This was presented to the Dallas Social Media Breakfast group on 10-27-11. The presentation covers the main aspects that you should focus on when blogging.

1. BLOGGING FOR SUCCESS
Mark Barrera
@mark_barrera

2. Who Am I?
• President of DFW Search Engine Marketing Association
• Who I have worked with:
• Lennox
• Onlineshoes.com
• National Breast Cancer Foundation
• Palm Harbor Homes
• TexasLending.com
• Cookies by Design
• Scottish Rite Hospital
• Donald Trump
• and many more…
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

3. Blogging for Success
• Making Your Site SEO Friendly
• Creating Your Content
• Promoting Your Content
• Conversion Optimization
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

4. Making Your Site SEO Friendly
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

5. Making Your Site SEO Friendly
Title Tags
• < 70 Characters.
• Use Keyword(s)
• Make it enticing
Description Tags
• 1 to 2 sentences (90-150 characters)
• Call to action / Value proposition
• Do not stuff with keywords
URLs
• Use title of post in URL
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

6. Making Your Site SEO Friendly
Linking
• Focus on Link Anchor Text
• Link to Your Other Posts
• Link to Authority Web Sites
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

7. Making Your Site SEO Friendly
Images
• Use custom alt tags
• Use custom file names
• If hosting them on Flickr or other photo website, link to the file on
that network also
• Make sure to link to the post that you used the photo in from that
website also.
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

8. Making Your Site SEO Friendly
Categories
• Don’t over do it
• Use keywords
Breadcrumbs
• They allow your users to easily navigate your site.
• They allow search engines to determine the structure of your site
more easily.
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

9. Creating Your Content
Think Like a Publisher!
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

10. Creating Your Content
• Post on a regular basis
• Create weekly ‘features’
• Weekly Interview
• Weekly News Wrap-up
• Write awesome content
• Timely
• Use examples / analogies / metaphors
• Give your opinion
• Create relevant images / infographics
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

11. Creating Your Content
Remember the 80/20 Rule!
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

12. Promoting Your Content
• Social Media
• Email
• PR
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

13. Americans spend
over a third of their
online time (40%)
communicating and
networking across:
• social networks
• blogs
• personal email
• instant messaging
• video sites

14. Promoting Your Content Socially
Facebook
• Optimize Title / Description / Thumbnail
• Use proper Facebook meta tags
• Post to relevant groups
• Facebook as a commenting system
• Monitor your Facebook Insights (analytics) data
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

15. Promoting Your Content Socially
Twitter
• Promote more than once
• Use hashtags where appropriate
• Use the ‘follow suggestion’ in your tweet button code
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

16. Promoting Your Content Socially
• LinkedIn
• Status Updates
• Groups
• Email Notifications
• StumbleUpon
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

17. Promoting Your Content
• Pings
• RSS
• Bookmarking
• Delicious / Diigo / Evernote
• Email Signatures
• Blog Commenting
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

18. Promoting Your Content by Email
• Feedburner
• MailChimp
• Aweber
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

19. Promoting Your Content with PR
• Press Releases
• Free Press Release Sites
• http://bit.ly/freeprsites
• Paid Press Release Sites
• PRWeb
• PRLeap
• Know Your Influencers
• Keep a list of contacts
• Include blog URL / email / twitter / facebook / phone
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

20. Conversion Optimization
Visits Aren’t the End Goal!
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

21. Conversion Optimization
• Social Sharing
• Subscribers
• Leads
• Example
• http://www.copyblogger.com/linkedin-profile/
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

22. Conversion Optimization
Subscribers
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

23. Conversion Optimization
Social Sharing
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

24. Conversion Optimization
Leads
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

25. Conversion Optimization
• Google Analytics
• Track Goal Conversions
• Track Referring Traffic
• Know Your Referring Keywords
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

26. Tools I Use
Google Analytics
Scribe SEO - http://bit.ly/e9ThCh
StudioPress - http://bit.ly/jZRujf
Raven Tools - http://bit.ly/h2p8D7
SEOmoz - http://go.seomoz.org/SH5z
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org

27. Contact Me
http://bit.ly/markbarrera
• SEO / PPC Consulting
• Project or Retainer
• Agency Solutions
• Employee Training / Process Improvement
• White Label Partnership
• Coaching / Mentoring
@mark_barrera | facebook.com/mark.s.barrera | dfwsem.org