You’ve heard it time and time again that blogging will help your business’s online exposure.

You’ve probably got your blog set up ready to go but there’s a question lurking in the back of your mind…

How do I start blogging?

If you’ve got this far you’ve probably already answered the question “why do I want to blog?” Just in case you haven’t, you need to think about it carefully.

A blog is an online platform from which  you can give your opinion and offer tips and advice. It will add value to your customers and provide a rich source of back links for your website.

If your answer was “because everyone else is doing it”, forget it. Blogging takes stamina – it’s not something you can do every now and then. If you want it to be effective you have to blog regularly – and that means at least weekly.

To illustrate this point you may be interested in a post that I came across on socialmediaexaminer.com outlining The 5 Pillars of Business Blogging Success which shows that blogging is about far more than writing random posts and sending them out into cyberspace.

In essence you must:

1. Plan  - define your target audience and write for them using your chosen keywords. Decide why you’re blogging and what you want to achieve from it. 

2. Content -  write your posts in simple language (no jargon). Make them interesting and relevant to your audience and pay attention to your headings to make sure they’re eye-catching.

3. Design – looking at the bigger picture, the design of your blog should be attractive and make people want to hang around. Make sure it’s clean and uncluttered.

4. Marketing – if you want people to read your blog you have to tell them it’s there. Promote your post through social media and get an RSS feed showing the latest posts of your website.

5. Engage – write to your reader (use the second person). This makes it personal to them as though you are confiding in them.

There’s a lot to think about when blogging.

If you are going to be successful you have to be committed and be able to generate a constant stream of valuable information.

Not only will it benefit your customers by giving them advice and tips it will also help your SEO strategy by building links to your main website.

Have you had success blogging? If so leave a comment and share your experiences.

Blogging is an excellent way to boost your business’s online presence.

Yes it takes time but, believe me, it really does work. I’m a copywriter and have been blogging for several years now and it has really helped be cement my position within the Google rankings.

Blogging means you are constantly putting fresh content out onto the web. This constant content feeding generates traffic which is vital for your search engine optimisation strategy.

As you know SEO is all about getting found on the web for your chosen keywords. So by writing your blogs in line with your SEO strategy (i.e. using the keywords you want to be found for), you’ll attract readers and as a result, visitors to your website.

To help you get the most out of your blog posts and their SEO potential I have put together the following 5 tips.

1. Quality content

People want quality. They want to spend their time reading something interesting, informative and helpful. By adding value to them in this way, you’ll strengthen your relationship with them . That will keep them coming back for more and help build those very important back links.

2. Keywords

Of course great quality content is useless if you’re not targeting the right audience. Once you’ve written your post, read it and think about what terms your reader would use to search for it. The primary keywords tend to be quite obvious, but other terms are not so clear-cut.

There are various tools you can use to identify your keywords such as Google’s keyword tool. To find associated words, tools such as the Google Tilde search are useful but there is also another more visual tool you can use.

Try Google Wheel. When you’ve entered your search term into the Google search box, if you look to the left of your screen you’ll see Wonder Wheel.

If you click on this it will produce a wheel diagram with your main search term in the centre (in this case ‘dog training’) with associated terms around it:

You can then click on any other outer terms to receive further results:

3. META Titles and descriptions

The META title and description are there to tell both the reader and search engine spiders what your posts is about. If you use the WordPress.com platform for your blog you can use the All in one SEO Pack to specify these fields.

When writing your titles and descriptions make sure your keywords are near the beginning. There is also a character limit for each (Titles – 72, Description – 165) so you’ll have to carefully plan your words.

4. Links

Both internal and external links are important when writing your posts. Your internal links (utilising related keywords) link out to other posts, while external links take the reader to other related websites. In both cases make sure you use keyword rich links rather than something like ‘click here’ which has no value.

Your external links can also be used to encourage inbound links from other websites as ‘trackbacks’ inform that web owner you have linked to  them. Therefore they may in turn link to your posts.

5. URL

The last item on my list is your URL. This I the web address used to link to your post. Make sure you use your keywords within this as it will instantly show the relevance of your post.

Make sure it is meaningful.

By utilising each of these techniques and tools, you will produce meaningful, interesting blog posts that will be found through the search engines. Not only that, but by ensuring you create quality content you will attract links and build your reputation as an expert in your field.

Blogging is an excellent way of getting your voice heard.

If you’re into search engine optimisation the chances are you’re also a keen article marketer as it’s one of the most effective ways of boosting your web presence.

Not only will it help you ‘own more of the web’, it will also position yourself as an expert in your field and generate those all important back links to your website.

But your article marketing will only be effective it if is quality content that you’re putting out. It must be:

• Well written
• Written to addresses the needs of your readers
• Something that gives value

In a rush to produce shed loads of links, some companies become hung up on quantity rather than quality. They’d rather spend only a few pounds per article (these are written by writers who are frequently based abroad and for whom English is not their first language) than pay a decent fee and hire a professional copywriter.

It shouldn’t be a numbers game

It’s true that you need a lot of articles to build links but it’s better practice to submit quality, well written articles over a period of time than bulk submitting sub-standard ones.

Putting a considered, well researched and well written article together isn’t about scanning the internet and cutting and pasting bits from other articles. A copywriter will take the time to discover:

• What topic is to be discussed
• The focus of the discussion
• Who your audience is
• What they are looking for
• What tone should be used
• What do you want to achieve with the article

It’s your reputation at the end of the day

If you are entering into the article marketing world, what you submit and its quality are very important.

You’re putting your name to it; you’re using them as a way of establishing yourself as an expert. Sub standard articles will just make you look foolish.

Remember that your articles aren’t just about link building—people are actually going to read them. Can you really afford to be that careless with your brand?

You get what you pay for

As with all things in life, you get what you pay for so if you want quality you’re going to have to pay for it.

If you are more interested in your reputation, traffic and quality you’ll pay for it.

You’ll want to get the most from your marketing budget, but just make sure you also think about your reputation.

You’ve done your keyword research, you’ve designed your website so it’s easy for your readers to navigate, you’ve even found an SEO copywriter to write some great, targeted copy that your visitors will want to read. So what’s next?

That is just the start of your search engine optimisation strategy, if you want it to continue to work and bring in great rankings you’re going to have to become an active link builder.

How do links help?

Let’s go back to the beginning. Every web page is given a Page Rank (a number ranging from 0 to 10 to illustrate your page’s value with 0 being the lowest).

When another page links to you (using a follow link), a little bit of that Page Rank filters through to you (link juice) because it’s seen as a vote of confidence in your page. So the more quality links you get to your website, the higher your Page Rank and the more authoritative you are seen by the search engines.

So how do you get links?

First off, gathering links can a slow and lengthy process (and a continuous one). The best way by far to link build is by doing it organically.

How do you do that? Well it’s by:

• Writing interesting content that people will want to link to
• Submitting your website to directories
• Blogging and linking back to your website through your posts
• Article marketing

It’s time consuming and slow, but you won’t get Google’s back up.

Is there a quicker way?

Yes there is but I wouldn’t recommend it. Short cuts are never a good idea so don’t buy in links you could be asking for all sorts of trouble especially as you’ll be going against Google’s guidelines and could risk your website. If you don’t believe me take a look at Julie Joyce’s post on Search Engine Journal entitled “4 Huge Mistakes to Avoid When You Build Links“.

If you’re serious about SEO, your website and your reputation, go organic – it’s the only way.