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 | | 04.02.08
Blog Marketing Tips
 By Andy Beal
How many times have you visited one of the many "professional" blog advice sites, and left with little more advice than the ubiquitous (and unhelpful) "build great content?"
If building a great blog was as simple as writing quality posts, we'd all be tied for number one on the Technorati Top 100 blog list. I'm not about to start my own ProBloggingPilgrim.com web site, but I did want to start sharing tips that I've personally found valuable when building the traffic to Marketing Pilgrim.
It's possible that these tips have been shared before-perhaps they were lost among all of the "great content" on the web-but I'm pretty sure these will be fresh ideas. I initially thought I could fit half a dozen tips in a single blog post, but as I started writing, I realized that each tip easily fills a single post. So instead, I'll start with Tip #1 and see what you think. Leave a comment if you'd like to see more tips in the future.
Tip 1: Your Blog Post Titles Have Two Audiences
You've no doubt read that you need to make your blog post titles "search engine friendly," but doing so often kills the creativity and initial appeal of your writing. Instead of trying to appeal to your loyal readers and Google at the outset, approach the two difference audiences in separate stages.
Stage One - Your initial blog readers
Your initial audience is likely going to be those that have already subscribed to your blog's RSS feed-or happen to check your blog every day. They want to be thrilled, excited, and given a reason to not only read your post, but also share and link to it.
When you first publish your blog post, follow this advice:
• Make your post title interesting - it could be that you ask a question, share a scoop, or offer a cryptic title that peeks your reader's curiosity. I'll often use a blog title that sounds like a scandal/scoop, but is really just a question. For example, "Microsoft Buying Yahoo?" I ran that headline last year-before Microsoft made its bid. It generated a lot of traffic then and even more so now.
• Keep it short and sweet - if you make your initial post title too long, you run the risk that you'll either confuse a reader or give them so much information, tthere's no need to read the post itself. Back to my example, "Microsoft Buying Yahoo?" leaves a lot of unanswered questions that just beg the reader to click through to view the entire post. If I had used "Rumors that Microsoft May Buy Yahoo, but No Confirmation Yet," how many of you would have clicked through to read the entire post? Not many.
• Appeal to keyword scanners - When you read posts in your RSS reader, do you sometimes scan the titles looking for keywords that you know will interest you? Apple, Google, Wii, and Blue-Ray are all examples of keywords that might appeal to your specific audience. This is not the same as keywords for SEO-that comes later-at this stage, you're simply looking to include words that will make your post stand out to your readers. Use popular keywords in your post titles and your post will have a greater chance of standing out among all of the other posts in your reader's RSS aggregator.
In stage one, your goal is to appeal to the initial readers that will likely view the post on the day that you publish it. But what happens after your post is relegated to the archives? It's unlikely someone will spend hours just wondering through your archived posts. Instead, they'll likely discover your "great content" via one of the search engines. OK, only one search engine: Google.
Continue reading this article.
About the Author:
Andy Beal is an internet marketing consultant and considered one of the world's most respected and interactive search engine marketing experts. Andy has worked with many Fortune 1000 companies such as Motorola, CitiFinancial, Lowes, Alaska Air, DeWALT, NBC and Experian.
You can read his internet marketing blog at Marketing Pilgrim and reach him at andy.beal@gmail.com. |
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