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

Take every pro-blogger out there and all will say the same thing: “Write link posts!” What are the reasons behind such an advice? Why would you send people away from your blog? Stop. I truly hope you did not just ask yourself that!

Writing link posts is definitely not about sending people away, but rather about guiding your users to even more wonderful content and letting other bloggers know you appreciate their work, just as you would like yours to be appreciated.

But just like with almost any other type of blog posts, there are some things you could do to make it GREAT instead on a simple or even a good link post.

1. Find new content

If the article or information you’re linking to has already been linked to by the most important/influential bloggers in your niche, there’s a good chance yours will only add noise and not value. The “new” factor will be lost, and with it, your readers’ attention.

2. Find relevant content

It’s always best to keep the links close to your blog’s main topics if you’re blogging in a niche. General blogs or news blogs could make exceptions, but most times your readers will need and look for more information in the same area of interest.

3. Find useful content

The best content is the content that satisfies the reader’s needs. May it be the need to engage in a conversation on a controversial topic or the basic need for help/advice, the posts you link to have to have the quality of being useful to your readers, and who knows them better than you?

4. Offer content previews

Whenever possible, offer a short excerpt from the article you link to, just enough to give users an idea of what to expect from the link they’re about to click. Keep your excerpt short though, to avoid unnecessary conflicts or duplicate content issues.

5. Add your own comments

Your followers respect and read you for your views and opinions. Give them the chance to find out what you think and feel about the link you provide in a small, descriptive paragraph. This way, you’ll gain both a new link for your post, and also make it “readable”, instead of “clickable”. Together with point 4, this easy-to-do thing keeps readers on your page for a little while, which is always good for statistics, user engagement and why not, ad exposure.

2 Bonus tips:

a. The bigger, the better

The more links you provide the better, BUT, always respect the five tips above. It doesn’t matter if you link to 5 or 500 articles, quality of links should be top notch. Collection posts have a good success rate on social media as users look for a place where they can find all the info they need on a certain topic.

b. Use contextual links

Whenever possible, try not to use “Read the article here” or “Read more” link. Use contextual links, like “Check out these (start link)10 amazing free WordPress themes(end link)”. Helps readers identify the information easier and also, the bloggers you link to will appreciate it even more.

Writing a great link post is not that hard as long as you follow these easy tips. It’s finding the right content to link to that’s harder, and that’s what you need to go and look for yourself!

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How to blog? How to promote content? How to attract readers? How to keep them coming back? The are hundreds of blog offering blogging tips, and Blogsessive is only one of them. But, while running back and forth through the abundance of information, most times we forget about the basic principles of blogging.

Most times, we focus so much and invest too much of our time doing only one thing (ie: writing, promotion etc.) and we forget that blogging is actually a 3 step process, and all 3 steps should get the same level of attention.

These 3 primary steps of blogging are what I call the 3 C’s of blogging, or the 3C process:

1. Create
2. Communicate
3. Collect

Step 1: Create

There is no choice but to create something new, when starting from scratch. Without it, there are no other steps.

Invest everything you’ve got in this single moment in time. Focus on creating something valuable, timeless, helpful.

Create content. Create relationships and connections. Create resources. Create a brand around yourself.

Step 2: Communicate

There’s no point in keeping secret what you have just created. And obviously, no results (or ROI if you wish) from it. Are you proud of what you created? Then let the people know about it.

Communicate. Use the relationships you built to communicate. Communicate through them to those further away (just like the Twitter retweet). Use social media. Be proud and secure about the quality of your work, but don’t go over the top. People love successful people, but hate boasters.

Step into the conversations on your blog. Encourage them. When the 3 step cycle is complete, they’ll help you create again.

Step 3: Collect

If you’ve did everything right, now it time to collect the results. It’s time to collect awareness. Time to collect feedback, to collect income.

The better the creation and communication processes, the better the results.

Not a matter of ‘OR’, but a matter of ‘AND’

Remember:

• There no point in hoping for results without creating anything;
• Without creation, there’s nothing to communicate;
• Communicate well and attract better results.

With blogging, the 3 C’s process is a full circle. You cannot choose what to do better. You must do everything, the best way you can. Start to finish.

Photo credits: SXC.hu and altemark

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Almost six months have past since I published the first post on Blogsessive and during these six months this blog has passed through a series of events and changes that made me rethink my strategies.

As you’ve probably seen by now, whenever I’m sharing blogging tips with you, I always try to explain how they work through my own perspective. There are two reasons behind this approach:

• First of all, it stands as proof that those blogging tips work;
• Second, it provides information on how the tips where applied and also effect of their usage.

So, after six months of “competing” in a pretty crowded niche I’ve come to realize that Blogsessive has grown in a natural way, with about 160 subscribers, loyal readers and commentators, friends, social media profiles, on the point of entering Alexa’s top 100.000 and many more encouraging statistics.

Blogging tips that worked for me

What have I learned from these six months of Blogsessive experience? Read on as I’m going to share it with you.

Make use of your previous experiences.

At first, I had only my experience in working in the online industry for a long period of time. This experience served me well by knowing a lot about how websites and blogs should be structured and how they should look like. This has brought many visitors on Blogsessive, partially because of the design.
My personal interests in writing and my musical background helped me present every piece of information in a reader friendly way. The effects? Growing a base of loyal readers and encouraging personal interaction.

Don’t take tips for granted. Pass them through your own filter.

As most of you, I’ve read maybe thousands of post on blogging and blogging tips. Some where new, others brought nothing new to the table. Some where helpful, others where not. The hardest part is to choose the right ones, and that can only be achieved by applying them to your blog and experimenting with twist and changes until they show the best results.

For example, one of the tips I’ve encountered most was the famous “comment on blogs in your niche”. Some people spend hours every day commenting on blog posts and in the end, it still doesn’t prove efficient. Why? Because every blog you comment on has a different community, built around the blogger’s personality. Some readers will interact with you and follow the links you post and your profile link, others won’t. Pick the one that provide the best reaction to your comment and stick with them. You’ll win a lot of time and still get good results for your commenting actions.

Experiment with new approaches or old ones with a personal twist.

In any given niche, most things have been said and done already, but bloggers still find ways to become unique and successful. How? They simple add new, personal twists to their articles. Let’s take those “link round-up” posts as an example.

You’ve seen them on every blog, organized in weekly or monthly series. Some bloggers simple publish a simple list of linked titles; others go beyond, by adding their own views on the topics those posts approach. Some examples of adding a personal twist to these posts are my “Best Blogging Tips from the World’s Top Bloggers” posts that you can read here and here, or Alina’s Monday Reading Roundup posts on WordsOfABrokenMirror.com.

Build strong relationships with other bloggers and your community.

Although this does not need an actual explanation, I’ll give you at least two reasons why you should do so.

As I’ve already told you, the past two weeks have been totally crazy, keeping me away from my regular publishing flow and to be true, they caught my quote off-guard. This is where people like Hendry Lee and Eric Brantner, both readers of Blogsessive, came and helped with their wonderful guest posts.

With Alina’s help (and not only) those posts even got some great promotion and managed to attract over 5000 visits in a period of time when I couldn’t possibly be publishing anything.

So, judge for yourself how priceless blogging relationships are!

Do not ignore the social media.

Yes, everyone says so and I’ll say it again. Make use of social media. Make contacts, share opinions, share links, help others promote content and you’ll get the same in return, but be careful. Social media can eat up a lot of your time, so much that you can neglect your blogging responsibilities. Find the right services for your, the ones that provide the best results.

For me, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Digg and FriendFeed work best. So, they are the ones getting more of my attention. I use other services only occasionally or simply to help out friends. Experiment with different services, according to your goals and find out which one works best. If you’re looking for better conversion, try exclusive, niche social websites like Sphinn, for example. Try them out.

Learn from your blog’s statistics.

Even if some will jump and call you a stats-wh*re, do what you need to do. Some people write on blogs simply as a way to share their daily experiences and expect nothing in return. The ones that try to make a living out of blogging or want to make their blog a promotional tool for additional services are pretty interested in their stats.

I know that some will not agree with my statement but I still believe it’s true. Bikers have a saying about motorcycle crashes: “There are two types of riders: those who crashed and those who won’t admit it.” Same goes for statistics. Keeping a close eye on stats, but not letting it take over too much time out of your blogging activity, will help you better understand the effects of you actions, of your writing and SEO efforts. Analyze your analytics. You’ll be learning a lot about your blog from those stats.

Conclusions

Everything you do or try must be first passed through your personal filter. There are not 100% guaranteed truths, only realistic tips that you can build on.
From your own experience, what tips worked best for you and you blog(s) and what personal twist did you gave them?

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

How many times did you come across a blog post that seamed to deliver the right information, but the post itself was just too hard to follow? Countless times, I bet.

And so, what seamed like the perfect solution for your searches, easily turns into a nightmare.

Quality content is NOT enough

Writing a good article is obviously not enough to make people read it. There are many things that can be done to attract readers and back links to it. In the past, I wrote a few blog writing tips on how to make your blog post more readable and the proper structure of a blog post. Now, it’s time to take a look at some of the things that you should not do when writing a post.

The traps of WYSIWYG editors

For most people, the WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) built in the blogging platform is a great tool, one that easily allows us to style our content in just about any way we want, but this “power” is tricky. Here are a few things you need to take in consideration whenever publishing a new article:

1. Publishing and editing content

Don’t simply copy-paste content in the blog’s editor from any other source that allows styling (MS Word, websites etc). The styling will also be imported and will break your blogs’ overall look and feel. Try passing the text through a basic editor, like notepad first, and apply styling in the blog’s editor after. Another alternative would be writing the article directly in your blog’s editor or using a publishing software like the Windows Live Writer.

Take a quick look at Windows Live Writer in this introductory video:

2. Misusing fonts

If your blog’s theme is using one font-family, you should stick to it when creating or importing content. If you’re not satisfied with it, you should edit the overall style of the theme instead of just using different fonts in blog posts. Adds a lot to a blog’s clean, friendly look. Also, keep in mind to always use web safe fonts. Never mix up fonts, too many colors or font sizes. A proper, easy to read font size is about 11 to 13 points/pixels.

This is not a good thing to do:

3. Acting all emotional

Blogging requires passion. If you don’t have it, you might as well quit. But, when too much passion gets expressed in your blog posts by using smiling faces and all sorts of emoticons, you might just manage to drive a few readers away. I don’t use them, but if you insist on using them, don’t overdo it.

4. Excessive linking

While linking to other blogs is a sign of appreciation, filling your blog post with links is not. It will make your post hard to follow, will probably get skipped by readers (links will not be clicked) and from a SEO point of view, you’ll probably get penalized by search engines for being considered a spammer or content scraper.

5. Embedding different types of media

It’s nice to see a relevant image here and there or a video embedded, but again, overdoing it is simply madness. Of course, if your blog post would be a gallery of photographies from an event, or a tutorial that requires videos and images it’s ok, but even so, you need to place the media in a clean, proper order to make it easier on your readers’ sight.

6. Advertisments

If you’re looking to monetize your blog, having ads showing up in hot areas it’s a must, just don’t place an ad at the end of every paragraph of your post. It’s simply annoying!

Over to you

From a visual point of view, that about covers all the things that drive me away from reading a blog post.
How about you? What similar situations have you encountered while browsing the blogosphere?

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Although being a successful blogger is not an easy task, it’s not one that should frighten you. Before asking yourself if you can be one, take a moment to think about what you do and how you do it, and see how many characteristics you can tick off from the following list.

1. A successful blogger knows what he wants

He always has a target and a strategy. He likes to be organized and has solutions for “unexpected situations“.

2. A successful blogger knows what he’s doing

He is well informed and likes to read a lot about many things, not only about niche related stuff. He has a good background and solid experience in his field.

3. A successful blogger knows how to do it

He knows that “quality is not an act, it’s a habit” (Aristotle). He takes time writing and rewriting if necessary, until he achieves the best result. Also, he knows that being consistent is his strength.

4. A successful blogger is a good friend

He doesn’t see other people in his niche as competitors; he sees them as a fresh source of knowledge and experience exchange. He will always link to them whenever they write something great, as he knows that a link is a sign of appreciation.

5. A successful blogger is a good communicator

Whether it’s his writing style or his commenting activity, he’s always there when the discussion gets interesting. He’s not ashamed to ask and always glad to share some advice.

6. A successful blogger has a personality

He knows that in order to make yourself heard, you need to have a unique tone. Copy-paste is not his style, even if things have already been said. He’ll always look for that something that nobody thought about. He’ll always look to develop the topic under his signature.

7. A successful blogger is always ready for change

He knows we live dynamic times that require a dynamic mind and personality. He’s not only ready to adapt, but also he likes to keep an eye on future developments in his niche, and not only.

8. A successful blogger knows his value

He has a good sense of self-analysis. He’ll never sell himself short, and also, never truly overrate. Knowing you value means knowing your flaws. Knowing your flaws means knowing what to improve.

9. A successful blogger wants to be better

He never thinks about becoming successful. He constantly tries to improve, as, the better the quality he will provide, the more appreciated he’ll be. He’s constantly climbing a mountain without a visible top. He know how much he has climbed, knows he can go further and simply presses on.

And last, but not necessarily least…

10. A successful blogger is a healthy blogger

“Mens sana in corpore sano” (“A healthy mind in a healthy body” – latin proverb). He knows that in order to keep a sharp mind, a healthy body is required. He values his sleep hours, his meals and he has a good working schedule.

Over to you

So, after reading these ten characteristics, how many can you tick off from the list?
Do you have what it takes to be a successful blogger?

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

Sometimes, having a great idea to write about can give your blog posts a boots, but most time it’s not enough. In order to establish a good, effective level of communication with your readers you should consider a few essential factors that could improve your writings and clear their path to your readers’ minds.

When blogging on a certain topic, you’ll be automatically considered either a specialist, or an enthusiast. While enthusiasts have more premises to write using a natural tone, specialists tend to overuse industry specific language which could make it hard to spread ideas through a general audience.

In terms of communication, William Butler Yeats – Irish poet and dramatist – said it best:

“Think like a wise man but communicate in the language of the people.”
William Butler Yeats (1865 – 1939)

We’re talking about your blog, which means it’s about your thoughts, your advice, your skills, but if you don’t manage to get your ideas past the screen, they can be totally brilliant and still won’t get you anywhere.

Get to Know Your Audience

Spend some time learning more about your audience. Read the comments, visit their blogs, and ask questions. By getting to know your readers, you will find it easier to talk to them as they would expect you to.

These days, you have no excuse to say that you don’t know who your readers are, what they think and what the want. With so many free tools waiting to be used, you only have to want to communicate better.

The Value of Website Statistics

Take a look at your statistics:

1. Check out the entrance and exit paths.
2. Analyze the search terms that got your visitors on your blog and see which ones offered a better conversion from visitor to reader.
3. Check your referrers and study their content and audience.
4. Find out which posts are your most popular and most commented.
5. If you’re using Google Analytics, make sure you check you Navigation Summary (on the right side of the page under the “Content” tab)

Statistics can provide a lot of useful information about your readers and their activity on your blog.

One Way Communication Tools

Consider running polls one your blog. Readers love to feel involved, it what makes a group become a community.
WP-Polls is a wonderful and easily customizable WordPress plugin, that you can either include in your sidebar as a widget, or in the content of you blog posts. It’s the one I’m currently using on Blogsessive’s sidebar.

Two Way Communication Tools

Are you using Skribit? Skribit is a great online application that can ease the blogger-reader communication. As they call it, it’s a “social-suggestion” tool that goes in your sidebar just like a widget, allowing your readers to suggest future topics for you to blog about. Of course, you can add your own suggestions and let the readers cast their vote on them.

Alternatively, you can create a series of “Questions and Answers” posts, insuring not only a good communication level between you and your readers, but also gaining a bit of traffic through having people submitting questions by commenting.

Keep You Readers Close and Your Visitors Even Closer

If you’re looking to grow your community, learn how to talk to everyone, including your newcomers. Don’t complicate things, let your ideas speak for themselves, and on this thought, I’ll close with another great quote from the Greek philosopher Epictetus:

“Be concise in your writing and talking, especially when giving instructions to others.”
Epictetus (50-120)

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

We’ve all been there, whether we’re talking about blogging tips, games, gadgets or celebrity gossip! Content crisis is one of blogger’s biggest nightmares, making us lose sleep hours, jump meals and drink tons of coffee. Facing such a situation could be a daunting task especially for niche bloggers, since their topics are much more restrictive that those of a “all-about-everything” type of blog.

When starting a new blog, every blogger feels like he/she has lots of interesting things to share with the world. If you follow closely one such blog, you’ll definitely see a higher publishing rate in the first months, but as time passes, bloggers publish less often.

I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, as long as it is consistent, and consistency is one the greatest things a blog can achieve. With time, people get over that publish-everything fury and start dealing with more important matters, writing more insightful posts, in one word, they evolve.

But even when taking their blogging skills to a higher level, bloggers have to face the challenge of creative new, interesting and why not, intriguing content.

My Ways to Face the Content Crisis

By now, I guess you’ve figured out that I’m a blogger (surprise!), so why should I be an exception when it comes to this struggle on creating new content? I’m not, and these are my ways to face a content crisis:

1. I get out. Shut down the computer, leave the blogosphere, jump on my motorcycle and take a ride outside the city. I’m not saying you’ll have to buy a bike to get over the crisis, just leave your everyday routine and simply enjoy life as non-bloggers do. You’ll be amazed how many topics for your blog you’ll find right there, on the streets, in the park, or simply by clearing you mind through a walk.
2. I read the news. May it be a news website, or new articles on all those social bookmarking websites; it is always a good ways to generate fresh ideas by reading other people’s writings on topics of your interest.
3. I read the comments on Blogsessive. As I always try to create conversational posts, I’m fortunate to have people leaving interesting comments. That’s always a great source of inspiration.
4. I follow the discussions on some of the biggest and most active communities. Most times, going through the comments of a post on ProBlogger or Copyblogger is as fascinating as reading the post itself. You should try it too.
5. I Google it. Whenever I have a vague idea of a topic, I Google it and try to get the most useful information out it. When reading what everyone else has to say about it, you might just be the lucky one to blog about something that others have missed, or simply share your own views on the matter.
6. I write ahead. It’s always good to have one or two draft posts, ready to be published whenever you’re facing a crisis. If time is too short to write a whole post, at least write a good title and leave yourself some notes on the post’s structure and idea. As time passes, they’ll be useful, just so you don’t forget what it was about.
7. I make friends. Making friends with bloggers in your niche is not only a good traffic and authority tool, but also a great way to secure quality content when in need. Having a close friend, willing to exchange guest posts with you in less inspired moments can be a God’s gift.
8. Have you checked Wikipedia lately? Try searching for your topics of interest. You’ll always find useful information there and it’s a good way to back your affirmations as well.
9. Take a short break. Spend one or two days away from your blog – you can even announce it – and come back with a fresh mind, motivated again.
10. Although, I not a big fan of it, you can always hire a freelance writer to create a few back up posts, but be careful who you choose. The internet is full of so called specialists and article rewriters. Unique, quality content comes with a price and when you’re talking about your blog, losing your readers against a few more bucks is simply not worth it.

These are my tips on facing a content crisis situation and I hope you’ll find them useful.

Over to you

Have you dealt before with similar situations? What do you do to overcome them?

Photo credits to Cristina Chirtes.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

After reading Kevin Muldoon’s review of PicApp.com, I’ve though about sharing some tips on where and how to find free images to use in your blog posts, like I do.

I know for a fact (and Kevin confirms this too) that many bloggers use Google’s Image Search to find free photos to use on their blogs, which is cool, but not necessarily legal. Let me explain.

The Google bot has a nasty habit of indexing every information and file that is linked from your pages, which basically gives him access to the /images directory of every website. This can be fought by using a robots.txt file to prevent search engine access to directories and files.

By indexing these folders, Google will share through his results copyrighted images used to develop the websites, or images from professional photographers’ portfolios. So, these images are not free. And so says Google:

“Image may be scaled down and subject to copyright.”

So, why risk using copyrighted images when you have quite a few options of free or extremely low-cost photos available? Check them out below.

Free Photos from stock.xchng (sxc.hu)

Until now, stock.xchng has been my favorite tool for free images. Some of the images require a author notification of use, some don’t. They are all big, some have quite a high-resolution. For some topics you’ll find the perfect photo, for others, you’ll need to take a metaphorical approach, but still, they are free.

Free Photos from EveryStockPhoto.com

EveryStockPhoto is a service similar to stock.xchng, but check this out: they have 3,161,661 free photos in their database as I’m typing this. Definitely worth taking a look. Various photos come with various licenses.

Free Photos from PicApp.com

PicApp is a new website, currently in BETA stage, that lets you look (and use) for creative & editorial images. They are all high quality (like you would find on Getty Images), but there’s a downside. When embedding the image on your blog, a small animation produces when mousing over it, making way for some sponsored ads. True, the high price of the image rights don’t pay for themselves, and this is PicApp’s solution to provide high-quality FREE images. I would definitely recommend them if you’re running a celebrity or news blog. Paris Hilton, Geoge Cloney, Hillary Clinton, they are all there!

Free Photos from Photoree.com

Photoree is a service that’s searching Flickr database for images released under the Creative Commons license. After you sign up (free), you have the possibility of creating filters to display only images of interest to you. Thanks CTI97 for suggesting to add this service.

Free Photos from FreeFoto.com

FreeFoto has been around for many years and has a database of about 115.000 photos, organized in about 3000 categories. While some tech photos are a bit “old”, you’ll always find here nice travel images. They are free to use, but at a web resolution and with a link back and attribution. Higher resolutions are available for a price.

One Dollar Photo Resources

This is a somehow recent type of selling images online. Websites like Dreamstime.com, iStockPhoto.com and Stockxpert.com sell stock images for prices that go as low as one dollar. Basically, anyone can register and start submitting images that would generate revenue. By selling the images more than once, the owner can afford the low price for a very good quality. So, if your online activity generates enough income, these photos probably worth a $1 investment.

Other Resources

Some photographers share their work with the public, releasing their photos under the Public Domain license. You you’re one of them, or know one, add a comment and I’ll add it to this list:

• FreeArtisticPhotos.com

Tight Budget?

No more! Now you can have your free or very cheap, but most important, LEGAL photos to spice up your blog!

Photo credits to Miguel Ugalde.
Post has been updated to include EveryStockPhoto.com and Photoree.com.

Free PDF eBook: Corporate Blogging Guide by Blogsessive

With the amazing amount of blogs available out there, a question raises naturally. Why do we read some blogs, and not others? Why do we follow certain bloggers and become more active in their comments section? Content, information is definitely one of the key factors, but what is information if it’s not nicely wrapped in a good delivery package?

Think of your articles as if they were products on a shelf. Are you going to pick the cheapest looking? Surely not! That’s also available for bloggers. The way you deliver your message is extremely important and finding the right tone should be a top priority on your list.

Different people have different personalities. Your own style can help you connect with some people, while pushing others away. So, basically the keyword should be: Balance.

Shifting from classic media to blogs

Over the years we’ve seen a migration of readers from classic media like newspapers to blogs. No matter how talented some journalists are, they still have writing guidelines to follow when writing an article in the paper, which means that their own tone will be moderated by the overall publication’s tone. Knowing this, many of them decided to publish additional blogs, where they could express in a more natural way.

This is the advantage that bloggers have over the classic media. We can be ourselves, 100%.

Real life examples to consider

There is obviously a reason why our websites are called personal blogs. Not only because we keep track of things we’ve done, or personal experiences, but also because creating a community around our blogs is like growing a group of friends and acquaintances.

When writing our articles we should always consider our audience, our topics, and most times get personal with our community by letting aside any corporate twaddle that could throw a cold shadow over our postings.

So, how do we do it? Imagine these three real life situations and think about how they apply in your case:

1. You’re in your living room with a group of friends, having a relaxing chatter;
2. You’re in a pub or at a party with a mixed group of friends and people you barely know;
3. You’re in a meeting with people you’ve just met.

What tone do you choose when addressing the audience in each of the above situations?

From where I stand, I believe that the tone you’d go for in the first situation would be perfect for a family blog, or a blog you share mostly with your friends. The third situation can easily be applied to corporate blogs, where a more conservative style is necessary.

The tone for the second situation is the most difficult to find, due to the amount of unknown variables such as interests, characters or adversities. Even so, when blogging you have the advantage of your focused information, which, in most cases, tells enough about your readers’ preferences, and this is where balance comes into play.

From personal experience

Take Blogsessive for example. My posts have a personal touch. I like to talk about how I feel about what other people said, share my opinion on some blogging tips or posts, or publish blog writing tips from my own experience.

Words like “me”, “I” and “you” can be found in each of my posts because they ensure a conversational style. I use a moderate tone in my articles, but as soon as someone decides that a post deserves a comment (which is quite a big step to take), I get more personal and try to use a style that would find an echo with my commenter. Many times, before even posting my comment, I visit my reader’s blog and learn about him: who is he, what does he like, what does he talk about and how does he do it; and I would suggest that you do the same, obviously, based on the amount of time that you have at your disposal.

Hi, my name is Alex and I’m a blogger!

So, basically, finding the right tone is not that hard. It only takes a bit of time to experiment with different styles and approaches, real life situations and deciding based on the reactions.

How about you? What are you blogging about and how did you come up with your perfect tone?

Photo credits to Janet Burgess

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Have you ever come across a post title that startled your interest, but as soon as you got to the content you couldn’t read it? I did! And why didn’t I read the post if the title was so interesting? Because the content was too cluttered. Because no matter how valuable was the information, I simple could not pull my self to go through a labyrinth of words to find the good ideas.

When you’re offering quality information, are you willing to lose your readers because you did not organize your blog post the right way? It’s extremely important to have a better structure in each blog post, before you hit that “Publish” button, and by doing so, you will dramatically increase your blog’s readability.

What I need to find in a blog post

As I said, I often come across long, cluttered posts that annihilate the initial interest. I bet that most of them offered great insight on different matters, but, to make me read them it would have taken some of these elements to guide me:

• Write a short introductory paragraph and tell me exactly what I’m about to read.
• Make use of paragraphs and line breaks. Huge blocks of text are very hard to scan.
• Make use of lists. I’m a list fanatic. Lists are easy to scan and stand out of all those text blocks. Try to put valuable information in them.
• Whenever you talk about numbers and statistics, use graphics. It’s much easier for me to read and interpret a graph, instead of reading 2 paragraphs about percentages.
• Give me more things to read. In your posts, sometimes you mention things that are related to the topic, but you don’t want to develop more. Link them to a place where I can read more about them, preferably on your blog, but it’s OK if it’s elsewhere too (Wikipedia.com for example).
• Whenever you link to another blog post or website, use strong, descriptive text anchors.
• Ask me questions, smart questions. I love to put my mind at work, and if the question is interesting enough, I’ll answer in your comments, or even blog about it, giving you a free backlink.
• Create blog post sections and use subheadings so that I can jump between paragraphs of interest.
• Use basic text styles to make some ideas or elements more noticeable. Use bold and italics.

Conclusion

To achieve success in life or business, you need to be organized. A post is successful when it gathers more readers and backlinks. Organize it. Keep the important information clean and noticeable, and you will see not only more readers, but also more time spent on your blog and a lower bounce rate.

If you’re looking for more information on how to organize your blog post you should also read this article: The Proper Structure of a Blog Post.

Photo Credits to Jay Simons.

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They say that experience is the best teacher. And it is. The only problem is that experience can be both good and bad. Some things we have to experiment for ourselves to see the results, but for the others we have so many experienced bloggers sharing so much valuable knowledge that it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. Here are some of my favorite blogging tips for this second part of the series:

From ‘Dosh Dosh’

“Every blog comment is usually permanent. It’s not just a hyperlink but a long-term representation of your brand.”

Commenting on other blogs is a bit like guest posting. You expose yourself to a new auditorium and before considering building traffic, you should think about how will that comment make you look. Have you read my post on Comments: Building Traffic or Increasing Awareness?

“Knowledge only becomes an asset when it is shared.”

Maki really did it with this one! I can swear this quote will make history. It’s pretty much self-explanatory.

From ‘Lorelle on WordPress’

“A post title sitting in my feed reader must inspire me to click. That takes a lot of energy.”

Having a strong title is essential and Lorelle explains how to create better ones. Readers are very selective. You either provide an eye-catchy title, or say good bye to your potential reader.

“You never know where a bit of inspiration will come from, so keep your mind open to all possiblities.”

Remember my 10 Blogging Tips from the Top 100 Songs of 2007 post? I was looking for some tracks to listen on the Rolling Stone Magazine website and the idea just popped into my head. And by writing this I’ve just remembered a famous movie quote: “Life Is like a Box of Chocolates… You Never Know What You’re Gonna Get!”

From ‘Chris Garett on New Media’

“It’s about putting yourself into your blog and not seeing it purely as a cash delivery device.”

I can’t remember how many times I’ve read this and on how many blogs, and still it has to be told again and again. Be yourself, and actually, be a better version of yourself before even considering making money.

“Choosing a name for your blog is like choosing a name for a child, you have to choose carefully because it could stick around for a long time.”

Kids are mean. Remember your childhood? Those kids with funny names and all the jokes they had to take? Would you like your blog to be the target of all those mean jokes?

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Having a successful blog is not an easy thing. It takes time, dedication, creativity, knowledge and patience. There aren’t many roads that lead to success and finding the one that’s right for you can be a daunting task. It’s obviously hard to make a name for yourself and it gets harder when you think about how easy it is to mess things up and in how many ways you can do so. Just read the following “blogging tips” to screw up and judge for yourself.

1. Start a blog when you know for sure you won’t have time to update it regularly;
2. Blog about everything when knowing too little about anything;
3. Blog about one particular topic without any experience in the field;
4. Blog without passion;
5. Blog without personality;
6. Write more about needs and less about solutions;
7. Publish copyrighted content without the author’s permission;
8. Translate and publish content without even mentioning the original source;
9. Don’t pay attention to simple things in life, where you could find inspiration for content;
10. Ignore the basic rules of structuring an article;
11. Talk too much about yourself;
12. Don’t read other blogs;
13. Don’t read the news;
14. Don’t take part in your blog’s conversations;
15. Ask your readers to register to post comments;
16. Ignore your RSS readers;
17. Don’t pay too much attention to spam comments and trackbacks;
18. Start flames with your readers;
19. Start flames with other bloggers;
20. Don’t comment on other blogs in your niche;
21. Ignore the importance of SEO;
22. Write excessively for search engines;
23. Over promote your blog, or don’t promote it at all;
24. Ignore your statistics. Nothing interesting there! Nothing about your most popular articles, nothing about referrals or search engine appeal;
25. Think first of how to make money, and then how to be a better blogger;
26. Publish more advertising than content;
27. Take all blogging tips and advice for granted and don’t pass them through your personal filter;
28. Fill your blog with unnecessary plugins and widgets;
29. Keep your blog’s default design theme;
30. Don’t update your blogging platform, theme and plugins.

See how easy it is to screw up? Do you want to be successful? Do you want to make money with your blog? Then, think first about how you can improve your blog and your blogging skills. Nobody is born successful. Real success is built brick by brick!

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We all love music. We love music because it makes us feel good, it relaxes us, touches our hearts and minds through lyrics and ideas found in them. But how about finding great blogging tips in some of our favorite songs’ titles?

50 Cent – “I Get Money”

Unless you’re running a personal blog with no intention of monetizing, follow 50 Cent’s advice and get money. There are many ways to monetize your blog: displaying ads, affiliate networks, link selling, review, you name it. Experiment, see which one brings “the big bucks”, but be careful if you care about your PageRank and the love of Google’s search engine.

Britney Spears – “Piece of Me”

Don’t publish a post without leaving a personal note on the subject. For your readers, your blog is who you are; it’s a piece of you. Let them see you views in everything you post.

Justin Timberlake – “What Goes Around… Comes Around”

Do you want comments and trackbacks? Do you want more incoming links? Offer comments and links before asking or waiting for them, because what goes around comes around. Of course, great content plays and important role too.

Common – “The People”

Your blog is not about you, it’s about your readers, their problems, their needs. Solve them and see how more and more people come back each day, looking for your advice.

Dr. Dog – “Old News”

We live dynamic times! The news flow runs at huge speed. If you want to publish news, make sure you have at least new information, if not exclusives. Old news won’t even get your post showing in up in search results.

Anthony Hamilton – “Do You Feel Me”

Find the right tone in your writings. Blogging is close to journalism, but not quite. Bloggers have the luxury of choosing sides, of asking for help from their community, of engaging in their readers’ conversations. Be present on your blog, with your own opinions and needs.

Maroon 5 – “Makes Me Wonder”

Be original; create content that makes users ask themselves questions. Give links to resources; guide your readers through the online jungle in their search for more information on a topic. Further more, if you are the one to start the topic, it’s even better!

John Doe – “Pressing On”

Take a look at your stats and see which posts receive high traffic. Read them again and see if there are any ideas that you can develop or that you’ve missed. If there are, turn them in new posts. Add links (clusters) between these posts and transfer traffic.

Patrick Wolf – “The Magic Position”

Keep your blog focused! Pick a niche and stick to it. If you care about your search engine ranking, concentrate on publishing relevant content. Brand your blog’s voice!

Modest Mouse – “Dashboard”

With the recent launch of WordPress 2.5 you have to take full advantage of your new dashboard. You now have the possibility of following your favorite bloggers through RSS Feeds in your administration panel. Get connected, get inspired, get updated!

Article inspired by Clay Collins‘ article on Copyblogger.

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When launching Blogsessive, I’ve tried to put myself in your place to find the reasons for not reading a blog. Some of the answers came out fast, but for some, I had to look around the web to form a better opinion.
So, if you want me as your reader and I’m not one, it’s probably because…

I don’t like the way you write.

And no, I’m not talking about your “style”. You could be a beginner and style is developed in time. What I don’t like is all the emoticons and differences in font and color styling that you use. I really care about my eyes and forcing me to go through a jungle of styles to read your article is pretty annoying. Keep it simple: titles, subtitles, bold, italics, blockquotes and lists.

I read but I don’t hear you.

I’m not asking you to start posting multimedia on your blog, audio or video, even though it’s quite a trend (for some a necessity) these days. It’s just that I keep reading your post but I can’t find a way to relate.
Engage me in a discussion, keep my interest up, talk to me, ask me. Let’s communicate. If I don’t feel that I’m asked to interact, I won’t.

I’m on your blog and so is everyone else.

And further more, it seams that a few more other bloggers are on your blog too! Are you still using the default theme? Or maybe the most downloaded or popular theme on WordPress.org? Change it! Personally, I hate talking over the phone. I prefer a face-to-face conversation any time, and for me, your reader, your blog’s aspect is your face. Show yourself!

I’m on your blog, but you’re not.

I’ve decided to give your article a chance and even post a comment. Then another one, and one more, but you’re nowhere to be found. Your blog is useless without me, and other people like me that read and share their thoughts. Respect our interest and be present in our conversations. Interact with me!

I can’t find an article of interest.

I’m not saying that they are not, but my time is limited. I have work to do, my own blog to update and a personal life too. I’ll only be looking at your titles and decide whether I’ll be reading any further or not. If your title is something like “I Was Wondering…”, I’ll most probably leave you to wonder alone. But if you’re specific about a problem and I’m interested in that too, chances are that I’ll click and read your post, and who knows, maybe even add a comment.

You’ve got me with one post, but where are the others?

Please, don’t waste my time making me click through countless links to get to another post. I want to see what’s new, what others have enjoyed reading on your blog, I need a visible search option and clickable tags. Yes, I like tags. They help me find related content fast and easy.

Your blog claims to be focused, yet I see your pictures everywhere.

I’m really glad you’ve enjoyed your vacation, that you have such a nice dog and that you listen to such good music, but that’s not why I’ve come to your blog. You said that you’re writing about “design trends”, so please, don’t mix these topics with personal ones. From time to time is acceptable, but be moderate.

I can’t follow you.

Where are your feeds? Where can I subscribe? I can’t take a full day typing website addresses in the URL bar. I have one to cover them all. Trust me, if your title and even a small excerpt of your post catch my attention, I’ll come by and read your post, on your blog, giving you a unique visitor and probably a few more pageviews, if you know how to lead me through your blog.

Some say that you should be blogging for your readers if you want to be a successful blogger. Other say that you should write for yourself, to be yourself when writing, and readers will come and appreciate that. Personally, I think it’s a mixture of them both. Be yourself but organize for your readers. Step out of your blog’s box and try to look through my eyes. Do you like what you see?

Photo credits to Lars Sundström

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The mirage of blogging keeps on attracting more and more people each day and with it, bloggers and online publishers hurry to launch debates on tips and best practices.

There is no secret that some of these blogging tips available on many blogs out there are written out of the desire to catch a profitable train or only to align with a publishing trend.

Some of these blogs only offer tips based on myths, without a reference or statistic background. What are these myths and my arguments against them?

Post at least once a day

This is my personal favorite. Not because posting daily would be a bad thing for your blog, but because it can’t be applied to every blogger. Posting junk only because you want to make a post every day will turn against you sooner or later. Post whenever you have something meaningful or important to say.

Posting takes 10 minutes

First of all, posting takes a few seconds “Write – Write Post – “Lorem ipsum” – Publish”.
If you’re writing on a specific subject, creating a “worth reading” post takes more than 10 minutes. It takes time to find information, resources, reference and develop an opinion. Again, this myth is not generally applicable since not all blogs out there are personal blogs, or blogs created only to follow the trend, and abandoned after one month.

Setting up a blog takes a few minutes

Technically it does, but then you will have “Just another WordPress weblog”. Your blog, personal or professional, has to have an identity of its own. Get a new theme, customize it yourself or get someone to help you with that. There are hundreds of resourceful websites available online, most of them free. Why not taking advantage of it?

There are too many blogs

Not by far. Only a small percentage of them are well targeted, maintained and promoted. If you’re serious about it, there always place for one more. It only takes a bit of study and dedication.

Publishing RSS feeds will affect your traffic

Then consider writing something more interesting and intriguing. Establish a relation with your readers, engage them in discussions and they’ll come to your site, looking to post a comment or read others’ thoughts on you post. Further more, I invite you to take a look at some of the world’s most famous blogs, check their traffic level and their number of subscribers.

Keep publishing and Google will do the rest to get you traffic

You can be an undiscovered genius, but by following this myth you have every chance of remaining undiscovered. Promote yourself, interact with other bloggers in your niche, engage in comments and participate actively in social networks. While search engines can generate enough traffic for your blog, the above mentioned methods will help you get loyal readers.

Offer some free stuff

It pretty much depends on what you are offering. Is it unique? Is it a “must have” or at least helpful? Is it high quality? Answer yourself these questions and if you don’t have at least a positive answer, reconsider your “give away”.

Criticize or insult a famous blogger

Yes, I’ve heard this one too. People love fights, but unless you are 110% sure of what you’re saying or better qualified than him/her, you’re just another easy target, soon to be victim. Talking “crap” is like walking on thin ice. Be careful!

Bottom line is: Nothing is generally applicable. Document yourself, experiment, find out what works best for you and make a difference between tips and laws.

Photo credit to Steve Woods.

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I’m sure that many of you have wondered why some bloggers have thousands of subscribers, why their blogs are called “authority blogs” and why they receive constant or growing traffic. Yes, their writing skills are excellent, they provide good insight on different matters and/or they have a charming personality, but when it comes to blogging, there is one thing capable of deciding your success in only a few weeks: Consistency.

Importance of blogging consistency

Why is consistency important and how much it affects your blog? If you’re a casual blogger, writing about you math class or how your fish did 3 back-flips last evening, it probably won’t affect you too much, since your target would most likely be your classmates or close friends; but if you’re serious about maintaining an online successful blog, than constancy should be a top priority to you.

We’ve all heard that quality is better to have than quantity, but what if you can achieve both? What if you really have what it takes to intrigue you readers, to make them come back for more? And what if your readers keep coming back, only to find no new posts or new comments? Then, all your talent is wasted, and your initial effort was in vain.

These days, when the online environment is full of wonderful tools like StumbleUpon, Digg or del.icio.us, that make our web experience more pleasant and help us find information easier, people tend to get comfortable, do less typing in the address bar of their browser. That’s why you can be certain that your blog gets a lot of traffic from RSS readers. From time to time, I do like to navigate through my favorite blogs, looking for new posts, or reading old posts that I’ve missed, but 90% of the time I use my RSS readers to keep an eye on blog updates. So ask yourselves this: How am I supposed to come to your blog, if you don’t alert me constantly? And how can you alert me? By writing new posts! Further more, if your posts are high quality readings, you’ve got yourselves a loyal subscriber!

How can you insure your blogging consistency?

We all have bad days, less inspiring moments or simply don’t have the time to write even 2 paragraphs on a topic. What can be done to overpass these moments? Take advantage of your less busy days. Write, take notes, read more, get informed and form opinions of your own. Sure you can write a post, publish it and then go back to writing and publishing another one, but wouldn’t it be great if instead of this publishing frenzy you would save a draft of your second post, only to publish later, at a time when you won’t have the same idea-flow you had that day?

From a subscriber-statistic point of view, publishing 2 articles the same day will get you X unique visitors and 2*X pageviews that day, while publishing one the next day will insure your X unique visitors for 2 days in a row, and you’ll still have a respectable pageviews quota. If you’d ask me, I’d go for the uniques!

What do the search engines say?

With a new blog launched every second of the day, who do you think will win the search engines’ blessing? I put my money on those that keep a constant publishing flow, provide relevant results and maintain a high traffic level.

This is why consistency is essential for your blogging success, a huge factor in getting quality traffic, backlinks and reader loyalty.

So, blogsessed friends, how do you overpass your bad days and keep your level of publishing constant?

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We’ve all heard the cliché “Content is King”. And it’s true – the more quality content your site has, the more both the readers and the search engines will like you for it. However, good content only means something when it’s presented properly: you could have the best tips on how to make money to be found anywhere, but if the structure of the blog post isn’t right, then it’s just as if those killer tips weren’t even there.

Let’s start at the beginning: the crucial part of any blog post is the introductory paragraph. This should be no more than a couple of lines and should be short and snappy, summarizing the article. The purpose of the first couple of sentences is to inform the reader about the post to come, and entice him or her into reading the whole thing with promises of some juicy content.

Next comes the main content. Different points should always be separated by different paragraphs, possibly with their own sub-heading. Either these sub-headings or the first sentence of each new paragraph should be the “leader” sentence. This is somewhat akin to the introductory paragraph: it should summarize the lines to come and almost force the reader to carry on exploring the post. Like the first paragraph, the leader should be short and snappy, ideally containing a controversial phrase. Controversy sells best on the web, and a unique and intriguing leader sentence will lure your readers into continuing to read the paragraph. Example leader sentences could be: ‘I can make you rich, with little effort on your part, in seven days flat.’ or ‘For years people have wasted their money on expensive blogging platforms without realising there was a free alternative.’ The rest of the paragraph should solely be based around the leader sentence, and should embellish it until a new point needs to be made. Remember: new point, new paragraph.

In addition to all of this, you need to keep your reader interested. Break up paragraphs often to avoid big chunks of text. As the average time spent on a website is purely a matter of seconds, you need all the help you can get into persuading the reader that your blog post is worth reading. If you have lists, then always use numbers or bullet points. Never nestle or embed them, that is to say never put lists in an ordinary sentence using commas in the middle of a paragraph. In fact, always try and turn things into lists where possible. They’re easy to reference, read and find. “Top 20 Blogging Platforms” sounds much better than “An in-depth discussion of the pros and cons of several of the leading blogging platforms”. People always need to be able to easily access and digest information.

Don’t forget your summary paragraph: a short round-up of what you’ve been talking about, and if necessary a conclusion. Ideally, include RSS and further information to aid your readers. A cliff-hanger which subtly promotes your next post is another great idea.Good luck!

A guest post by Heebie.

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Over the years, experience has thought bloggers how to define their online personality, writing skills and furthermore use these skills to help less-experienced bloggers evolve. This is a hand-picked collection of the best blogging tips from the world’s top bloggers.

From ‘Lorelle on WordPress’

“Bloggers love to have other bloggers link to their sites”
Lorelle looks at linking as a strategy. Not only a strategy to exchange links and increase traffic, but as a strategy to reach people and build relationships. In the long run, this strategy would bring more traffic to your blog than those shameless self-promoting comments and posts!

“Give without expectation of return”
From Lorelle’s point of view, linking or positive writing about someone / something else should be done without expecting positive feedback, comments or backlinks. Write or link only because you like that someone, or their articles and don’t ask to get the same in return. It’s not a negotiation!

From ‘Problogger’

“Prove yourself first”
Darren Rowse, the man behind Problogger.com comments on how to build a good reputation inside a network. “There’s nothing more frustrating that networking with someone who disappears a couple of weeks later”, says Darren. The best thing you can do is to prove that you’re here to stay. Be constant and contribute to the network!

“Give your best content away”
If you want to build a solid base of readers, there is nothing better than constantly providing great content. Don’t save your best posts for later, or it might be too late. “The best way [...] to convince people that you’ll write great content in future is to show them great content now”, says Darren.

From ‘Copyblogger’

“Taking time to think”
While many wish to become successful bloggers, only a few manage to do so. Why? James Chartrand has found the secret key: “we don’t take the time”. In his opinion, the best thing you can do when writing a new article is to sit down and think about every possible way to present the story, as well as taking time to find the best informational resources.

“Personal branding”
“The key to effectively building your profile is the value you provide to others and what they say in result, not what you say about yourself”, stated Brian Clark, founder of Copyblogger.

More blogging tips…

Next week, in the second part of this series, Blogsessive will bring you more high-quality blogging tips from the world’s top bloggers. Stay tuned!

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You’ve finally got your WordPress blog online and your hopes up. You’re writing articles and expecting readers to drop-in soon, but time passes and nothing happens. You know your articles are a good reading, so why aren’t readers showing up? That’s because you need to improve your online visibility, your WordPress SEO score.

In my past article, Better Blog SEO Plugin, I’ve presented a tool to help you easily manage your SEO needs. Now it’s time to explain how to test the results, and if the results are not as good as expected, how to update your content and SEO accordingly.

Let’s say you’ve optimized your home page and/or post page for some keywords, but still search engines refuse to index you higher and searches for those keywords aren’t providing you with any visitors. Most probably, that’s because your content is not relevant in relationship with the provided keywords. At this time, you have 2 choices:

1. Rethink your website’s keyword list and meta tags

Scan through your posts, find the most common and relevant keywords and modify your keywords meta tag accordingly. Use these keywords in the page’s title tag and for the description try to get a small paragraph that uses in a logic and readable way the provided keywords. The closer this description comes to a text paragraph available on the page, the more relevant it will be.

2. Rebuild your most recent content around the old keywords.

This option is the most time-consuming, but if you know you’ve got a good keyword list, with good search engine results (only not for you), then it should worth the effort. Always keep in mind how much competition you have for that keyword list, and how powerful that competition is. Otherwise you’re efforts will be in vain. It’s always better to fight for 1.000 relevant results and get the most of it, that for 10.000.000 results and get none.

Once you’ve done one of the above steps, the best thing you can do is to check the results with one of the following free available online SEO tools:

DomainTools.com – The Whois tool available on this domain provides users with a SEO rating of the queried domain, as well as with a SEO browser to analyze you page from a search engine’s point of view. It also makes suggestions on the things that still need to be done to increase your SEO score.

SEOCentro.com – SEO Centro provides user with a very helpful, free online meta tag analyzer. This way you can learn more about your meta tags, their relevance and also the most popular keywords found in your blog’s content.

There are of course many more online SEO tools, but these 2 should be enough to help you find your way around your blog’s SEO.

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