Experts” always preach that you must be consistent with your blog, and you should post frequently.

This is how Syed starts his article, making it clear where he’s going to hit, the famous “Be consistent, write frequently” blogging tip. While he makes some very good statement on consistency, I would have loved to see a more detailed explanation of what should be understood by “being consistent with your blog”, and since I did not find those, I’ll share my views in this article.

By blogging consistency you should understand that…

1. You should be consistent in quality

By quality consistency I mean that you should continuously thrive to improve both your writing quality and the usefulness of your articles. People follow you because of the practical use they have for your tips, or the fun factor you always provide and so on. If the quality is poor, make it good. If it’s good, make it better. There’s no perfect, but thrive for it, you’ll get close.

2. You should be consistent in writing style and tone

The folks that read your blog and follow you through feeds and Twitter, do so because of your personality. The more charming you are, the easier it is to get followers. When you’ve found that tone that suits you best, stick with it. Of course, with the occasional escapades. Once in a while it’s nice to break the blogging patterns.

3. You should be consistent in frequency

While frequent posting has its advantages in terms of traffic, when it affects the quality of your posts it can become your blog’s killer. If once a week is the rhythm than does not affect your creativity and quality, that’s how frequently you should post. Don’t post daily just because X does it. I don’t. Even more, whenever I feel that I come across a writer’s block I take a break from Blogsessive, and guess what. My readers are still here. My RSS subscribers are still here. Why? Because they understand and accept the fact that it’s better to sacrifice a week than sacrifice your readership and value.

All in all, Syed is a bit harsh and extreme saying that “consistency & frequency are the ultimate downfall of blogging”. But he’s got a point. Being consistent and frequent for the sake of it is wrong. Being constantly useful and frequently creative is what you should struggle for.

And one more thing to ponder about consistency…

Consistency is the key element in branding

Personal branding, just like any other type of branding is a compound of your actions. The better these actions are tied to each other, the more consistent your image/brand is. But just as with every other brand, there comes a time when you’re required to hit that “Refresh” button. And when you do that, it’s called rebranding.

The point of rebranding yourself? It’s infinitely better that instead of wasting time recycling others’ or your own ideas you should be using that time to reinvent yourself. Continue to provide value, just in a new shape.

My 2 cents on consistency: Be on the lookout for the best in you. Constantly!

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

You know, planning a new blog post can be one of the most common problems for a new or recurring blogger. At the same time, the quality of one’s content can dwindle if you don’t take the proper time to consider what it is you want to write about, and stay on task. So how do you go about creating that perfect post idea?

Write When You’re Most Productive

To start, you should try writing when you’re the most productive. If you really want your content to sizzle, you need to be on top of your game, ready to outperform. For example, sitting in a comfortable chair and listening to music might be the best writing environment, while a silent library works for others. Naturally, it’s impossible to be able to sit down and be in perfect writing form 24/7, but being prepared to write is important to developing exceptional content.

Before you begin writing, why not try arranging your desk area in a way that suits you? Make your environment as comfortable as possible to get yourself into the writing mood. Try opening a window. Sounds crazy, right? Whatever you might think, creating an atmosphere that you feel at ease in will make you that much more productive.

Choose a Compelling Topic

If you really want to make an interesting post, you need to begin with an interesting idea. Generating ideas is as simple as considering a solution your readers might need, or a new product that has come out within your market. Let me show you some more ideas you might use for a blog post:

• 5 Ways to Do [Something]
• 20 [Market name] Professionals to Follow on Twitter
• How to Grow in [Your Choice]
• How I [Achievement] in [Timeframe]

One little suggestion might be to build upon previous posts that you’ve done for your blog. What areas have you covered that you can grow and develop more? Building upon your blog’s past content will make your new post even stronger. What’s more, it will give you a place to start when structuring your new blog post.

Structuring Your Post

Normally, bloggers will jump right into writing before deciding upon the layout of their blog post. But let’s be honest – considering the structure of your blog post will ultimately make it more effective. Taking one to two minutes to simply lay out your ideas in order will result in a much more professional post, which flows more seamlessly to your readers. However, you should not spend endless amounts of time on the arrangement on just one post. Figuring out the acceptable layout and moving on is perfectly fine. The bottom line is: spend some time arranging your ideas to avoid turning your posts into a reader’s nightmare.

Learn When to Publish

If it weren’t for the last minute, nothing would get done.

Why wait? Or why hurry, for that matter? The most important factor in planning a new blog post is when you’re going to publish it. Rhythm is especially critical in the development of a blog, and posting your new article online at a time of peak visiting hours will help raise subscribers and readership. In the past, new bloggers would simply post and let traffic take care of the rest. However, analytics software makes it easy to determine when people are reading your blog. Posting your new entry an hour or so before peak visiting time will help to improve visibility and exposure. Posting on a day when people are more apt to read your blog is also important.

You might be thinking that planning blog posts is for the more organized or elite bloggers, however, learning to plan out new posts is a skill that will help you to build your blogging experience and authority. Your content will excel with a little extra help.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Ever since blogging has become “mainstream”, companies have discovered a new marketing tool in blogs. Some took blogs even further and transformed them into brand elements and it proved to be a winning decision, as blogs have the power to give a voice and a personality to a company.

But even so, corporate blogging has not always been the best choice for some. Just as with any other marketing tool, it needs to fit your company’s profile, needs and expectations in order to be truly effective. Is a blog really going to help your company? Ask yourself these 3 essential questions before taking the step and launching a new corporate blog.

This post has been revised and included in the Corporate Blogging Guide.
You can read the revised post here.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

There are billions of blogs in the blogosphere. People always say that creating another blog might not be the better thing since almost everything online is saturated. Of course, that’s a complete baloney! Fortunately 60-70% of blogs don’t get traction and just couldn’t seem to make progress. And it’s because of several reasons which I wouldn’t want to talk about here.

Most people fall into this big misconception about blogging. This misconception is about “post and publish”. People think that the key to getting traffic is by creating a killer post, then publishing it. We all know it’s not the case. If no one reads your blog, then no one is even going to notice you created a good post! Obviously the one thing you have to do is to let people know “you” exists in the blogosphere. How? By spreading your content. Today I would like to talk about how you can possibly triple your traffic by spreading your content. Without further “fluff” here they are:

• Social Networking – I don’t understand why a lot of people are so much into the saturated social bookmarking when they have the whole social networking sites to work from! Look, how many of you have accounts in Friendster, MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, Bebo, etc? I have, and I have an average of 500 contacts on each of them. If you can let your article reach them without sounding spammy then it can bring you a lot. I have done it with my blog and so far I don’t see any saturation in what I am doing.
• Your Article into Podcast – Seriously I am flabbergasted with podcasts nowadays. I always thought before that it’s lame and doesn’t really make much sense to me. But look how a lot of people are using (and consuming) it now. Now you can use a little service known as Odiogo. What Odiogo does is turn your posts into podcasts and have them downloadable. It also has a nice Wordpress plugin that you can easily integrate in your blog.
• Your Article into PDF’s – A lot of people hasn’t used this method and frankly I haven’t yet but I think it worths a mention here. Post2PDF is a little WordPress plugin that turns your posts into PDF formats. And it doesn’t end there. You can then go to some famous forums related to your niche and spread it in the freebies section. Now make no mistake about it, people absolutely LOVE free eBooks and stuffs (just look at the forums). If you’re content is a hit, then prepare for truckloads of traffic and subscribers.
• Your Article into Video Posts – Unfortunately there is no software that can possibly convert an article into a video, but you can always take some time to do it yourself. Do a video on one of your killer posts, then submit it to TubeMogul. TubeMogul basically submits your video to famous video directories like YouTube, Vimeo and a lot more. Signing up for an account is free and it’s a very nice tool to get viral very easy.
• Tweet It! – Since Twitter has been one of the most talked about web application nowadays, I can’t help but talk about it too. Twitterfeed is a very cool plugin that basically posts (automatically) the latest article on your blog. Twitthis is another cool tool which enables your readers to tweet the post for you. Whether you have just 100 followers or 20K+ followers, these tools can really get the job done for you.

You can see that the key to getting traffic is getting viral and spreading yourself in as many places as you possibly can without being annoying. The truth about blogging (in my opinion) is that what you can get is based on how much “smart” effort you exerted on it. By doing the steps above, maybe you can get your blog known for a wider audience and have your traffic increased. What say you?

About the Author

Melvin Dichoso is an 18-year old internet marketer who’s been working in the internet for over a year. He’s currently taking up BS Computer Science and is planning to work in internet full-time sometime in the future. He blogs at Melvin Blog dot com where he shares his personal tack on internet geeky stuffs. If you find the article interesting, do take the time to subscribe to his feed.

Blogsessive is always open to guest posters. If you feel like your articles do match Blogsessive’s line of content and quality, contact me.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Today I’ve received an email that made me think about this subject. Somebody asked me to confirm that a design agency that I’ve never heard of before, has done the design you see on Blogsessive. Obviously, I replied and told him that Blogsessive is a custom design done by yours truly, and any agency (with one exception) that would proud themselves with Blogsessive’s theme would be a fraud.

After hearing the price for which that agency was going to create something similar, the following thoughts started taking shape:

• Why would you proud yourself with the work of someone else?
• Why think these things would not surface?
• Why roll out a low-ball quote for something that’s worth much more, or that you cannot deliver, but still state you can.

Before getting a custom design for you blog, here are some things you should consider.

Do you really need it?

You know my view on this one. I personally like having a unique looking blog, but than again, I’m a happy case. I can do my own designs.

Those who cannot have to relay on the skills of people like me and many others. In this case, there are some things you should base your decision on:

1. Can your budget afford a custom design?
2. Will this design generate profit? (Profit can be either traffic, awareness, money…)

If your answer is ‘yes’ to both questions, than you should go ahead with the design. If you answer with ‘yes’ to the first question only, then it’s only a matter of personal choice and willingness to invest in a hobby. The choice is obviously yours.

Looking for quotes

If you’ve decided to go ahead with the design, make sure you write down all the things you need. Otherwise, the quotes you’ll receive won’t reflect the reality.

Ask around for quotes on site like Elance, Get a Freelancer or Rent a Coder or simply contact the owners of the blog’s that you like and ask them to recommend you their designer.

Choosing the designer/agency

You’ll probably receive quite a bunch of quotes. Some will be very low, some will be too high. The ones that are too high will be pretty easy to identify, but the lower ones can be pretty attractive, considering the restrictive budgets these days.

The best advice I can give you is: Don’t be fooled!

From my whole experience I can guarantee you that there’s no such thing as a bargain when it comes to a job well done.

We all know that – for example – Darren Rowse’s blog, Problogger.net is an excellent design incorporating so many custom areas, like the Job Board, custom archives, best of zone and so on.

If Darren’s blog is such a hit, then you’d probably want something similar in terms of structure and accessibility (bare in mind the design is not everything and Darren is a great blogger, theme aside). Would you expect to get such a well done job for $300, or $400, or $500? Ask a real pro and the answer will be ‘no’. But then again, there are those people quoting these amounts, claiming they can get the job done.

The good: It fits your current budget.
The bad: Lack of professionalism in communication. Delays in delivery. Lack of attention to details. Bugs, and the list can go on and on.

Some of you would probably say I’m wrong, but consider this. A really well done premium theme sells for $49 to $99. Multiply this with the total sales and see the real price of that really well done design.

Fitting the project into your budget

Forget the bargain, start the negotiation. At this point you probably don’t even need all the features that Darren (Problogger.net), or Brian (Copyblogger.com), or I have on our blogs.

Does your traffic and exposure justify a job board? Do you really need so many custom page templates?

Instead of trying to fit everything into a tight budget and probably getting low-quality works, why not fit the custom concept along with the most important features into it. Negotiate.

Let’s say your budget is indeed $500, but a good agency will ask you for $800. Instead of picking the lowest quote, rather extend the deadline. Taking pressure off the agency could result in a lower quote.
Cut down on the features. Will also reduce costs.

I assure you that you blog will grow naturally even without that job board, and when the time is right and the blogging income will allow it, add that too. Take it step by step and don’t cut on the overall quality.

Rather put a smaller budget at work to get real results and build on that, than throwing your money out the window on something that will require constant fixing and attention and in the end, a whole lot of extra money to get done.

This is not the view of a designer. This is what I’ve concluded based on previous experiences, folks coming to me to fix work they previously had done as bargains. It’s not worth it.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive