IBE Blog Panel Notes

• Content is king (write what you know)
• A good blog provides something to its readers
• A good blog provides content that can’t be found anywhere else
• Keyword dense, NOT keyword rich, NOT keyword ridiculous
• I do freelance Web content, so I know: there’s a right way and a wrong way.
• Ideally your keywords will also be links; i.e. if I mention Aaron Patterson in my blog post, I’ll make that text link to his blog.
• My blog posts (articles) are 500 - 1000 words and have no more than about 10 links in them. I also try to mention my brand name at least once per blog. This helps with Google rankings and SEO stuff.
• Design should be clean and conservative
• The eye naturally starts top left and then sweeps right and down. Bear this in mind when you are choosing your layout.
• Be honest
• Honesty = truth, and that’s what makes a writer’s work approachable.
• Be yourself—Some ideas? For me, this means:
• Writerly stuff
• Reviews of dictionaries
• Reviews of literary fiction and occasional classics
• Editing insights
• How to be a Good Writer series
• What not to do
• Eclectic editorials
• Heavy thinking
• Random thoughts
• Posting
• Do it on a consistent schedule
• You can spread the workload around by inviting other bloggers to guest post on your blog
• Keep those pageviews up.
• Blogger has a really nice tool to monitor this
• I use Blogger because Wordpress is not fun for me and Google products rule
• The tech trifecta: Google, Apple, Amazon
• Each one has its strengths and weaknesses
• Blogger basic features walk through
• Stats
• New post
• Adding images
• Adding links