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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.

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With the StudioPress WordPress themes you can really take your blog to a higher level!

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.

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Becoming friends with popular bloggers is an important goal for all those just starting or wanting to get their blogs into the spotlight. After starting to comment on the blogs you love, you’ve realized guest posting on those very same blogs would help tighten the relationship and also bring you increased exposure and new waves of visitors. So you’ve added a new task on your blogging calendar.

Now that you’ve made up your mind about guest-posting, you’ve come up with a list of popular blogs in your niche and in related fields where it would be great for you to be featured as contributor. And an important question arises: how to convince the blog owner you’d add value to his or her blog through your guest entry?

First, get acquainted with the topics and general style of the blog. Yes, you read the blog almost daily. But have you really asked yourself why exactly you like what you read, how the topics are chosen and how they are related with past entries? Have you thoroughly analyzed the views and style, or have you just enjoyed the reading without realizing what exactly was causing your state of mind? Being thorough will do wonders and lead you to pitching a great post idea.

Second, get to know more about the blog owner’s views and requirements on guest posting. Are there other guest posts on the blog in question? Has he or she ever guest posted on other blogs? Is there a page with guest posting guidelines, an open invitation to submit fresh content or an editorial calendar or a monthly theme of sorts? Once you find the answers to these questions, you should start thinking of topics to cover.

Don’t start writing at once! Instead, think of a short list of possible entries, draft a headline and a paragraph explaining the main idea and the chosen form and then contact the blogger. I know some advise you to just submit your work and let them choose. But what seems like acting against their wishes is actually a time saver: if they don’t like the ideas, you don’t waste time writing it and they don’t waste time reading too much. Plus, if the story sounds interesting but it’s not exactly what they need, they might in turn suggest something better.

When contacting them, remember the old story: make it about them and the potential benefits for their blog, not about you! I know you’ve read this everywhere, but as there are still so many forgetting this important detail, it’s better to point it out.

Bonus Tips

These guidelines should help you close quite a few guest posting deals on top notch blogs out there, but if it’s not enough, here are some bonus one liner tips:

• Blend your personal style with the style of the blog you’re guest posting on;
• When you thing you’re done, proofread and edit again;
• Consider carefully all positive and negative feedback from the blog owner;
• Stick to your deadline unless something really big happens;
• Post-publishing: remember to thank the blogger for welcoming you on the blog;
• Post-publishing: help with post promotion and reply to all comments;
• Post-publishing: get a “portfolio” of guest posts together for your next pitch.

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About a gazillion people have blogs today. Devoted to anything from garden gnomes, celeb’s plastic surgery to the life of living in Papa New Guinea, blogs have become an easy way for average Joe to share his daily contemplations with the world. But with so many blogs, at least a couple of hundred per niche, you might need some help in sticking out.

As you can see we have taken the liberty to list five things that will help your blog reach great heights. All tricks below are equally useful and are hence not listed by worth.

1. Update with weekly content

A common expectation on a blog website is frequently updated content. Popular blogs normally have a high percentage of returning visitors through personal bookmarks or RSS feeds. If that is your ambition, you have to make sure to give your visitors reason enough to come back. New spaced out blog posts normally do the trick.

2. Create unique interesting content

Mentioning the importance of quantity and frequency above it is only fair to list quality as yet another important blog preference. And much like this article you should focus on bringing unique, practical and useful information to the reader. Internet users also normally tend to go mental over “How To”-guides and “Top 10″ listings. Quality blog posts will generate more RSS feeds and loyal visitors.

3. Search engine optimization

A must for any website. Onsite and offsite search engine optimization gives your blog the best chances of ranking high in Google, MSN Live or Yahoo. Researching popular search terms and including them in your blog post titles is a good example of relevant onsite SEO.

4. Engage in the blog community

There are several good and well-visited online blog directories where you can submit your blog. It will not only generate traffic but also help you create an awareness of your blog. Get on Twitter, Digg, and StumbleUpon but remain active in those communities, don’t leech

5. Get proper web design with premium themes

If you have WordPress, you also have a smorgasbord of web designed themes to choose between. There are the ones that cost nothing and normally have the traditional “diary” structure and graphics. But if you want to increase your blog’s credibility and give a real professional look – WordPress Premium Themes is the way to go. You will get away from always being associated with a simple blog and join the big boys as a dynamic and serious website.

And it goes without saying, quality content is essential. If you spend time writing crap then you are doomed to fail no matter what. And this does not mean boring topics. If you are writing about dull topics to your audience, try to spice them up. There are many programming websites, theoretical academic sites, and even the mundane web hosting sites that are lively and well designed for their audience.

About the Author

Brian Franklin is the proud owner of several websites and has been active in the web hosting games for many years. You can read more interesting posts on his website hosting blog, where he writes about hosting, platforms and performance, news and random bits and more.

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I believe that educated clients, who understand your job as a SEO specialist, are good clients. That way you avoid misunderstandings, many frustrating situations for you and your client and you may work more efficiently.

A client that nods their head just to get rid of you. on the other hand, needs more time to work on, more time to explain anything and thus, you lose time that you could spend on implementing the SEO strategy. And even then, you are never sure if the client actually agrees with you or still wants to get to their own business. You simply waste time and money with that kind of attitude.

Teaching your clients about SEO

That’s why, before starting a SEO campaign, you should educate your client in SEO/SEM. I’m not talking about deep training, basic things should suffice. If you don’t work directly with your employer, but with a certain team (marketing or web design agency) you should focus on giving them a glimpse on what SEO is (and what is not).

You may prepare a document describing SEO, that you will deliver to those involved in the project, and especially in the SEO process. Keeping it short and simple should prevent people from taking it lightly from not reading it.

You may also spend 2 hours to meet them in person and talk about the SEO strategy. Now, that is much better as they will interact with you and ask questions if you manage to startle their interest. They will be also happy to have 2 hours off work, when you do the job and they listen. Get some cookies and coffee, make them feel relaxed, not stressed. You don’t want to scare them with your knowledge or with what you have to say.

Don’t talk too much about details, but if you see they want more, go for it. Explain them what they need to know and of course, what they should know about SEO.

If you are working as a freelancer or on distant location, do a phone or Skype conference. A video conference is even better as you may see your audience and they can see you. Discuss the benefits of having a SEO strategy and make them feel involved in the process, just as if you were a team.

If your client is a hopeless cause, you need to find a way to reach him/her; and since all clients are different, you’ll need to come up with different approach techniques. Don’t try the same tactics and expect them to react the same way. You need to be active and creative about delivering information and knowledge about SEO.

Good luck!

And now, how do you deal with your clients? Do you educate them? Or maybe they know what SEO is and there is no need to get into details?
Share your experience with us!

About the author

Paweł Szulencki is a SEO/SEM certified specialist and the owner of the Search Engine Optimization & Marketing blog SEOBlogr.com. Make sure you visit his blog for more information on SEO, Marketing, Google and all things search engine related.

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Everyone gets all excited about WordPress when they find that nearly any feature they could want can be added through a plugin system, but there are issues with depending on plugins that people should consider before loading up on additional features.

Delays in Releases

One of the biggest issues that occurs in the WordPress plugin world is that the plugin developers can’t keep up with the developments in the WordPress core. A great example of this is PodPress, a very popular podcasting plugin for WordPress that still, after two months, does not have a new release to work with WordPress 2.6.

Dropping support

One day the plugin that you enjoy using might just disappear. The developer giving up on supporting it, and if it isn’t very popular in the wider circles, then there will most likely not be anyone there to pick up where they left off. This looked like it was going to happen to the very popular All in One SEO plugin, but at the last minute, someone else committed themselves to furthering the plugin.

Troubleshooting

Troubleshooting performance issues is nearly impossible if you are like myself and install multiple plugins all at once. Then to find where the bottleneck in performance came from you have to deactivate them. Sometimes though, issues don’t arise until a combination of plugins are active, or you do certain things that they weren’t developed for.

An issue I had on College Crunch, a WordPress powered blog, was that I had made many pages, rather than posts, and in doing so, a plugin that effected how I managed pages started having issues, causing the page management screen to be blank. I deactivated every plugin that I thought interacted with pages, but it was one that was related to searching and SEO. I didn’t realize this until someone else turned it off resolving the issue immediately. I would have never guessed, and so I had blamed WordPress, the web host, and everything else. I definitely felt like I had egg on my face after that, and will definitely endeavor to blame WordPress plugins before anything else.

Conclusion

The more plugins you add to your WordPress blog, the more chances you’ll have to expose yourself to one of the many downsides of a community oriented plugin system. I love WordPress because of its plugins, but I have had my share of frustrations due to them as well.

About the author

David Peralty is the owner the “eXtra For Every Publisher” blog, also know as XFEP. He’s got a strong background in the online environment gathered while working with companies such as Splashpress Media and PicApp. He’s currently a Project Manager over at CollegeCrunch.org. If you still haven’t subscribed to his blog, you’re really missing out on things that you shouldn’t miss.

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Alina Popescu, owner of WordsOfABrokenMirror.com has been a long time reader (once guest poster) of Blogsessive, and also a very good friend. It’s been a pleasure for me to contribute to her blog and I encourage you to go read my latest post there, Who Cares What “Simon Says”? and subscribe to her feed as you’ll find a lot of interesting PR and Marketing stuff there.

Here a small excerpt from the post:

The list of blogs and online magazines offering tips and advice has been growing exponentially every year. [...]
With all the hype created around this type of blogs and the (in)famous “make money online” blogs, people seem to overlook one significant thing: these blogs offer tips and advice, but encourage you to experiment.
Click here to continue reading.

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Since Alex has been kind enough to allow me to contribute a guest post on his blog, I thought it would be appropriate to write about, well, guest blogging. I believe guest blogging should be a top priority for anyone who is serious about building their online presence. After all, what better opportunity is there to expose your name to a new audience that to post on someone else’s blog?

Finding the Right Blog

I know people like to say that there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but you want to make sure your guest blog contributes to your overall goal of brand building. For this reason, you should conduct careful research to find a blog suited for your needs. If you’re an offshore welder, you probably wouldn’t get much benefit from posting on a blog about flowers. But that’s common sense, right? So, the first step is to find a blog you can contribute your expertise to.

After discovering a few blogs in your niche, you want to find one that has a following. If you’re going to take the time to create a well crafted guest post, you want to make sure at least a few people are reading it. And with so many fly by night blogs out there, it’s hard to find one with a loyal audience. The best way to determine if a blog has a good following is by checking out the comments. If all of the posts consistently generate a few comments, you’ve probably found a good blog to post on.

Getting to Know the Blogger

Before you jump right in and ask the blogger if you can contribute a guest post, you should settle down and get to know the blog. Study the old posts, and subscribe to the RSS feed. This will help you get a feel for the general theme and tone of the blog.

Furthermore, you should become a regular in the comments section. And, no, saying “good post” after every entry doesn’t count as being a regular. As readers of Blogsessive discovered in a recent post, you need to make your comments stand out. Doing this will get the attention of the author, and you can create a relationship this way. It also helps you get a more intimate feel for the blog’s audience, which will help you craft your post should you become a guest blogger.

Ask the Author

If you wait around long enough and you write enough comments, the blogger might eventually ask you to contribute a guest post. Then again, he might not.

That’s why the best way to land a role as a guest blogger is to come right out and ask for it. As an example, I’ve been a loyal reader here on Blogsessive for a few months now, and I shot an e-mail to Alex asking if he needed someone to contribute a guest post. As luck would have it, he was going to be out of town for a few days, and he needed someone to step in. Now, here I am.

All you have to do is ask. The worst they can say is “no”.

Making the Most of Your Opportunity

Now that you’ve landed a spot as a guest blogger, the real work comes in. You have one chance to impress this new audience with your knowledge, ability, and personality. It really is a lot to tackle. This is why many guest bloggers fall flat on their faces.

Don’t over think your guest post. If you try too hard to be smart and witty, the audience will spot you for the phony you are. Instead, just be yourself. Write a post that shows your knowledge and that fits in with the general theme of the blog.

Another mistake guest authors often make is to give a sales pitch. In their mind, this is their big chance to get on stage in front of a new audience, and they have to make the most of it. Unfortunately, there is no quicker way to lose a reader than to try to pawn your product off on them.

Instead of viewing your guest post as a chance to sell something, think of it as a chance to build your name and reputation. In my opinion, the biggest benefit of guest blogging is you get to extend your network and gain some authority in the process. Authority and respect are things money can’t buy. And, yes, that inbound link you earn from guest blogging is nice too.

About the author

Eric Brantner is a business copywriter that has served clients from virtually every major industry with freelance copywriting services. Make sure to check out his website at EricBrantner.com and his contributions on the SeoNoobs.com blog.

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Why is it that when we hear of blogging we tend to link it almost instantly to post comments? Because the conversation blogs harbor, the ingredient that makes them part of a community, what turns them into a critical part of social media, the instant feedback and interaction, all that makes blogging so wonderful is mostly powered by comments.

Yet, there are blogs that choose to have no commenting options. Is that something we define as wrong? Does that make the whole 2.0 aspect of blogs simply disappear? Well, it depends. Just as enabling comments does not guarantee a meaningful conversation with your readers (if there are any readers), not having them does not imply there’s no way to build great relationships with blog visitors.

Given these many shades of gray, I thought analyzing both options might be quite helpful for both new bloggers and those who have been an active part of the blogosphere for quite a while.

What to Do when Comments Come Your Way?

Having or not having comments is not the only decision you’ll have to make. There are other questions heading your way, such as:

• Should you moderate comments?
• Should you ask readers to login to comment?
• Is a comment policy necessary?
• Should comment links be “no follow”?

I think moderating comments and having an anti-spam solution such as Akismet is a great idea. Alternatively, you’ll have to closely monitor your blog and delete spam. Leaving spam messages hanging around your blog has a pretty bad impact on you and your posts, it makes you look careless and some might even think you leave spammers be to brag with more comments on each post.

Asking users to login is seen as a way to prevent spam and to filter irrelevant comments. In my opinion, it just makes you look lazy. If you have an anti-spam-comments tool and also moderate comments, no junk should shadow your meaningful exchange of thoughts with readers. Besides, let’s take an example. There are millions of Blogger blogs. Do you really believe a spammer wouldn’t waste 5 minutes to create a Blogger account and spam them all? I can tell you from experience, they take those 5 minutes out of their busy spammy life.

This also brings me to the “no follow” issue. No follow comment links were used so that people wouldn’t comment for link love alone. And let’s face it, having replies such as “Great!”, “Good job!”, “Touching, please visit my blog now” bring no value to the issues you want debated. But moderation doesn’t take that much time, and rewarding frequent commentators and those bringing fresh and insightful perspectives to your story with some link love is quite an incentive to spark conversation.

Now if you asked me, having a comment policy (as a separate page or as part of an existing one, About, General Policies, etc) is not at all a must. But it’s something you should work on when you find the time. It makes you seem open, transparent and happy to show readers how things work around your blog. It is more than fair to let people know you don’t like spam and won’t tolerate it, that you won’t publish comments that say nothing and just crave for the link, that you will delete all insults targeting you or others visiting your blog. It will also spare you from explaining your actions over and over again to noob-readers.

With comments comes great responsibility. Cheesy, but true. You can’t just have people comment and that’s it. If you’re really committed to getting to know your readers, to find what their opinions are, to having them share their ideas with you, then you need to actually reply to your comments. And as for the actual comment, a “Thanks, come again” reply won’t do. The purpose is not just to get the conversation started, but to also keep it going.

No Comments, No Glory?

As I said earlier in this entry, comments are definitely not the only way to open dialog and keep it going. Seth Godin has been doing just fine with no comments on his blog what so ever. The secret? As someone once said on my blog, he encourages readers to write their thoughts and opinions on their blog and to email him. He also makes a point from replying to all comments emailed to him.

Emails are a way to do it, instant messenger IDs are another one and, why not, Twitter accounts. The idea is to let people know how to get in touch with you. Have your contact details posted somewhere on the blog where people can easily see them and put them to good use. They’ll get bored soon if they have to look around for too long.

But there are downsides, of course. As with being required to log in, if the compose window doesn’t just pop up and you have to log in first and then type your comment, some might choose to just not comment. They might make an extra effort if you keep offering great content and know when and how to ask the right questions. Then again, nothing guarantees they’d take the time to comment through an actual comment form. Also, you should keep in mind one aspect. Having to write an email or a twitter entry is an efficient way to filter comments that say nothing at all. So what works best for you is the highly recommended option.

Having no comments is OK at times. But having no open channel of communication is not such a great approach. You’ll just have a website with articles in reversed chronological order and nothing more. You’ll miss the true essence of blogging, which is having a community of like minded people to rely on. And comments or no comments, this is what you should set as goal.

About the author

This is a guest post by Alina Popescu, PR Consultant.
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