The Keys to a Great Blog

Your website is up and running and traffic is good – not great – but good. You have landed your fair share of external one-way links, you have a fair amount of reciprocal links. What you need is something to get people involved and helping promote your site for you. What you need is a blog. The question is, how do I set up a good blog?

The first thing you need to consider is how you get the traffic from your blog to your site. How do you cash in your blog for the biggest possible benefit? This is the big tip – place your blog at your domain.com/blog because this is going to allow your main domain to get the benefit of any links leading to your blog posts. If that isn’t possible, the second choice is blog.your domain.com. This is one way to give your main domain a nice boost.

Now that you have started off on the right foot, you need content. The goal is to post fresh content at least five days per week. The content you post needs to be unique. Although it is tempting to skimp on this, doing so will cost you plenty in the end. Posts should ideally be no less than 350 words and no more than 500. They should employ the best practices of SEO and engage your readers while passively presenting information related to your business.

Keep in mind that your blog posts should not all read like sales copy for your business. Present some posts related to industry news, perhaps pending legislation that may impact your target audience, or anything that can compel people to not just read the post but come back to see what you will have tomorrow. Creating regular visitors is your main goal, because regular visitors are often visitors that share what they have read with friends and colleagues. Word of mouth is powerful.

Finally, you need to allow people to comment. Blogs that are not interactive tend to have fewer return visitors. A big part of what makes blogs so popular is that they have the ability to allow for the exchange of ideas. People like to chime and feel like a part of a community. Yes, it does mean you will at times have to police comments, and you may have to answer some tough questions directed toward you, but doing so is well worth it in the end. It shows you are just as engaged as your readers.

Blogging is very easy, and at times decent blogs can be monetized and become self supporting. The main thing is that you open up more avenues for people to find your main domain. The key is being consistent with posting fresh SEO content, minding the comments and answering them promptly and appropriately, and getting out the message that you have something to offer your visitors need. Don’t forget to have an RSS option for your blog! That will keep people coming back on a regular basis.