2. 5 Blog Best Practices
1. Keywords, Tags and Hyperlinking
2. Post Titles
3. Social Bookmarking
4. Call-to-Action Footers
5. Reserved Release Content
3. 5 Blog Best Practices
Keywords, Tags and Hyperlinking
The point of any blog is to be read and posts cannot be read unless they can
be found. Search engines use keywords, tags and hyperlinking to find your
blog so it is very important to complete this sometime forgotten task.
Keywords:
–Make sure your posts use keywords that are topic specific to the post. (example: A
post on ISVs should not only use the acronym, but use value-added reseller)
Tags:
– Tags are used to identify topics within the post. They also make it easier to find
similar posts internally on the company blog. Search engines sometimes use tags to
index web pages as well.
–Use a maximum of 10 tags
Hyperlinking:
–Hyperlinking is very important to use on words that need definition, other topics you
are referring internally/externally and profiles of post authors.
–Search engines use hyperlinks to measure post importance.
4. 5 Blog Best Practices
Post Titles
Post titles are very important to garner readers. Titles must be written in a
certain way to be search engine compliant and pose a question or answer.
Examples:
–What’s the best way to market software?
–5 best ways to market software.
–10 ways to reach critical mass for new software.
–Is Google going to pose a threat to the MS operating system?
5. 5 Blog Best Practices
Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is a great way to increase relevance of new postings. Self-
bookmarking can be construed as unethical through some services, but for
others it could be very useful to improve SEO. Search engines use commonly
bookmarked posts to measure relevance and it gives authors a chance to
control the message more effectively.
Services:
–Services to use: Delicious.com, Stumbleupon.com, reddit.com, buzz.yahoo.com
–Services not to use: Digg.com, NewsVine.com
Techniques:
–Tag the post
–Include a description
6. 5 Blog Best Practices
Call-to-Action Footers
Business blogs require a call to action with each post. One of the best ways to
do this is having a standard footer after each post describing the business
offerings in 50 words or less. It is also important to have a hyperlink or email
address box for readers to be added to the post mailing list.
Example of Footer:
Become an Intel® Software Partner Program member today, and together we can
deliver powerful solutions that help customers do more. It is easy to do. Just start with
the enrollment and create a project using the links below.
7. 5 Blog Best Practices
Reserved Release Content
Reserved Release means the company is trying to get the reader to act on a
call to action. This can be offering a free white page, recent webinar
slideshow, or access to hidden and useful content. It will require the reader to
sign up for the program, but they will be emailed the desired content once
they input all their information. This is a highly effective way to garner leads
and increase membership to a community.
Example:
Blog Post Footer
8. 5 Blog Best Practices
Bonus Software
For readers to spread the information in a blog, you must make it easy. There
are a wealth of free services that make this easy. These “share services” give
readers a list of their favorite bookmarking services, social networks,
microblogs, printing and emailing options to use. We would suggest using one
of the following:
-ShareThis (http://sharethis.com/) – ShareThis puts a button at the end of all
posts with javascript style listing for all sharing services.
-Tweetmeme – (http://tweetmeme.com/)Tweetmeme makes it easy for users
to tweet your post and keeps a running tab of the most popular articles.
-Add to Any (http://www.addtoany.com/) – Add to Any adds a icon for
subscribing to the blog posts or sharing the posts around the web.