Maximizing Your Blog – Take 2

Originally Posted on Successful Thinkers Meetup by Joshua Shackelford

This is my official apology for my last post. It was just a quick list of some of the things that I did. It was more of an online location for me to post some personal notes. I wanted to take some time to rewrite that post so that it would be a little more beneficial. Here goes take 2.

I’ve also had a lot of questions about what blogs are. You may want to start by understanding the blog platform or a definition of a blog.

Here are the steps to go through to get the most distance out of your blog.

1. Find a home
You need to first find a home for your new blog. I’m biased, so I’d suggest here on Successful Thinkers. You can write me with questions on how to start one, if you like. Other options include;

• Successful Thinkers Meetup
• Blogspot (by google)
• Friendster
• Word Press
• Windows Live Spaces
• TypePad (Not Free)
• Live Journal
• and More…

2. Create a blog name
Use your real name (or keywords for your name). Each time that you post, this name will show up, and it will be in the URL of our site. URL’s give you a lot of weight and authority with search engines, so you would want to use your company name, keywords, or your personal name (alias) for your blog.

3. Add a professional picture to your profile
Your blog represents you and your company. It is important to have a professional picture associated with your blog to give you more authority. In addition, blogs are personal, so people want to be able to connect with the writer. A professional picture allows you to do this.

4. Write 5 blog posts
If you only have one or two posts, people won’t take you seriously. You need to write at least 5 articles or posts before continuing on. If you start driving people to your blog, but don’t have any content, people will leave and never return.

Time to get recognized
5.Add your blog to a feedburner
Feedburner is backed by Google, so it will give you additional visibility. In addition, it is a powerful service that will allow you to syndicate your blog with authority. For now you will just need to trust me on this. Later I’ll explain more about the power of feedburner.

• Create a feedburner account or use your google account
• Create a new feed
• Name your feed based on your company name or keywords (this will later be in the URL)
• Add your RSS feed to feedburner

6. Add your blog to various blog catalogs and RSS readers

• Technorati
• myBlogLog
• Google Reader
• Friend Feed
• Blogged
• Blog Catalog

7. Create a facebook account
Add your blog to facebook
a. Click Profile
b. Click on settings (onthe far right next to "All Posts"
c. Click on "Automatically import activity"
d. Click on "Blog/RSS"
e. Paste in your URL to your RSS feed to your blog

8. Create multiple blogs
Having multiple blogs will give you more visibility on the internet. I recommend creating a blog here on Successful Thinkers Meetup, and then cross-posting to other blogs. The STM engine supports automatic cross-posting, making things easy for you. Another easy method to keep multiple blogs up to date is using Windows Live Writer. When posting to multiple locations it is wise to add a line at the top and bottom that states where the blog was originally posted, so that your users know where to go for ultimate authority. The other blogs that I’m on are Google’s Blogger, and Friendster.

9. Syndicate your blog on your other blogs
RSS feeds allow you to syndicate your content on to other sites. If your other blogs support adding RSS readers as widgets, then you should add your primary blog as a feed on your other sites. This is a very simple process, as most of the time it us just a matter of copying and pasting the RSS link, and since you have already added your blog to feedburner, this is the feed to add to all of your sites.

10. Signup for "add this"
Add This allows you to quickly add a shortcut icon or bar to your blog so that people can share the information that they found on your site with their own social network that they have on other sites. This utility is free. You should add it to your content in your side bar for easier syndication.

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Originally Posted on Successful Thinkers Meetup by Joshua Shackelford

Build a following with email

So many people trying to build a following behind their blogs, Facebook profiles, Successful Thinkers profiles, and even their tweets, often forget about the power of email. I thought that this would be a good time to mention a few different formats for getting your message out.

Social Networking
Social networking is an amazing opportunity to stay connected with your friends or business associates. It provides a convenient place to check up on the things they are working on. You are able to make a one click stop to stay up to date on all of their activities and they can do the same. This value is only realized if you maintain your profile, announcements, and comments.

Blogs
Blogs are an even stronger platform for you to tell the world what you are about. You can post updates on projects, new releases, or even just state your opinion on current events. It is important to stay consistent with your theme, as your following will want to depend on your information. It provides a one click stop for your associates to stay up to date on you, just as a social network profile does. However, they will want to get something out of it, so don’t just make it a daily sales pitch.

Twitter
Twitter is a little bit harder to leverage. The 140 character limit prevents you from rambling on. You need to keep your posts short and to the point. Some people post updates as to where they are and what they are doing; but if you are just bouncing from one meeting to another, this isn’t that exciting to follow. Instead you need to tweet short descriptions about things that you have found interesting, and then post a link to the full run down. The power behind this is your short links won’t show the reader where they are going, until they get there. Now you can promote anything, or anyone you want, with a short link. I don’t tweet very often, but am more along the lines of only tweeting VERY interesting things.

Back to Email
All of the above internet mediums require your reader to come to you. If you are anything like me, you don’t publish fresh content daily. Sometimes it is weekly or even monthly. Your followers will not want to continually check your site for fresh content, just to be disappointed with the same old stale text. This is where the power of email can come in. Email allows you to push content out to your readers. Often I have heard of people’s newsletter lists referred to as ATM’s. A strong mailing list can provide you with an abundance of resources, if done correctly.

While it is extremely important to keep all of these different areas up to date with fresh content, it is just as important to let people know when there is fresh content for them to find. There are several different ways to accomplish this.

- Setup an opt-in email list with one of thousands of providers. (iContant, Constant Contact, aWeber)
- Leverage FeedBurner’s email opt-in. This is a great option, as it also allows you to maintain your syndication.
-Maintain a contact list within your email program (Outlook, Gmail, yahoo, hotmail, etc.)

I personally prefer FeedBurner, as it is a free solution and helps with your syndication. Until your list gets really large, this is a viable solution; but then you’ll need to leverage a stronger list management system. iContact has a really strong API, allowing you to integrate other software with it, and has a very simple interface to create and track emails.

Originally Posted on Successful Thinkers Meetup

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