From this experience, I have gained a good understanding of the do’s and don’ts of blogging, both for a personal site and a company blog.

Below are the top 10 most common mistakes I have experienced or seen to avoid:

1. Not backing up statistics.

Coming out of college, I started blog writing the way I wrote research papers. I very quickly realized that the two writing styles were very different in several ways.

a. How you cite your source. When writing college research papers, I was accustomed to using parenthesis and citing the source of information. In blogs, you use a link over the text. In general, whether it is a paper or blog, it is crucial to cite your source to establish credibility.

b. If you spout of statistics like “80% of X attributed to a 25% increase in X” without any link, how will anyone know you are correct?

c. The first step to establishing blog credibility is in linking your statistics and research to real links.

2. Promoting you or your product in every blog post

You may be familiar with the inbound marketing rule that no one cares about you or what you sell; they only care about what is in it for them. This means that while blogging, don’t write about yourself or your products. Instead, write about what interests your customers. At Backupify, our customers are interested in social media compliance, new technologies, computer security, etc. We write about our research on this and how to safeguard against security threats. Not once do we promote our service in the blogs.

3. Not editing posts before they are published

Thankfully I am a stickler when it comes to editing and writing good sentences, but it surprises me to see how many people forget spaces between words, misspell the most common words, use the wrong word type (i.e. their instead of there), or write incomplete sentences. Even people who are regarded as thought leaders and who have high subscription rates on their blogs still make obvious mistakes. All it takes is a few glances back over your post to check for spelling and grammatical correctness. This goes a long way towards establishing credibility.

4. Writing an unorganized post

Many times when writers sit down to write a blog post (and I am guilty of this as well), they get so excited about what they are going to write that they forget that there must be a structure to the post in order to engage the reader. If your writing is all over the place, the reader will wonder what you are trying to say.

As I am a writer for BostInnovation here in Boston, my editor, Kyle Psaty taught me that there must be a strong, compelling introduction that explains why I am talking about my topic. Then I need to bring the reader through my story in a clear, chronological order followed by a strong summation of the importance of what I learned from what I am writing about. People want to read a story, not a random collection of sentences that seem semi-related. Always keep the reader in mind.

5. SEO is ignored

If you are trying to rank your post in search engines, make sure to pay careful attention when adding relevant and targeted keywords into your post. There are several keyword discovery tools including Trellian Keyword Discovery, Hubspot’s Keyword Grader, Wordstream, etc. Also, just putting yourself in your reader’s head and thinking about what they would be searching for to come to your post is very helpful. Make this the last part of what you do before publishing to ensure you include all relevant keywords.

6. Headlines are sloppy and uninviting

Many of you have experienced the dramatic increase of information available to us on the web. While this is generally a good thing, it also causes us to put up strong information filters while looking for information. If your blog is in a blog aggregator site such as StumbleUpon or Digg and your title, for lack of a better word, sucks, no one will want to read it. Why would I open up an article with a title like “Inbound Marketing is the New Thing” when I could open one up that says “Ramp Up Your Company’s Marketing With These 10 Internet Marketing Tips”. Not only is this more eye catching and intriguing (people LOVE tips) but it also includes important keywords in the title that will help your article rank in search engines.

7. Not including keywords in the title

As a follow up to the point above, it is also crucial to include keywords in your title. This is important for many reasons:

a. Search engines will pick up your post as related to a particular search term much easier.

b. People will click on it more if it has keywords they are searching for right in it.

c. Google Alerts and other web filters will be more likely to pick it up with a keyword included in the title.

8. You’re writing about something you think you should write about, not what you want to write about

While it is sometimes hard to avoid writing about something you aren’t inspired to write about (such as if you are doing it for your company) it is very important to be passionate and excited about what you are writing. If you don’t even want to read what you are going to write, why will anyone else? If you write with conviction, passion and integrity, it will surely show. You can probably tell that I am passionate about this post by the detail and conversation-like tone I have added to it. This has hopefully led you to read this far down. If this was a post that I was negatively motivated to write, you would not have read down this far.

9. Not including keywords in the post itself

Many times when writing, you don’t think about SEO until right before you are about to publish. However, since SEO is still such a huge part of getting found online, it helps to put keywords not only in the title and post description, but in the body as well. This helps Google confirm that what you say the post is about is really what it is about. For example, if you are writing about the importance of mobile advertising, make sure to include mobile advertising and variations of that phrase inside your post.

10. Not promoting it or making it easy to share

After all the hard work you have put into your post, why not share it with the world?! Your blog should have multiple social sharing buttons such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Email, etc. This allows visitors to easily share a post they love without having the trouble of submitting it themselves. It is also important to share your posts on your own social channels. After I publish this post, I’ll share it on social media so my network will see it. This exposes it to thousands of eyes who will then pass it onto thousand more. Once you hit publish, begin sharing!

For beginning bloggers, this may seem like a daunting task. It takes a conscious effort to incorporate all these skills into every post, so integrate them at your own digestible pace. After a few posts, you’ll get the hang of it and will become a blogging maven!

To find out more about blogging best practices and to follow up with me, make sure to follow up with me on Twitter @kristinedziadul.

Can you imagine the world without the internet? We would go crazy, running around like chickens without a head trying to solve the problem. We have grown accustom to the internet and social media that I don’t know if we are ready for the internet to fail us for a minute. If you happen to tweet and tweet a lot, sometimes you reload the page and it says “Twitter is over capacity”. In seconds when it returns, Twitter users are ‘tweeting’ #whentwitterwasdown followed by what happened to them. The world is all about connectivity and sharing your opinions. I am positive Secret Service will think it’s an attack on the US and not a system failure worldwide should the internet go down. The fact is the internet has changed our lives and we cannot go back. No! From where I ‘lowly’ sit it’s best to adopt these trends and see how it may work for you. Indeed, it is working for millions worldwide as they own a piece of the internet. And the only way to touch it is by touching your laptop screen and now your iPad. The internet and the advent of social media, directly blogging provides the ability where people can build personal brands. The success stories are immense and the benefits are not only lucrative but may benefit the individual in many other ways.

Recently, I was in a heated discussion with a fellow blogger on joining Twitter. He couldn’t fathom how it works and how it could help his blog generate more viewers – he uses Facebook. After our conversation he logged on to create his account. The internet has broken down so many barriers and has opened the world in many ways people are finding it unbelievable. The world is literally at our fingertips when we sit before a PC with internet capabilities. Realizing the phenomenon of what is happening; bloggers are using it to their advantage. More than ever, people have something to say and if you have an informed perspective there is an area for you.

I started my blog back in May 2009 and I would not have imagined where I am today. It is true for many bloggers, you start out with one post and the interest grows and continues to grow until you are reaping benefits. Most bloggers make their websites sociable places and they practice ‘personal branding’ (although they don’t know). According to Wikipedia, it is the process whereby people and their careers are marked as brands. Especially if you use your name on your blog, you run the risk of people associating what is on your blog to your character. Bloggers have to be keen on ensuring they edit and are managers of what is posted on their blogs on the internet. The minute something is posted on the internet, it is not the case where they have to visit your page to see it, but Google in minutes will record your data in their search engine. It benefits us all but there are certain dangers to this.

There are many benefits to blogging. More bloggers are gaining employment through what they do, they are using their websites to make money and all of this is through the personal branding they have done. Most bloggers do not get overnight success, unless you are established, but it is a work in progress. Over months and years people find out what you do, value your opinions and take you seriously. The world is grappling with the introduction of blogging/bloggers and the influence they have on the internet and shaping opinions.

Just recently, Vogue Magazine decided to do a photo shoot with about nine fashion bloggers, simply showcasing and recognizing the work they do. There is currently a huge discussion in the fashion industry on whether fashion bloggers are editors. People are taking what bloggers do seriously because of the hard work it takes to produce a good blog. You have team blogs but most times, a blog is a ‘one man show’. It is that individual writing the posts, sourcing the images, promoting the post on the internet, replying to persons who have found it interesting and ensuring it fits in the entire presentation of the blog. It is hard work and keep in mind that to have a good following, you are updating your blog 3-4 times for the week. When you really get into blogging, most bloggers are not out to build personal branding; at the end of the day, they want to know they are satisfying their audience and hopefully pleasing them will increase their overall image.

I do not know if another development will come along and surpass the experience blogging provides. For now, it is the latest trend, not only for individuals but companies are using it to communicate with their customers, in addition to many other platforms at their fingertips. Blogging is great for potential employment. Employers are now using Google to research their candidates and having a space on the internet to share what matters to you or your interests is good to any potential employer. A well produced blog may tell someone how well you can work, your ethical standards which could prove beneficial. You do not have to gain employment; however, I am a firm believer that experienced individuals should share their perspective. Where they may not be seeking employment, their opinions are valued and respected.

In concluding, humans are walking brands. Your reputation is the most valuable thing you can ever have. The internet provides the space for your brand to be published online through a blog. Blogging is wonderful, it takes a lot of time but the benefits are fantastic. Blogging allows you to share your passions, your interests in a space where like-minded individuals can find you and connect with you. You may be thinking ‘I’m not a good writer or an artist’ but you will see huge improvements in whatever you do. All of us are different, and sharing your perspective – there’s always a place for that and that is blogging.

Start a blog today and watch your personal brand grow.

Corve DaCosta is a native and resident of sunny Jamaica, He is a self-professed media junkie who particularly enjoys people – their points of view, experiences, idiosyncrasies, strengths and flaws. A graduate of the University of Technology (Kingston, Ja.), where he earned his BA in Marketing and Business Administration, Corve has been featured in several advertising campaigns in his home country. He is currently very committed to developing his blog, but welcomes any opportunities that may arise, particularly in marketing, mass media and modeling.

I always like to take opportunities such as this one to act as a sponge by absorbing as much of the information, atmosphere, and contacts as I can. The speakers provided great information that is crucial for businesses to understand today, whether they are implementing or considering any inbound marketing techniques or not, as it is becoming ever so important in the business world.

Below are the great takeaways from the event:

Get Found Using Inbound Marketing:

First, know that Google LOVES blogs, so naturally the searchability of your company’s blog will not be hard to obtain. If you update the information on your blog on a consistent basis, Google rewards you by listing your blog even higher for particular search queries since it is able to crawl your site more often. If you update once a year, Google deems it less important, thus does not crawl as often, and searchability can dramatically decrease.

If your company does not have the bandwith to keep up with a blog on a consistent basis, Dharmesh suggested to at least write two blogs: one on why you are in business and what differentiates you from all the other fish in the sea. The second should cover a great customer success story to demonstrate physical benefits of your service to a real client. Even if this is all your company has time to write about, it can be a great platform for potential clients (leads) to read what you are about and how you help businesses succeed.

While blogging, remember to talk in ‘human’ talk as Dharmesh stated. Don’t write in that marketing gobbledygook that people try to write in to sound fancy and smart. Although it does look nice, people go to blogs for a simple, straightforward read that does not further confuse them, so save your gobbledygook for your direct mail pieces.

Now, some may say, “Well I work in a boring industry, why would people want to read a blog about this industry?”.

The answer to that is simple: If people are willing to buy in your industry, they will be willing and ready to read your blogs. Don’t ever assume that people will not do something, because you are in fact in business due to your customers and they care about what they can get from your company. If you can provide something extra to them even in a boring industry, you have begun to differentiate yourself.

If your company does have the bandwidth to blog on a more consistent basis (at least once weekly, preferably), read on…

When blogging, talk about the industry’s problems, not your solution. You may wonder why you can’t sell your product in your blogs since the CEO or CFO wants to see some ROI on your marketing efforts. I am not saying you cannot sell your product, you just shouldn’t do it right away. You must first build up credibility in your blog by not talking about yourself, but by talking about issues that your customers/prospects care about. Once that is strongly established, then you can begin talking about your solutions to those issues. People can see through the purpose of your blogs if you put a call to action on your early blogs.

Make sure that in your blog content, you stand for something. This means that you choose one side of the fence or another on a particular issue, and not somewhere in the middle. The reasoning behind this is that people will either love you or hate you for this, but those that love you will REALLY love you. It also shows that you have the capability to take a firm stance and back it up, demonstrating expertise and credibility in a particular industry or topic.

Next, make it very, very easy to share your content. Have easily accessible links to share on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, email, etc. on each blog post.

What is a ‘Social Business’?

A social business is involved with building mutually beneficial relationships with customers. Social CRM is essentially the company’s response to the customer’s control of a situation. In this new business ecosystem, customers produce the content, and businesses must decide whether to get involved with the conversations.

In a social business…

1. People are the platform

2. Information is co-created. This means that information flows from the outside in, instead of the inside out. The customer defines the product or service and the value it will provide, and the business must respond. (Think of how Apple operates).

3. Power is distributed physically and virtually.

4. You must be transparent with information, people involved, and expected goals.

5. You must be interdependent; trust is crucial!

Who is the ‘Social Customer’?

1. They are demanding because they now have a voice.

2. They are mobile. Don’t discard mobile, as it can be a viable communication platform because mobile usage and mobile Internet has increased dramatically (a simple Google search will show this).

3. They trust their peers. For B2B, 59% engaged with their peers who helped address their challenge to find a solution.

4. They are knowledgeable. For B2B, 78% started with an informal information gathering process, such as a Google search. This demonstrates how critical being visible through search engines is to helping a customer begin their purchase decision with you.

5. They are resourceful: 41% of customers follow online discussions to find out information, and 37% post questions about topics to get results from peers.

The new era of sales:

1. Sell your brand in the way that your customers want to buy.

2. Create buyers, don’t sell your product.

3. Recognize that prospects want to receive information that is relevant to their current initiatives or business challenges, they don’t care about you or your product right away.

4. Discover key events to create the perfect sales opening; prospects will be more receptive.

5. Listen to the social buzz to learn what is not necessarily in the news but is important to prospects.

6. Focus on synchronizing the buying and selling cycles. Fact: Only 20% of sales reps are prepared for sales calls. Give reps the tools and technology to be prepared for the selling pitch when they deem the prospect is ready to receive it.

In summary, social CRM involves engagement, being adaptive, listening, being open, building different communities around your product, and enabling others to share and promote your brand.

Social business with social customers involves using technology to solve a problem for the customer. You as a business must make the lead feel comfortable, valued and enabled in order for them to trust you and feel motivated to learn more from you.

Always keep in mind that your customers just may know more about your products/services than you do, but embrace that! Make those people your brand experts and evangelists and recognize them in your brand community(ies).

I am a big Twitter fan and blog reader, thus the reason for my Twitter list “Influential Bloggers.” I have been blogging for a few months and feel that I am becoming very proficient at it, but am always looking for ways to get better. I learn something every day from the 19 people I follow on this list, but seven of them in particular are the most inspirational and informative to me.

1. Chris Brogan was one of the first Twitter bloggers I started following. His immense knowledge on all facets of the Internet world, as well as his proficiency in video blogging is very inspiring. You can visit his site here or follow him on Twitter.

2. Problogger is a wonderful resource for blogging tips of all kinds. As his Twitter bio says, “I blog about twitter and tweet about blogging. Sometimes I blog about tweeting about blogging and tweet about blogging about twitter.” This site is my go-to site on my RSS feed every day when I am looking for inspiration, new WordPress plug-ins to use, ways to further engage my readers, etc. If you are a current blogger or looking to start blogging, definitely subscribe to this site or follow him on Twitter.

3. Steve Garfield is a nationally recognized video blogger on stevegarfield.com and has a strong presence on Twitter. I find myself very inspired by Steve’s natural way of speaking to the camera and presenting his ideas very fluidly and consistently. I have recently started reading his book Get Seen which gives excellent tips and tricks to gaining business through video blogs.

4. Brian Solis is a great blogger on social media engagement, branding, CRM, social capital and many other topics backed by great industry research. I find a lot of my blogging inspiration comes from Solis since he writes about a plethora of social media and Internet trends and utilizes great charts and statistics to back up his posts. You can subscribe to his site here or follow him on Twitter.

5. Chris Dixon is another great Twitter blogger who writes on topics including start-ups, technology, Google trends, and VC’s. As I am entrepreneurial in spirit and talk with several start-ups on a daily basis myself, I find this information very useful for me to share with others. I also find his research on Google to be very interesting since I frequently read about Google, determining what their next move (good or bad) will be. You can subscribe to his site here or follow Dixon on Twitter.

6. David Meerman Scott is a very influential writer who is the author of the New Rules of Marketing and PR (which I first read in a senior marketing class in college). He also blogs at Web Ink Now on topics including social businesses, mobile apps, new marketing trends, PR tips, and many other Internet marketing topics. He is also an avid Twitterati who is very willing to interact with followers (including me). Follow him here.

7. Hubspot is a company dedicated to providing customers and readers with the latest research topics including the State of the Twittersphere, the State of Inbound Marketing, the latest and greatest inbound marketing trends that they are using for their clients, and humorous videos and cartoons. I have been reading their blog since before I started blogging, and learned many great tips from them about blogging and how to best use Twitter. You can view their blog here or follow them on Twitter.

Because of these seven amazing bloggers, I have enhanced my blogging techniques, increased my visibility online, engaged readers, and increased traffic to my site. The best way to learn from them is by subscribing to their blog on your RSS and following them on Twitter.

What bloggers do you find inspiration from?

Not seeing business impact from creating blog posts?

Wondering how and why to blog for your company?

With a few quick yet critical fixes, you can turn your not-so-hot blog into a killer blog that will generate tons of traffic.

First, some considerations:

1. Decide on a two-column or a three-column layout. Two-column layouts are the best and most functional since they are clean and easily organized. With three columns, it can easily get cluttered with information overload. However, if organized right, it can be highly effective (Dell does a good job of this).

2. Decide how many bloggers you will appoint for your company. The more bloggers there are, the less time each has to spend writing, you can have an eclectic set of posts, and the voice of the company can be spelled out from various people, not just a singular blogger.

3. Decide if you are comfortable editing the blog’s template, or if you need to involve the IT department of your company in the blog management.

4. Decide if you want to host the blog on your own website or on a separate site. Either way is fine; this is more of a personal choice of what platform you feel most comfortable using.

5. Ensure that your company has the appropriate amount of time and staff to make an effective blog. Blogging does involve a good amount of time and creativity, so ensure you have those readily available before starting.

6. Consider employing brand evangelists from outside of your company to blog for you. Coach them on your blog’s tools and the style of your blog posts, and have them write from an outsider’s viewpoint to vary the opinions and give more credibility by having evangelists support the brand.

7. Set up comment moderations on your blog and put the commenting policy on the site so readers know how their comments will be managed.

Now onto the blog details…

1. Create captivating, eye-catching titles. Making some of your blog posts ‘guides to doing something’, using numbers (1-10), or even putting an interesting fact in the title will capture attention quickly.

2. Unique, interesting pictures or videos: Once someone clicks on your blog link, a creative picture or video will immediately capture the reader’s attention and invite them to find out the story behind the picture. For example, a past post of mine “A Guide to Getting Seen Online Using SEO” has a picture of a large eye. Readers may wonder what the eye has to do with the post, and read on.

3. Incredible content. If you can create value to customers, write about new information, captivate them with your writing style, and be seen as an expert in your field, you can almost guarantee your blog will become popular and revisited. The only reason a person will share or come back to your site is if they find great value in reading what you have to say, so ensure you are proving readers with relevant and very informative posts.

4. Blog on a consistent basis so readers come to expect your posts. If they subscribe to you on their RSS and hardly see any new posts from you, they will likely unsubscribe. However, if you give them a reason to come back (one being consistent posts) they will be more likely to visit and read.

5. Keep your blog focused on a particular niche industry or topic so users know what to come to your blog for. If you write about random topics not focused around anything in particular, they may not know when or why to go to your blog. However, if you focus on ‘how-to guides’, industry trends, or on particular product markets, people will know exactly why they should read your blog.

6. Don’t just sell your product/service/brand in all your posts. Instead, focus on valuable information that the customers and prospects could use when making a purchase decision (i.e. if selling security software, blog about issues or advancements in the software industry, or top fraud schemes to watch out for).

7. Invite comments and comment back. By leaving your posts open-ended, unfinished, or with a question at the end, readers are encouraged to process your information and comment. If you receive a negative comment, don’t just delete it. In fact, deleting it may be one of the worst things you can do. Instead, take the time to address the issue in the appropriate manner; this will leave a positive impression on others. Also, when commenting back to comments, address the person by their name (if they post with their name), as this adds for personalization.

8. Make it easily accessible to subscribe via an RSS feed.

9. Optimize your SEO.

10. Promote on social media sites in a friendly way. This will allow friends, fans, and followers to read about what you are thinking and doing, and they can converse with you on social sites about it. They may even share your links on social media, which is a huge plus. Keep track of your blog’s analytics to see where the most visits to your site are coming from to determine which areas to focus on.

Takeaways…

Search engines love blogs, so you should not have a problem getting your blog seen. However, even though it may be highly searchable, you still need to create incredible content, blog on a consistent basis, and make it interesting and captivating to keep readers coming back.

Do you have any other tips and tricks to enhance a company blog? Please leave your comments below.

Engage. Converse. Sell! These are three terms that a marketer and salesperson alike know all too well. However, they are easier said than done. Yes, you can develop great website content and blogs, but are you managing public relations? You can develop a great product, but are you promoting it in the appropriate communities?

There are many sales, marketing and PR activities that must be done to ensure you engage, converse, and sell correctly in order to be a successful company, but your business truly needs the full set of communication tools in order to be effective.

There are eight (you may add more) conversation tools I find very important for almost any business to employ today:

1. Product Development: The product communicates what the brand stands for and what kind of value the company will provide to its customers. This is a non-verbal aspect of a business that cannot be understated. Ensure that your mission translates into the finished product so consumers see a mirror image of the stated mission layed out in the final product. Developing the right product at the right time for the right price is critical to any business’ success, and it communicates a lot about a company’s business model and potential for success.

2. Developer Relations: Good relationships with those in your supply chain is also crucial for implementing a successful brand. If the developer and you are aligned with both mission and layout of the actual product, there is a much higher chance of success. Also, the more reputable you are with companies in the supply chain, the higher chance you will have of being a respected member of the business community.

3. Ambassador: Be a true ambassador of your product. If you cannot 110% back up your product claim and speak fluently and expertly on all of its benefits and customer values, then you are not a true brand ambassador. Potential clients and customers can see if you do not fully understand or believe in the product, so ensure that you are marketing the right product and can back it up, be enthusiastic about it, and transfer that enthusiasm to your prospects and leads!

4. Marketing: Marketing conveys the brand image and values to the public. This is the main communication tool on a mass level that will let everyone and anyone know what you stand for. Ensure that you tailor the perfect message to fit the product image, reach the appropriate target market, and convince them that your product is THE one for them.

5. Public Relations: With the emergence of social media, the lines between PR and marketing have been blurred, but the pure essence of PR cannot be forgotten. Interact with the media, talk to other businesses, deal with any issues professionally and appropriately, respond to negative feedback in a timely manner, and always keep in mind that the customer is right and the reason that the company is in business is for the customer, so keep them happy and solve their problems.

6. Customer Service: Social media can be used as a form of customer service, but ensure that you are still employing the general principles of customer service. Always try to calm them down if upset, apologize, try your best to fix their problem, emphasize the business’ 100% care for customer satisfaction, and do what you can to keep them a loyal customer. Remember, even if they had a bad experience with your product or service, you can still turn it around by giving INCREDIBLE customer service that will make them talk about your great response.

7. Community Relations: Developing a community around your product and nurturing it is critical today for enabling engagement and brand loyalty. If you can develop a ning community or place on your website or social media site where people feel like a valued member, you will dramatically increase loyalty and retention rates. Employ a community manager to execute these exact tasks by reaching out to the right people, giving them a space to talk to your company, and respond to them as a valued customer.

8. Blogger Relations: If you are in the Internet or technology industry, this is a MUST. If your customers share information a lot and there are many bloggers covering different industry topics, you must be watching those blogs and developing a positive rapport with them. This means commenting on their site, reaching out to them via social media to develop relationships, and even asking to guest blog, and vice versa. This will increase your chances of having them speak well about you on their blog or to their blog’s readers.

This list may be daunting to a small start-up or a company with limited PR, sales or marketing capabilities, but implementing them on a small scale may only take a few hours maximum a day and will be more than worth it. Making your customers feel valued and confident that their voice is heard will go miles to driving positive business and customer relations.

Please add a ninth, tenth, or even eleventh element of communication that businesses should employ if you have found one to be very effective for you.

This contest runs through March 28th, and the winner is determined based on the highest number of unique visitors to the blog. All you have to do to help us out is visit: http://tinyurl.com/yftwdyo.

We would really appreciate you taking the time to click on the link, read it if you have a minute, and even share it! If we win, we will be recognized for our blog post and will receive $1500, which we will put towards different entrepreneurial ventures we would like to make, including more technological products to create better video blog posts.

Thanks so much!

Ever wonder how you as a person could get found online by developing your own personal brand? With a few simple yet critical steps, you can use search engine optimization (and social media optimization) to make your own name and brand much more searchable and well known on the Internet.

Now, SEO is no easy task, but a few simple fixes can go miles to getting found online by virtually anyone.

Read On…

So, if you own your own blog or small site that is primarily for personal usage to spread your ideas, network, get a job, or help others, and you want to be more visible online, here are some quick tips to start doing today.

First, plan what key points you are going to write about so that you can ensure your keywords for the topic can be incorporated into the title, meta tags, and the body of the text. The All in One SEO Pack for WordPress (which I use) makes labeling these quite easy. Include these keywords in the blog’s URL and in any images that you use. When search engines crawl your site, they read the words in the URL, and the keywords can pop out easier if they are labeled in the image. These are small, but ever so important details to pay attention to!

Second, reach out to others about your blog, whether it is via social sites (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Myspace, etc.) to promote it, start discussions around the topic, and even be found for a guest blogging opportunity. Guest blogs can get you inbound links back to your site if you are willing to write for other people’s sites. If they are unwilling to pay you for your guest blog, at least ask for a backlink so you get some credit for your site. The more credible the hosting site, the better ranking your site will get in SEO.

Third, great content on your site naturally attracts more traffic. If you have valuable and unique information, ideas, images, etc., people will be intrigued and want to come back for more. To keep them loyal to your site, ensure that all your posts are consistent in writing quality and content provided so they will stay interested. By providing readers with something different than any other competing blog, you can become higher ranked for certain keywords and credibility in SEO.

Fourth, reference back to your Google Analytics reports to see what posts have had success in regards to search traffic, and which ones can be improved. You can utilize Google’s keyword search tool to help you develop the most accurate keywords for each blog post. Even if your blog is ranked #1 for a particular keyword, it can be further enhanced to become even more popular. Digging back into older blog posts based on success or failure on analytics can help improve your site’s overall SEO. If you have hundreds of blog posts, don’t bother going back through all of them, just the ones that seem to need it based on Google’s Analytics report.

Fifth, analyzing your site’s competition can help leverage your site. Find out what sites rank higher than yours, what keywords their posts rank highest for, and what inbound links they have. There are several sites out there today, Market Samurai in particular, which can give you this in-depth analysis. You can also just search for that site on Google or scan the site to see what they do or don’t do, and improve your site.

By seeking out where their links are coming from, you can make opportunities for yourself to get links from there. For example, if a competing blog was featured on an industry leader’s site as a guest blog, then reach out to that industry leader (either via their site’s contact form, social media, email, etc.) and offer to write a free guest blog for them.

There are several other factors that determine your page rank and SEO effectiveness that I must note:

1. Domain age: The longer the domain is registered to exist, the better Google will rank it since they know you will be around for awhile and are not just a short-term site that may be less important. When you purchase your site, it is best to purchase at least a few years worth (and you can get discounts by doing this as well in most cases).

2. Page rank: See your rank (visit seomoz.com‘s tools to help with this). You can also compare page ranks of competitor sites to yours.

3. Index count: Number of pages indexed on your site.

4. Backlinks pointing to your site: This can give your site more credibility in the eyes of a search engine if that hosting site is very credible on the Internet.

5. Yahoo Directory: Make sure your site is listed in this directory to be registered as a site; this makes it more searchable.

6. Title: Put keywords in your title, as I mentioned earlier.

7. URL: Put keywords in the URL! You can easily edit the URL of each blog post, and ensure that you space out each word so search engines can read the keywords. Ex. instead of kdmedianow.com/gettingseenonline, use kdmedianow.com/getting-seen-online.

8. Description & Header: Include keywords in the meta description tag and header tag too.

Ultimately, if you want to be ranked for a particular keyword, you need to use it in all key spots on your site (title, heading, URL)

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9. Cache Age: the number of days since Google cached your pages.

10. Internal Links: link your blog posts to each other by referencing back to older ones in newer ones. This doesn’t count as much as external links to your blog, but it does help.

Takeaway…

Although all of the above tips are critical, don’t let them take away your focus from generating great quality content. The content is ultimately why your previous and current visitors read your blog posts from the start, so continue to generate incredible and unique information. All else will follow, and SEO helps that content be found much easier.

As an independent blogger and site owner myself, I have found all of these tips to work tremendously well. For instance, I spent an entire day enhancing the keywords on each of my blog posts by researching relevant terms related to my posts and including them in all the critical places, and within a week I doubled my site visits and increased the comments on my posts by at least two-fold!

This process is time consuming, but if you know your content is great and you want to ‘get seen’, it is more than worth it to take a few days to enhance these SEO tricks and tips.

Further Reading…

A great resource for a further explanation of the in’s and out’s of SEO is seomoz.com. Also, you can see the grade at which your website ranks right now, and ways to improve it significantly, by using Hubspot’s free Website Grader tool. As you can see to the right, I have utilized this tool and am working every week to improve it.

Problogger.net also gives great tips on creating a great blog and optimizing it.

If you have other tips and tricks to enhance the SEO for a personal site, please list them below, I’d love to hear your feedback!

Good Luck!

Do you consider yourself technologically savvy or very socially connected? Make sure you are using the below social media sites, and using them correctly!

1. Facebook: If you are a business, create an informative but not overwhelming Fan Page. Connect with others in your demographic market and geographic location, interact with them, and post valuable and meaningful information for fans to read. If you are an individual marketing yourself online, ensure to clean up your profile, i.e. no bad pictures, create appropriate status updates, and watch what pages you become fans of and what groups you join. Then, start networking with professionals and professional groups through Facebook.

2. Twitter: If you are a business, develop an original background that conveys the image and look and feel of your company. Interact with others in your industry, thought leaders, key consumers, and proponents of your brand. This will help you disseminate your information in the most direct way, and those people will be more receptive to it. Make sure you do not over-promote yourself, or followers will be turned off. Post valuable information about your industry in general, and make sure to interact with people! If you are an individual, create an original background that conveys your personal brand online, connect with friends, co-workers, favorite brands, and even those in your industry that you want to network with. Search for topics or industries in the search box to get involved with people doing involved with that on Twitter.

3. LinkedIn: If you are a business, create a strong description of your company and join all relevant groups to your industry/product/brand, etc. Post your blogs to those groups and ask others for their feedback. In the same way, respond to others and interact to be seen as a thought-leader and a ‘socialite’ on LinkedIn. If you are an individual, create a strong description of what you do or what you hope to achieve by networking with others. Get involved with groups that are relevant to your area of interest or speciality, post your blogs, and respond to others as well. The more active you are on here, the more recognized you will be, and you may even land a job offer!

4: Blog: Today, blogging is more important than ever for everyone to be doing. Blogging allows you to be seen as a thought leader or expert in your field. For blogging success, read Chris Brogan’s blog titled 40 Ways to Deliver Killer Blog Content.” Tell Facebook friends about your posts, Tweet it out to the Twitterverse, post it to your groups on LinkedIn, and even make them into video blogs to post them on YouTube for additional exposure!

5. Commenting on Blogs: You know it feels good to see that someone has commented on your blog, so as common courtesy, comment on other blogs as well. They appreciate it as much as you do. By reading other blogs, you can learn more, learn about different perspectives on issues, interact with new people, share that information with others, and get your name out there.

6. Pictures/Videos: Giving a visual representation of your daily activities or thoughts is a great way for a reader/viewer to interact with you and learn more about you. For example, if you are traveling into Boston for the day and want to take a video of you recapping the conference, people will want to see your video blog review if they were not able to attend. Also, if you are at a really cool restaurant, saw a neat car, etc. you can take a picture and upload it to TwitPic or Flickr to share with all! Visual representation of what you are doing is more powerful than you may think!

For those of you starting off in social media engagement, take these steps slow and carefully so you develop your content in a planned out and effective manner. It does take time, so don’t rush it. To monitor your online presence, occasionally search Google for your own name to see how much content is on the web about you. If you are getting involved with Internet technologies for a career, future employers may be Googling you more than looking into your resume.

For those social media gurus reading this, any other suggestions to add?