Posts Tagged ‘blog’

Look at you, you came back! We knew you just couldn't keep away for long. Why not make visiting us easy by subscribing to our RSS feed (or the audio RSS feed). Stick around and be sure to speak up and post a comment or two!

The following series is pulled from a presentation I gave to a group of beauty bloggers hosted by L’Oreal in New York. Most of the presentation is geared toward how to make a blog more search engine and user-friendly, however I will expand many of the concepts here to include tips and strategies for sites selling products or services across all industries.

On-Page Optimization

A website can do just fine online without SEO. PPC, social media and other properly implemented off-line marketing efforts can really help a site succeed online with little or no SEO. But unless and until you begin to SEO your site it will always under perform, never quite reaching its fullest potential. Without SEO, you’ll always be missing out on a great deal of targeted traffic that the other avenues cannot make up for.

Click here to keep learning

When you’ve been writing about SEO as long as I have you sometimes feel that you’ve run out of things to say. We forget that there is always someone new just learning about SEO and hasn’t had the chance to read every article ever written on the topic. Not many people have that kind of time on their hands.

In light of that, I wanted to spend some time going back to the basics of SEO.

I recently was invited to speak to a group of beauty bloggers being hosted by L’Oreal in New York City. Most of the attendees write their own blogs or were responsible for the blogs for the company they work for. A good share of them also sold products through their blogs. Many of the illustrations I’ll use in this series will be directed toward that audience, however they can be applied across the board to any industry, including those selling products or services.

Click here to keep learning

Each blog post you write should leave your readers fully satisfied. Like sex, a good meal or even a good TV show, each blog post must be enough to leave people happy but wanting more at that same time. While every performance may not be better than the last, you have to leave the expectation that the next performance will be at least just as good.

Developing a good blog isn’t about being a one-hit wonder. If all you have in you is one post then you’re better off guest-blogging for someone else, instead of trying to build a blog of your own. But if you want to develop your own blog with your own following then you’ve got to be able to deliver the goods on a regular basis.

Click here to keep learning

There is an old adage that says you need to leave people wanting more. The essence of this is to make sure you don’t give so much that your audience becomes bored, but to give them only enough to keep them wanting more. Give them just enough to satisfy, but also wanting the encore.

A blog is different. You don’t want to leave them wanting more, but instead you want to give them far more than they expected. Of course, leaving them wanting an encore isn’t such a bad thing either.

Give them more while leaving them wanting more

As writers we often get caught up in words. Even as I’m writing and editing this post I’m concerned that it’s not long enough. That I don’t have enough words on the page. But good writing isn’t about adding more unnecessary words just to fill a quota. In fact it’s often just the opposite. It’s about eliminating the words that are not necessary so those that you keep make the most impact.

Click here to keep learning

Having a good headline, a good article and even a good-looking site isn’t always enough to maintain an audience. To keep people coming back to your blog day after day you have to go through the extra effort to keep your visitors interested in your content.

Think of your blog as a TV show. How many shows start out strong but can’t maintain the interest as time passes? I remember years ago watching the show Alias. It quickly became one of my favorite shows that I looked forward to watching each week. Then somewhere around mid second season it jumped the shark. (The post-Superbowl episode when SD-6 was brought down and the sexual tension between the two main characters… oh, never mind. Yes, I’m still holding a grudge!) Alias just as quickly became one of the many shows that I threw away.

While you don’t need to have sexual tension in your blog content (or an evil mastermind, for that matter) to keep people interested, you do need to have an element of anticipation. Your readers should want to come back and read what you have to say next. But unlike a TV show, the anticipation of each “episode” of your blog needs to provide a release, leaving the reader completely fulfilled.

Click here to keep learning

It’s just a fact of life, good looking people get more attention. We walk through the checkout line in the grocery store and see half a dozen magazines filled with beautiful faces on top of beautiful bodies. A good looking woman walking through the mall is bound to turn a few heads. Commercials are filled with models that pass the schwing test. (Yes, I pulled out my 80’s innuendo reference manual for that!)

Our love of beauty isn’t just focused on the human body. We love well manicured lawns, beautiful sunsets, and gorgeous building architecture. Some of us even go to restaurants where the food is pretty. Face it, we are very visual people.

It strikes me as odd, that as much stock as we place in things that are wonderful to look at, we often don’t take as much care with our blogs. I understand that it’s not easy putting together a website that looks good. It takes effort, skill and often a good amount of money. So instead of doing what needs to be done we skimp. Blogs, on the other hand are far easier, it’s just a matter of finding a good theme and running with it. But for whatever reason, that often doesn’t happen.

Click here to keep learning

You have a good idea for a blog post, but getting people to keep coming back and reading day after day takes more than a good idea. You have to execute that idea in an appealing way.

Ever wonder why so many commercials we see on TV revolve around sexual appeal? Because sex is appealing. At least when it’s packaged properly. Commercials using fat, bear-bellied men or “average” looking women are few and far between. Everyone is nicely toned, handsome or strikingly beautiful.

Blogging is no different. The best titled “pickup line” in the world is only going to get you so far. To get anywhere you have to prove that you’ve got the goods that go with it.

Click here to keep learning