First of all, people tend to search for questions so you can bet that the question you are asking yourself will result in some decent search traffic (either by volume if your page is optimised well enough or by quality – some niche traffic that converts well).  How many times have you Googled a question just to find the top few results answer your query exactly?

The benefits aren’t restricted to big search engines.  When your blog grows in size, people will use your site search more often to see if you have previously covered topics they want to know about.  So having questions answered as blog posts is a great way to serve the needs of these visitors.  It’s like having each FAQ indexed and returned as results in your internal search!

One of the best reasons to do this is that it’s a way to really nail down a specific topic.  A lot of blog posts can be generic articles that rarely touch in more niche areas – the Q&A approach is great because it lets you answer the question in a very concise way and that results in a good user experience!

OK, so my answer to the question, “what if I can think of a blog topic?” isn’t very comprehensive – it’s just a smartass excuse for a blog post really, but I hope it sparks some ideas in your head.  However, if your blog topic is technical in nature, then you can really stamp your authority on the subject by providing solid answers to tricky questions, and those are the kind of posts people link to and bookmark!

And that can’t be all bad can it?

Design is important.  In fact, many businesses don’t realise just how important the design of your website is.  I wrote a post on the issues surrounding converting traffic into sales, so it’s worth having a read through that before you proceed with the rest of this article.

Done that?  Good, let’s move on.

Google is a good start to find out a bit more about ad positioning – their guide for blog positioning here is pretty good and tells you most of the stuff that other people are saying around the web;

• Select image & text ads for above the fold targeting – it encourages Adwords bidders to select the spot for branding purposes.
• Select image & text adds for sidebar skyscrapper.  Again, this is good for companies wishing to brand – but it also is big enough for a few text ads.
• Embed a 360 * 280 square at the top of your articles with text wrapping around it.  Google suggest the top right positioning is better.  This helps target users arriving on the page who might then click on.
• Add another 360 * 280 between your blog post and your comments.  This targets users when they finish reading your article.

There are loads of Adsense tips articles out there – a lot are definitely worth reading over.  Here are a selection of tips from some of the best;

• Adsense How To - Track your page performance by making channels of ads in your AdSense Control Panel and experiment till you are satisfied with your CTR.
• Adsense Team – The sizes we’ve found to be the most effective are the 336×280 Large Rectangle, the 300×250 Medium Rectangle, and the 160×600 Wide Skyscraper.
• Jensense – If you are a publisher who has multiple ad units on a page, whether it is because of personal preference or simply because it is a long content-heavy page, you need to make sure your placement isn’t leaving revenue on the table.
• Keyword Country – If you develop a poor quality content website, it will likely give you high  CTR and clicks, but you will be getting low priced ads.
• My Adsense Formula – Provide some free space around ads so that they stand out and users know where to find them.
• Quick Online Tips – Usually it is recommended to place towers on your right, as users tend to use the mouse to scroll the bar on the right side wiht a higher chance to see your ads.
• WMtips – Blend your ads with your website themes. For example, if your background color is white, change your ads border and background color to white as well.

Does anyone else have some top Adsense CTR tips they’d like to share?

While each idea has some merit for some blogs, not all will be appropriate or effective.  It’s important as a blogger (and a business owner) to assess each technique and make your own decisions on which routes to take for your business.

A whole bunch of ways you could market your blog

• Search engine optimisation. Why not let the search engines send you a bunch of free visitors?
• Link building. Part of SEO, but also a valuable marketing exercise.
• Pay per click. Very measurable method of marketing, particularly for new sites or small budgets.
• Linking out to other sites. Most website owners check their stats!
• Comment on other blog posts. Active blogs generally send back traffic if you comment on a post.
• Join discussion forums. Making a name for yourself is a good way to get your blogs known too.
• Google blog search. Where bloggers are found!
• Google news.  Where news is found!  Bit tougher to get into, but decent traffic.
• Banner ads. Advertise your brand on other sites.
• Source reviews. Ask other bloggers to review your website or product.
• Linkbait. Write a controversial or comprehensive article that will encourage people to link to it.
• Facebook. Take out ads, setup a fan page for your business and share your content to your friends.
• Other social media. Such as Digg or Stumbleupon.
• Include syndication links on your posts. Submit to Facebook, email to a friend, etc.
• Distribute PR. Press releases are more than just link building!
• Guest posts. Either recruit guest authors for your blog (they may bring fans along!) or write for another blog yourself.
• Flyers. Leave flyers for your blog in local shops, restaurants, businesses, etc.
• Champion a cause. Get some publicity behind you!
• Directories. Specifically blog directories, but also general or industry directories.
• Promotions & Merchandise. Everyone likes free stuff – why not give some away?
• Awards. Give out awards to other websites – it might give you some good PR.

Anyone have any tips they’d like to share?

Scott

This article looks at some top tips for managing multiple blogs with some advice on how to approach this change in your business model.

Tips for managing multiple blogs

• When moving from your first blog to launching your second, try not to go too far away from your existing niche initially.  That way you can cross post some content and also link back and forth between your sites.
• Everyone should have a star blog. That’s a blog that accounts for a large amount of visitors and search traffic.  Launching a second or third blog is much easier if you have a successful blog through which you can launch the next one.
• Do some pre-launch homework. Keyword research is important – not only will it help you find out about your potential market, but the process of doing research will give you some ideas for blog topics.
• Be generous with the link love. It’s a free and easy way to promote your new blog to other bloggers in the niche and might result in some juicy backlinks to help your new blog along.
• Don’t worry about overlapping your niches. If you have two blog posts basically targeting the same subject area / search term – that’s not a bad thing.  But perhaps look at approaching them from different angles.  Remember duplicated content won’t rank in search engines.
• But do worry about going overboard. Yes, some duplication is OK.  But it should NOT be the norm for your blog.  Don’t think you can dominate a niche by running ten blogs all attacking the same search terms.  It was tried and tested long before you arrived on the scene and basically (to do right) takes as much work as operating ten blogs in different niches (which would ultimately be a much safer longer term strategy).
• Test, record and repeat. When you eventually found success with your first blog, you wrote down all of your key finding right?  Best ad locations, best strategies for link building, best content ideas and so on.  This is a lot of trial and error work you don’t need to do for your next blog.  Hit the ground running!
• Maintain work logs for each blog. This includes keyword spreadsheets, analytics data, list of potential articles, to do list and so on.  When running one blog, you can wing it with this stuff.  When running two, you need to start to get serious about how you run your blooming network as a business.
• Employ an inter-linking strategy.  Via author biography after posts, in an “about us” page or site wide footer links.  Do your homework and decide what is best for you.  Top tip – every page on one site linking to your “about us” page, which then links out to your network is as effective as site wide links to your network.  Don’t go crazy when keyword linking to loads of your own articles though – keep it relevant for your visitors.

Feel free to post a comment with any tips or advice you have on running multiple blogs.

Scott

So what do you do when writer’s block sets in and you can’t think of a new blog topic to write about?  All is not lost!  Check out these killer ideas for some inspiration (in no particular order)…

20 Ideas For Blog Topics

1. Comment on recent news items.  I’ve covered this recently, but basically this is a great way to target news related search terms (and it also lets media organisations do the whole “think of something to write about” job for you!).
2. Top 10 lists. This can be anything – your favourite cars, apps, blog posts, fuzzy blue widgets.  If you think they are good and they are related to your blog’s subject area, then chances are your readers will find them useful as well.
3. Optimised guides. Essentially this means using keyword research tools to find the keywords people search for in your niche.  Lots of these will be generic statements or possibly questions – why not write a comprehensive guide covering this area?  Over time it will rank well on search engines and bring you consistent traffic.
4. Asking for feedback. Engage your readers and ask them what they think of your blog and if they have any ideas or suggestions.  Can be valuable feedback for you and also helps you bond with your readers.
5. Reviews. There are loads of services and products in every niche and industry – why not review some of them?  Be kind – no one likes the hardass approach to reviewing!
6. Interviews. Are there prominent people in your niche?  Of course there are!  Maybe people would be interesting in reading about what they think about current industry developments or other related topics?
7. Tips & Tricks. A nice and easy blog post where you can summarise some useful points without thinking too much about how to write a comprehensive article on the subject.
8. Link love. There are loads of blogs in your niche, all writing some decent content.  Why not post a regular roundup of what your fellow bloggers are writing about?  This can be great to promote your blog to these people and encourage other people to visit your blog regularly.
9. Guest posts. You don’t need to be carrying the weight of blogging regularly on your own.  There are loads of people out there who would be happy to contribute to your blog in exchange for a little bit of exposure.
10. Q&A session. Open the floor to your readers and get them to fire questions at you to answer about your niche.  This can be a great way to engage your readers and show off your talent!
11. Elaborate on old content. Maybe you’ve written about a generic issue in your niche – perhaps it’s worth revisiting that old article and covering one of the sub-topics in more detail?
12. Elaborate on someone else’s content. Perhaps another blogger has written an article that you feel you could add to?  That’s a perfect post idea!
13. Satire! There’s no need to be serious all of the time.  Why not write a tongue-in-cheek post about something relating to your industry?
14. Polls & Surveys. You have access to a nice group of people – why not ask them a few questions?
15. Publish research. Now you’ve polled your readers, why not write up a post and publish the results?
16. Myth busting. Most industries have areas that are complicated or misunderstood, so having a few posts that correct mistakes and myths can be very handy.
17. Jump on the nearest bandwagon. Perhaps a nifty little post on why Twitter or Facebook are great for your niche?
18. Blog about events. For example, conferences or demonstrations relating to your niche.
19. Publish press releases. You could even charge businesses for doing so.
20. Discuss your stats. Posting your traffic and earnings isn’t for everyone, but if you want to do it, there are plenty of people who would like to read it.

Does anyone have more ideas for blog topics that they’d like to suggest?

Some bonus ideas (as I think of them when writing new posts)…

1. Ask a question! And then answer it…

This a huge area – this articles looks at some of the key points and how you can cover your bases using your favourite WordPress related posts plugin or widget.

Why is it important to interlink your content?

A couple of reasons – indexing & ranking.

On the indexing front, you need to help search engines navigate around your website to not only find your new content (which is generally easily found as it usually appears on your homepage or key category pages) but to keep finding your old content.  Just as you want your new content to rank well on search engines, you want your old content to continue to rank well – that’s not going to happen is search engines have a hard time finding your old articles.

In terms of rankings, you want your articles to be linked-to from a consistent amount of pages from your website (this is a related but different issue to external link building).  Think about it logically – if your new article is linked-to from 100 pages on your site (for example, links on a recent posts list), what does this tell search engines?  It says that your article is important and it should rank appropriately.

But fast forward in time to the point that your article drops off your recent posts list (because you’ve written a bunch of new posts).  That article that had 100+ internal links, now has very few.  What does this tell search engines?  It says that you’ve placed less importance on that content, so it shouldn’t rank as well.

This is of course an over-simplified explanation of the concept – cue disclaimer…

Internal link building vs external link building

Obviously external link building is important – if 100 (decent) websites all link to your article, it will rank well as most search engines employ an external link heavy ranking algorithm (i.e. links from other sites are important in the overall ranking process).  So it stands to reason if they all suddenly stopped linking to your article, search engines would interpret this as a negative for your article’s rankings and they would probably disappear.

Internal link building is similar, but on a much less significant scale.  However it is a reason (not the only one) that some sites may see some temporary success on search engines, but then lose rankings later on.  Essentially your blog software “pushes” older content into the depths of your website and as a consequence your rankings diminish.

So, the objective of your “internal link building” (i.e. the architecture of your website) should be to manage the internal links to your content in an appropriate manner (keep in mind, different types of content have different purposes – with news items for example, the aim should be to rank quickly and well, but not for a long period of time as the search traffic for the terms diminish – whereas user guides should rank consistently well over time).

Doesn’t WordPress manage this for you?

It does to a degree, but giving it a little bit of a helping hand via related posts plugins can be useful.  Out of the box, WordPress will interlink your content quite well – your pages link down to category pages, which eventually link to your articles.  But the further back in time you need to go to find an article, the less “internal link juice” it receives from the rest of your site.  Your mission is to maximise the link juice to key articles.

What do related posts plugins do?

They essentially use WordPress tags, categories, titles and post content to generate a list of related posts for any given article.  You can see an example of this in action on the left column of this blog.

In terms of SEO this allows you (over time) to create a really great, logical link structure for your blog.  As you will be writing about similar topics each time you post, you want the really similar ones to link to each other.  So you tag each post in the same way you would write Meta keywords for the page – just a simple list of keyword terms that describe the post.  It’s important not to go overboard – limited data is better than data overload in this case.

For Blogged Out, I want all my “blogging tips” posts to link to each other, my “WordPress” posts to link to each other and so on.  Over time this ensures that each article is linked-to an appropriate amount of times, so instead of old articles only have a few internal links pointing to them (e.g. from old category pages), they have a bunch of links from articles as well.  But also, the older content gathers new internal links over time, as I publish newer posts related to that subject area.

So instead of:

• Negative link pattern. Post gets lots of links initially (from recent posts & categories) then loses most of them (all but categories).

I get:

• Positive link pattern. Post gets lots of links initially (from recent posts, categories & related posts), then loses some of them (recent posts), retaining categories and related posts links.  But importantly, over time the post gains new internal links from new posts published that now link to them = a positive internal link growth over time.

Some final points;

• For many sites, tweaking your internal link structure might not make or break your SEO campaign, but for larger sites in particular it can help stabilise long term rankings and indexing of new content.
• Simply linking to old posts is always good advice and can help you contribute to the positive link pattern.
• This is a small part of a bigger picture – external inbound links, PageRank (or equivalent) of pages, subject area of the pages, etc all influence this concept to varying degrees.
• Another big bonus of related posts = keeps visitors on your site!  If someone enters your site on an article page, having related posts to keep them interested is always a good thing!  Unless your objective is sales, etc then it might hit your sales conversions – that’s a judgement call for business bloggers though!
• Check out my must have WordPress plugins for 2011.

Take some time to play around with your favourite related posts plugin and see what results you get.  I’ve seen significant traffic increases to some sites and not much from others, although I am happy enough with the benefits to use the plugins as standard will all the blogs I run.

So, let’s assume you’re new to blogging, but already have your blog setup (that’s a whole different selection of articles) – what next?  Here are some quick pointers to keep you going in the right direction.

• Aim to write a new article once a day. I know that sounds like a lot, but if you can maintain that level of content production, then you’re more likely to see success.  You will never retire on the revenues from a blog you write for once a month.
• If you’re stuck for topics, then commenting on news stories can be a quick and easy way to come up with inspiration.
• Always link back to your old articles (see what I’ve done here?).  Couple of reasons for this; 1) It helps with SEO and 2) If spammers copy your article you get some nice links back to your articles.  The links won’t be worth much but better having them than not.
• Linking out to other blogs can be a great way to promote your own blog. In fact this is one of the best tips I can recommend for beginners.  Other bloggers will come to your site and see why you’re linking to them – they may even link back!
• If you are using WordPress, then make use of related / popular posts plugins.  These are great for SEO and good for keeping your visitors reading other articles on your site.
• Don’t get too ambitious with your articles. Short, snappy articles are just as valuable as huge, comprehensive ones.
• Using Google Analytics to track your progress is a great way of checking which of your articles are successful and which aren’t.  This helps you learn and improve your blogging skills!
• Formatting is everything.  Short statements, use of bold, italics and bulleted lists help people read your content easily.

Anyone care to share other blogging tips and tricks they’ve picked up over the years?

A few days ago I wrote a guide to business blogging, where I covered traffic sales conversions a little, but I figured it’s such an important area, it would be worthy of a post of its own.  In my experience, this is an area that a lot of businesses barely pay lip service to, with many completely ignoring how their website looks and works for potential customers.

For many businesses, effectively converting web traffic into sales can make or break your online marketing campaign, but why don’t people pay more attention this crucial area?

I believe the problem stems from the way periphery services are promoted and perceived.  Technically, website sales conversions should be an area covered at the design phase – perhaps by graphic designers or website designers.  But the focus at this stage both for client and service provider tends to be form and function, rather than delving too deeply into the psychology of the implementation.  Or perhaps it should be the job of your SEO provider – they are the ones responsible for traffic generation after all, but many don’t deal with this at all.

I’m not saying you should run off and start pointing the finger at particular people or providers within your organisation for not taking ownership of this concept – the issue has naturally arisen from the way online business has developed over the years.  But there is one person that you should be giving a hard time for not dealing with this with more effectively.

That person is YOU.  You, as a business owner, are responsible for the success of failure of your business, regardless of your knowledge, experience and understanding of the things your business does, and that includes traffic conversion.  YOU are the one that should be sourcing staff and suppliers that can cover all the bases for you.

Am I saying you should run off and ditch your amazing graphic designer for not thinking more about sales conversions?  No.  A talented designer is an amazing resource to have – YOU should be briefing them on sales conversion issues.  Should you ditch your website designer for not coming up with ideas to turn traffic into sales?  No.  An awesome web designer is the genius behind your web presence, so why jeopardise that?  Maybe your SEO provider needs a stern talking to?  Nope.  They bring you traffic and if they’re doing it well, that’s not something you can afford to lose.

Regardless of who isn’t taking responsibility for this area just now, there is one thing you can know for sure.  There’s good chance that someone in your organisation is capable of doing this job and you should be encouraging them to do that.  It’s a no brainer.  You’re paying for design and traffic generation – better sales conversion just means more bang for your buck!

Your site’s design and why it’s important;

The design of your site – how it looks, how the content is formatted and presented and how easy it is to navigate – is essential to how effective your sales conversions will be.  Let’s look at some of the key points you should be considering;

• Does your website inspire confidence? It’s difficult, as a business owner, to step back and objectively critique your own website, but think about it hard.  Would you buy from a website that looked like your own?  If you have any reservation at all in the back of your mind, then the answer is probably no and you should certainly review your design.
• Is your page design clean or is it cluttered? A messy page will instantly put people off and that’s hard to come back from, no matter how compelling your content is.  Why are you diluting your core objective with excessive graphics and marketing messages?
• Do your visitors meet uncessary obstacles? Convoluted sales processes, registrations, less-than-obvious call to actions and broken links.  Every instance of a negative action reduces your sales conversion effectiveness.  Don’t make people jump through 10 pages to buy a product or even scroll back up a page to register / comment / buy a product / share via FaceBook or whatever.  Remember the KISS principle!
• Remember – design is the online equivalent of customer experience in shop. A good experience means return visits and repeat custom.  A bad experience means you won’t see that person (or their friends) again.  You wouldn’t have sloppy sales staff and an untidy shop floor in the real world, would you?
• Font choice is important and don’t be caught in the corporate marketing trap of sticking to “official” fonts  as determined by your management team.  It’s OK to vary the font choice on a page, as long as the page as a whole looks good and the core content (your articles for example) and secondary content (your call to actions) are easy to read.  All too often, websites choose smaller fonts that are difficult to read just because they match the website logo!
• If you are using a content management system, have a think about how individual pages will look and don’t focus solely on your template mock-ups.  Remember, some pages may have less content than others so do you really want to stuff your pages with ads and superfluous content?  It’s not great for SEO and not great for user experience.  Sometimes the shotgun approach to design can end up hurting you – a good design can be made into a bad one when the page isn’t filled with a certain amount of content.

So you’ve covered the design of your website as best you can – it is a subjective area, so don’t worry if there are conflicting opinions on the best route to take as long as your pages are clean and easy to use.  But that’s only part of the battle when it comes to converting your web traffic into sales – the next area you really need to think about (and in my opinion, something you should have a formalised strategy for) is your content.

So how does your content help convert traffic into sales?

Well the obvious area here is through search engine optimisation.  If you consider each page on your site as a product – then each keyword it is optimised for is a unique target market – each market has a slightly different selection of potential customers.  Some are out to buy now – these are your main targets and an effective site design should convert these visitors quite easily.  But others are just information gatherers and window shoppers – these can be equally valuable in the long term, but much harder to convert.  These people are the difference between a good visitor / sales conversion ratio and a bad one.

Some tips for improving your conversion ratio;

• Inspire trust. As with offline business, trust and confidence in your business is a huge factor in online business.  Prominent display of contact details, company information, accreditations, user reviews and guarantees can all help to inspire trust before you pitch your potential customers.
• Inspire authority. Customers naturally gravitate towards authoritative businesses – that’s why big brands attract much higher volumes of custom when, at times, the quality of product and service offered is similar (or even worse) than smaller businesses.  Your content can help you stamp your authority on your industry.
• Inspire loyalty. You want people to come back right?  Some people call it sticky content – it can also be called link bait (although the term link bait also refers to other types of content).  Essentially, you are providing information that people will bookmark and refer to time and time again – “how to” guides for example.  This article is an example of sticky content – it will still be as relevant in a year’s time as it is now.
• Inspire focus. Your content is all very well when it brings in more traffic and builds your brand, but what use is that if it doesn’t convert into sales?  That’s why we’re doing this, right?  The bottom line of your content strategy should be your sales objective and all roads should lead in this direction.  Funnel your visitors through effective page design and get them to your sales pages as efficiently as possible.

What tips do you have for improving sales conversions?  Anyone care to share some examples?

Scott

This means any business blogger or website that uses any content management software must come up with ways of allowing visitors to opt in to your cookies.  Hopefully for most people, the software providers such as vBulletin or WordPress will come up with the technical solutions, but others will have to develop their own solutions unless they want to fall foul of European laws.

For WordPress, stuff like user logins or information (if someone leaves a comment without logging in, a cookie is placed to store their contact details) will be affected, although people running ecommerce websites won’t find that shopping carts are impacted as these are excluded from the law.  This will still go some way to slow down the user experience for a lot of business bloggers – and possibly have a negative impact on sales, visitor retention, visitor interactions (comments, etc) and social media bookmarking, as all these areas will now require users to initially “opt in” and allow cookies to be stored on their machines.

Experienced users will most likely just get on with it and ignore the issue (like the browser choice thing!), but less experienced users may think twice about leaving blog comments, etc if they don’t know your site.

A perfect example of how trust and quality is much more important these days and can be a game winning factor for many businesses.

The row has arisen over rights to broadcast football games – some bloggers were broadcasting the matches via their blog pages.  As a result, Blogger / BlogSpot has been blocked entirely to Turkish users.

This move comes only a few months after 2 year block of YouTube in the country, which has strict copyright laws which can allow for entire services to be shut down, rather than taking action against specific offenders individually.

A spokesman for BlogSpot said,

“The process for making a copyright claim for content uploaded to Blogger is straightforward and efficient, and we encourage all content owners to use it rather than seek a broad ban on access to the service”

It’s estimated that over 600,000 people in Turkey were using the service before the block.