If you have already graduated from Blogging 101 it is time to dig a bit deeper into blogging.
Use Catchy Titles—The title of your blog is what is going to inspire people to click over to your website from the comfort of their social media living room. Your title needs to engage them and make them want to make the leap. Keep the titles SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly by making each title 64 characters or less. This length makes your title fit inside the clickable phrase in search results.
SEO Friendly—After you write your rough draft, use Google AdWords Keyword Tool to find what key words or phrases in your blog post have the highest Global Monthly Search Volume. If you need to change a word to a similar word that is more search friendly, by all means do it. Use those keywords as your tags on your blog as well.
Use Tags—Tags are used by search engines to index content on websites. Originally websites used mostly hidden keywords to get the highest ranking from search engines, but that no longer works. Search engines have improved their algorithms to ignore these hidden keywords. Tags are currently (but remember everything changes fast) a great method for Search Engine Optimization. Tags are keywords for each blog post you create. They should be short two or three word phrases. Using tags is the best way to bring total strangers to your blog. Tags are easy to add to blogs. Look for the “tags” box and put single words or phrases separated by a comma inside the “add” box. Use a SEO Plug-in—An example is All in One SEO Pack, which is available on WordPress and is programmed to optimize your blog.
Make Sharing Easy—Every blogging platform has a whole host of widgets you can use to make sharing easy. You want it to be easy for the reader to share your content. It is smart to have sharing buttons at the top of your blog post and again at the bottom of your post. Some people will automatically hit “Like” within the first few lines of your post and others will wait until they have read the entire post before deciding to share. Your goal should be to make it easy to share for both types of readers! I am currently using SumoMe.
Appearance Counts—Use a photograph in every blog post. It breaks up the content and makes the page look good. You can get free pictures and use free photo editing sites. I take the most random photographs now, with the thought that someday I might need a photograph of a STOP sign that is weathered. I have a huge library of random photographs to use and sometimes I just take a quick one on my iPhone to fit an article I am working on. When you can’t make something work, head to the free photo websites and find one that does. You can find free photos websites on this Big List of Free Images.
Have a Search Window—I love search windows on blogs. Never have a blog or website without one. A reader might be visiting your blog because they followed a link to a recipe. If they are impressed with your recipe, they may want to search your site for other recipes. Even if you have a category called recipes, they will most likely use the search box to go directly to what they are looking for.
Links Open on a Separate Page—One of my biggest pet peeves is clicking on a link in a blog post, and having it replace what I was reading. It is better to have it open in a separate window, so the reader can leave it open and go back to the original content. Once I finish reading a blog post, I like to jump around and read what links the author recommended. Having links open in separate windows makes returning to your blog an easy experience for your readers.
Have a Comment Policy—There are truly some mean people out there in the world who don’t have anything better to do than to surf the Internet looking for people to tear down. Don’t let them get you down. Set a policy for what you will tolerate in your blog comments, because your blog is your house. Hold to the policy and delete comments that are rude, abusive or vulgar. All blog platforms have an option to moderate comments before they post. You can use the comment policy on KaylaFioravanti.com as an example.
Subscribers—Make it easy for people to subscribe to your blog. When they subscribe to your blog, they receive a notification in their inboxes each time you post a blog.
