Successful Blog

Collaboration Link 1: Image and Text

by

Have you ever thought about collaboration as a creative way to make new links? It’s a great way to build community relationships as well as relevancy. How the collaboration works depends on the people involved and their blogs. I thought a few posts on collaboration links might be fun.

Collaboration Link 1: Image and Text
One person provides the text, the other the image.

I surfed a photo blog and this fabulous photo caught my attention. It had a caption that said

“You’re a photographer?” the child asked.
“No, I take pictures.”

I left a comment describing exactly what I liked about the photograph and how the caption inspired me. Then I emailed the photographer to say I would like to write a story about the photograph. Would he be interested? Would he share the photograph?

He said he’d like to see what I did with it and kindly agreed. What resulted was this collaborative link, “You’re a Photographer?”

A few weeks later a friend came to me. We had discussed working together, but we hadn’t yet hit on an idea–what should come first image or text? Then one day, he asked if he might use a story I posted to inspire a piece of art. Did I mind? I could hardly wait. What resulted was this collaborative link, “Dance with Me.”

These collaborations strengthened the blogging community. The links made the content on both blogs more interesting, more connected, more relevant. Personally, I enjoyed the chance to change things up a bit. It was cool to be blogging with a new friend and to feel like I was blogging on two blogs at once.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Collaboration Link 2: Topical
Collaboration Link 3: An Event
Collaboration Link 4: Movable Posts
Collaboration Link 5: An Interview
Collaboration Link 5: Begs the Question
Collaboration Link 6: Media Events

Mastering Content in Your Niche

by

Guest Writer: Gary Fugere

Gary Fugere of Earn a living without a job took me up on my call for posts by sending in his How to become the “Go To” in your niche.

This post, originally written as a submission to Darren Rowse’s 31-day challenge, offers head-on advice for getting in control of the information grapevine in your blogging niche. Main points that Gary covers include

  • Be a reporter, not a writer. Readers are looking for answers.
  • Get plugged in with a news aggregator such as Bloglines.
  • Learn to find compelling content nuggets. He offers several strategies, including how to master the nuances of Bloglines search, Google Alerts, Yahoo Buzz, and Google Zeitgeist. I was impressed that everything you need to know is there and complete.

To finish off the document there are eighteen additional links to resources you might explore. This post is well worth checking out.

Here’s a taste of the resources Gary has to offer.

Look Smart Search for Articles

Thanks Gary for sharing what you know with us. This is what a community blog is all about. 😛

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SEO–Positioning Keywords for Readers and Search Engines

by

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Keywords and Writing

You’ve picked a topic and 2-3 keywords that you want to focus on. Time for the writing to begin. To produce quality, relevant content, writers really need to focus on readers. There’s really no getting around that. So I recommend you write your post without a thought of SEO, and save the keyword positioning for the editing stage. Attempting to do both at once is like trying to serve two masters, you won’t do either well.

The Key to Keywords
Don’t pick a key that will open every door on the block, or a key that only you will be able to find. Translation: Avoid key words that are too broad and likely to be in every document. At the other extreme, don’t choose words that only you use. But then, you knew that.

Use keywords naturally. Overuse of keywords is to search engines as overuse of home office deductions is to tax forms–it raises a flag that you might be trying to beat the system. Avoid that. Using too many keywords is not only dangerous, it’s unfair to readers who come to you expecting a post that is well-written prose, worth reading.

Keywords and Formats
Posts come in many sizes and flavors. This section actually gives you two lists in one. It’s a main list of formats your posts might take. You might use it to spark your imagination before you start writing when you’re looking for some variety. Within that list is the information on where your keywords might best be positioned after each kind of post is written.

Post Formats and Keyword Information
Lists. In a list, keywords should be in the title, any list description, and only as necessary in the items.

Q & A or Interview. Use keywords in the questions, and enourage the interviewee to use them in his or her answers–if the interviewee finds they come naturally.

Informational Essay. The title should carry the keywords, if it can. Subheads–h1, h2, h3–should repeat the appropriate keywords for each section. The paragraphs that follow each subhead would naturally use the keywords the section content discusses.

Running text with multiple links. When you offer links with an explanation, it would seem important to the reader that you put the descriptive content before the link. Keywords could be part of that description. There also seems to be no reason that keywords couldn’t be part of the hot-linked text.

Multipage posts with or without the more –> feature. Remember that you need to repeat your keywords again at the beginning of each new page. The spiders see each page as a new article, so to speak.

Graphics, Tables, or Photos with text support. Position keywords in the image description as well as in the appropriatie parts of the text. For the image description, use this tip Gerald McGarry left for us as a comment yesterday.

As far as images go, the accepted way to assign text to them is to add an alt=”description of image” tag to the image. This gives the search engine something to chew on, but more importantly it provides valuable information for blind users who rely on screen reader software.

Five Simple Keyword Rules
Other formats, those intriguing things, that we come up with every day follow the same basic rules as described above. What are those rules?

  • 1. Position keywords after the post is written.
  • 2. Keep the number of keywords limited.
  • 3. Avoid overusing keywords in the document.
  • 4. Position keywords in titles, headers, early in text, and on new pages.
  • 5. Position keywords in graphic descriptions as appropriate.

Some Fun Tools. Play with them. Then put them away. 🙂

Keyword Density Analyzer
Find out what the key words on your blog already are

Overture Keyword Selector Tool

Remember all of the keywords in the world have no relevance on their own. They need quality content. Write for your readers and the rankings will follow. So will the readers.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

SEO–Five Traits of Relevant Content

by

Practical SEO for Every Blogger

Five Traits of Relevant Content

Relevant is the keyword. Content without “relevant” is less than content. Who would want to post something irrelevant? Here are five traits of relevant content.

Relevant content is text.
Search Engines love quality relevant content. They love quality content because readers do. Content here means text, not graphics or photos. That’s where search engines and readers see pages differently. Readers “read” photos and graphics; search engine spiders crawl right past them. So under that photo or graphic include a caption explaining what’s in it.

Relevant content is fresh and free-flowing.
Search engine spiders are demanding creatures. They want original, relevant content to list for their readers–and lots of it. Provide original content with accuracy and frequency about topics readers search for, and your posts will be born relevant.

Relevant content is formatted.
When your document follows a structured format, a search engine can follow how topics relate. Relationships between topics establish that keywords aren’t just mentioned–they are connected and relevant.

  • title
  • h1–subhead that relates
  • paragraph(s)
  • h2–subhead that relates
  • paragraph(s)

Relevant content is linked–Links in, links out, and links to yourself are relevant.
Spiders crawl the web by following links. Links draw spiders to related pages from blog to blog and within your blog. Connections in content are inherently relevant.

Relevant content is error free and accessible.
Open HTML tags, gross errors in spelling, and unnecessary plugins trip spiders. Enough said.

Relevant content is what readers are searching for, what spiders are crawling for, what bloggers are blogging for–right?

I’d rather not blog than be irrelevant.

I think there’s a t-shirt in that.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Writing for a Diverse Readership

by

I sit down to write about a complex topic. My first thought? Here I go again.

I’m about to battle with myself about the appropriate writing level for this topic. I say for the topic not for the reader because my readership is diverse–you have many levels of experience.

I’ve been writing for diverse skill groups for almost three decades. I’ve also been training editors to do the same thing. There are some mistakes that everyone makes, and some techniques that can make what you write more more useful and engaging for at least 80% of your readers.

    80-20 spectrum

These are some tips on writing for a readership that includes beginners to experts. Let’s imagine I’m one of those readers. Here’s what I want you to do.

  • Write for someone who’s like you, but doesn’t know what you know about this topic. Choose a voice you’d be comfortable reading. Take an approach that makes sense to you. Use a structure that follows your logic. I’ll be grateful that you made clear decisions about presenting the information, because your article will be easy to follow.
  • Don’t worry about insulting me. Give me information. I’m smart, but that doesn’t mean I know. If you worry about insulting me, you unconsciously omit information. Often that detail you think is obvious is the one detail that I can’t see. You’re more likely to upset me by confusing me than by telling me too much.
  • I like a well-written review of the basics. Hey, we all forget little things, and we all like to feel smart. As long as you don’t beat me over the head with stuff, I don’t mind hearing good information again. I learned the value of review in school. Just don’t make me feel like I’ll be tested on it.

    • Two points are for bloggers who might be nervous.

  • Do all you can not to be self-conscious. Writers who are too aware of their readers, thinking too much of what their readers might think, write in a way that makes readers uncomfortable. If you think you are worried that readers might see you as unqualified, ask someone to read your work before you post it. It’s likely that you need to add some confidence.
  • Don’t end your post with a sentence that says, “I hope you really liked what I wrote.” You’ve given me advice as an expert. I want to believe you are one. If I’ve made it there, I’m convinced–to say that tells me I might have been wrong.

Keep in mind that some expert readers may want to help out a beginner, and you’ll have more confidence writing the basics, especially if you’re worried that they already know them. But before you convince yourself that all of your experts know all of the basics, think of how fast things change and how many self-taught people there are. If you are thorough in your writing, there is a good chance you’ll be teaching some of your experts something they didn’t know too.

–ME “Liz” Strauss