Tag: Blogs

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Why Are You Blogging?

We blog for search engines and for increasing readership. Why do you blog? There are many good reasons to blog and I will certainly tell you some of them in this post, but aggressive lead generation is not one of them.

I consider blogging a soft-selling medium. Blogging allows you to share information with readers and develop authority on your topic in their eyes. I have never used blogging as a lead generation medium per-say, because truthfully that is simply not what blogging is about. Blogging is about conversation, sharing knowledge, and search engines. Hit your readers with a marketing message post after post and you will lose readers.

I have gotten clients from my blog, but usually after they have followed me for a time, feel comfortable with my proficiency in a specific area, and valued my knowledge, never because of one post I have written.

These are my top reasons for blogging:

  1. Build content for search engines.
  2. Create “Web Authority” for search engines and readers.
  3. Build keyword density on specific searchable topics that act as entries to my blog feeding to my website.
  4. To share knowledge with others.
  5. To build website traffic.
  6. To keep my website visitors on my website longer.
  7. Identify areas of strong interest with my readers which may be good avenues for new white papers and services.
  8. Create interactive conversation with visitors.
  9. To learn something new every day in my field.
  10. To highlight websites, blogs, software, and tips that I feel are helpful to others and are beneficial.

So why do you blog? Just click comments and let me know.

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How to Show an Excerpt in WordPress Versus the Full Blog Post

Some blogs like to just show an excerpt of the post and then a link at the bottom of the blog post to view or read more. So how are they doing that? It’s easy!

First write your full blog post in the WordPress control panel or migrate from Word if that is what you do. At the place where you want you post to break, just put your cursor there. Then click the HTML tab at the top right of your blog post panel, just above the font control and hyperlink insertion menu.

Then where your cursor is located just paste in this code:

<!–more–>

When you go back to the Visual tab, to view your post, you will now see a dotted line where your post is to break. When you publish your blog WordPress will automatically add a link to read more and then take the reader to the exact section of the post on the new page.

Cool huh? A neat trick to use the excerpt function.

Okay now why don’t I use this on my own blog? Well I have found that typically the reader will not click in to read more on most blogs, they will simply read the next post and not click in unless they are REALLY interested in what you have written. So I do not use this feature on my own blog as I want to encourage readers to review my full content with minimal action on their part.

Why would a blog want to use this feature? Some blogs have so much content on the home page that to “look” less intimidating they will use the excerpt format. Sometimes to have a less cluttered look, and sometimes so they can get more content on the home page.

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Upgrading to WordPress 2.7

Screen shot of WordPress 2.7
Screen shot of WordPress 2.7

I just upgraded my blog from WordPress 2.6.1 to WordPress 2.7. Whew it was hairy and took 1.6 hours to do, but I have successfully upgraded my blog platform.

You the user can most likely see no difference, but in the control panel, the differences are huge. For me the reason that I wanted to upgrade was (1) so many clients are asking me should they upgrade? and (2) Flash Player 10 has broken my ability to easily add photos to my blog and I wanted to see if upgrading would help to get me back in business.

Well I am here to say that yes for images I am back in business, thank goodness. Darn that Flash Player 10 for making it so hard for me with WordPress.

So do I like the interface of WordPress 2.7? Well, it is very different than 2.6 that is for sure.

So far for me all my plugins have worked and my settings have carried over. Do I recommend doing the upgrade? If you have the time and money, I would recommend it. One of the improvements I see is the ability to block specific users from commenting, I have one guy who spams me all the time, and the ability to from now on auto upgrade WordPress as new versions come out. I liked WordPress version 2.6 but I think that I will like version 2.7 better.

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The Truth on Linking From Forums and Other Blogs

Okay, it used to be a great SEO technique to actively and aggressively link to your fledgling blogsite or website on other blogs or forums. You could get quality one way inbound links using this not talked about much technique. It was very workable. Mind that I said WAS.

Now, that technique is passé with Google’s Blogger, Typepad, and some WordPress sites automatically inserting a “nofollow” tag in any link left in comments. You simply cannot get the search engine capital you used to be able to get with blog commenting or forum posting.

There are still some sites that don’t have the no follow tag installed and for these sites you can still build capital with great comments and then a link back to your website. So how do you know which sites this technique will work on and which it will not?

Go to a site you think if a good match for authority for your site or blog. Go to a post that has a comment. If there are non, leave one yourself and then go back to the page where you comment appears. Right click anywhere on the page and then select view source. Notepad will open, using the Find feature go to a word in your comment and then go to your actual link. The link source code will have this in it. <a href=”http://www.yourweblinkaddress.com”>Your text</a>. If you see inside the a href a nofollow or external nofollow tag, you will never get organic capital from this site. If you do not see the no follow tag, better book mark this site and come back to comment often and frequently.

Now one thing about commenting. Most site and forum owners have ways to ban you or delete your comments. So, don’t be a spammer! Say something insightful about the blog post not “great post, I am bookmarking your site.” Spammers do that, actually leave something of value, a tip, a trick, another link, but always insert a link to your blog or website to deep content and include your full http://www.webaddress.com in that format to your website or blog in your signature block.

You can still get links and great search engine capital from forum or blog comment posting, you just have to be more careful about where you go to invest your time.