Blogging: building strong Foundations

Todays post was inspired by a good friend of mine here in Victoria, British Columbia.

Anne Wheatcroft who is An Emerging Artist here in Canada has a website which only recently went live. The site is a static webpage with a blog buried within.

Now Anne is in the art scene here in Victoria and is a relative newcomer to the whole internet and blogging scene. So this is for all those who, like Anne, just don’t know how to build a strong foundation for their emerging website.

If you are running a web based business then you really should build your credibility and your presence with a website based around the wordpress content management system. WordPress is the easiest, most reliable and most supported website platform around right now. Search engines love wordpress so these sites get indexed really quickly, sometimes in minutes of being published which is worth more than just money. So the question is just How on earth do you go about maximising your effort on your new blog to gain credibility and Search engine indexing?

So how to build a business based on a solid foundation with a wordpress blog.

Stick to what you know.
Make a list of subjects that are fundamental to your niche or business, and pick the one you know the most about. because this is a business based blog, write about your business incorporating your knowledge , but in such a way that you inform, don’t preach to your potential readers. If you are new to your business then try writing from the perspective of someone new to that business. Its very powerful for someone who follows you later on to learn from your mistakes as you made them. That can bring almost instant trust, which is a strong foundation that brings loyal supporters.

Make sure that you have the right plugins installed to 2.0 socialise your blog.
Every wordpress instal puts just two plugins automatically in the set-up of your blog. Thats it. Akismet (anti spam) and Hello Dolly (irelevant in my view). Plugins create functionality within your wordpress blog and most are free. So get the right plugins and optimse them according to your needs. See my other post on this subject, Here

Plan your posts ahead of time.
Planning your posts ahead of time means they can be optimised to create a specific target within your niche. Keyword research is vital in this regard. So if your niche is like Annes which is the ART WORLD you may want to write a post about the importance of brush strokes for example. Reasearch that phrase in google to find out how often that specific search term is used. If its used 5-10,000 times a month then its a term worth targeting. Write your post based on that search term and make it your headline for the post. Sprinkle that exact term in the post at least two or three times and always within the first paragraph of your post. Make that phrase BOLD in the first paragraph.

Advertise your post using Social Media.
Once you have created the blog post, send out an alert to the Social media arena. There are many tools available that will do this some are even free. I use Twitter but there are many social networking sites that you can use such as Facebook, My Space, Reditt, Linkedin, Tagged and more. Use multiple sites if you can to get the widest exposure for your business.

Feed the beast regularly
If you want the search engines to find your blog, post to your blog with regularity. At least two or three times a week. Search engines love fresh content, so the more you post, the higher you will eventually rank in the search engines. Make the post relevant and try to make it a little controversial to drive interest in what you write.

Expand your network with Articles.
Now that you have your blog set up and functioning, its time to cast our net further. The quickest way is to take our original blog post and create an article using that content. You may not even need to re-draft the original content. but that depends on the particular article directories regulations. I use Ezine Articles, because the service is free and it is without doubt the most prominent of the directories out there right now. The hardest part here is the bio box. make that your focus in the first instance and see what others put in theirs to draft your bio effectivelly.

I also recommend Squidoo and Hubpages. These are social media sites which are in effect a mini website to advertise your business and to again expand your influence.

Post comments on other blogs in your niche
I recommend you go visit other blogs within your niche and post a relevant comment on a particular post. Make sure you read the post and leave a sincere comment. Also, use your blog’s main keywords in your comment. This is easy to do with a little HTML code after your name at the foot of your post. This provides legitimate links from your blog to other websites which is another strong indicator that Google and other search engines look for.

Maintaining a blog can be hard work especially before you get a credible presence on line. Perserverence, relevent content and being personable are all necessary attributes you need to gain a solid footing. But it should be fun too and light not heavy in tone. No one likes to read an obituary every day. Make fun of your self, turn disasters into lessons and if you find a post or article that you really liked, write a post on that subject from your perspective for your readership with a link to the original post. This gets you noticed by that author and gets you more credibility . It takes time to gain ground with “natural traffic” from blogging but if you are in business then its for the longer term so its worth that effort. Your blog should be like the rest of your business efforts, designed to build your business over time.

I hope you have found this both interesting, informative and that you try what I have suggested. However you feel please leave a comment. I would love to hear what you think.

Until the next time, have fun because life is not a rehearsal.

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