Blog Start-Up Part One

When you decide to add a blog to your SEO efforts on behalf of your main website, you have to take into account a few main points – at least, you do if you want your blog to be a success.

Choose the best blogging platform available to you, not just the cheapest or freebie. You can install something like WordPress to the back end of a domain you own, which works well since WordPress is compatible with so many platforms.

Double check your posts – Either operate in Firefox with automatic spell-check or do your blogs in a word processor, cut and paste into the HTML version of the blog to strip excess formatting, and switch to visual mode to jazz it up.

Don’t use your first post for boring about us or welcome posts! Have a separate page for that. Use your first posts to knock folks’ socks off, follow up with some extra punches over a few days to get them hooked, and they will be happy to check out extra pages on your blog.

Keep your RSS above the fold, and offer an email subscription as well. Social media buttons can boost your profile even more of someone decides they want to share your post!

Use your free tips or advice as a call to action, and accept comments on your blog (although make sure you moderate). Run contests, come up with link bait, and do SEO rigorously – remember that your goal is to build you blog into a powerful advertisement and traffic driver for your main site and act accordingly.

Make sure your blog works across different browsers. You need compatibility in at least four or five. Also install an analytics package so you can see who is visiting, when and from where.

That’s it for the pre launch checklist. Tomorrow we’ll look at things you can do after you launch to boost your blogs power and profile.

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