Guide to Optimizing Your Blog’s Reach

Today, I ventured over to Rich DeMatteo’s neck of the blogosphere as his guest blogger on Bad Rhino—a Philadelphia based Social Media agency—for a change of scenery, namely Rhinos instead of birds, there I answered the much-lamented question: how do I get more people to read my blog?

Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital

Importance of Blogging

Photo recognition: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

1. Can be extremely satisfying. There is a little piece of who you are potentially enriching people’s lives.
2. Depending on what you are blogging about, it can act as an extension of your resume.
3. Can help others learn about your area of expertise.
4. Enhance a brand that exists within your blog’s industry.
5. Improve your reputation, whether for personal or professional reasons.
6. Brings you closer to people you already know, whether it’s friends, family or co-workers because it helps them learn more about you.
7. Can develop important relationships that will help you learn more about your area of interest.

Dear reader, what are other important reasons you blog?

Top 15 Blogging Best Practices

Why Aren’t You Blogging?

Originally uploaded by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

How can you become a better blogger?

1. Use a catchy title. Make the title unique, consider using questions and lists.

2. Use interesting visuals. Include an image or video in your blog. This will get people’s attention and help them better understand the content of your blog.

3. Include links. Links add depth and credibility to your articles and allow you to show a little ‘link love’.

4. Use bullets, italics, and bold font. This makes for an easier read. Using bold font allows the reader to quickly scan your post.

5. Let your personality come through. This is what makes your blog unique.

6. Make blogs short, otherwise your reader might take one look at your post and bolt. If you choose to make your blog post long, consider breaking your blog into parts or use bold font to highlight the main points of the blog.

7. Reference your articles. If you use other people’s work, include a reference or link to their article.

8. Be interesting and have fun.

9. Encourage comments. Engage your reader and develop a relationship with them. This can be as simple as ending your post with a question.

10. Be bold. This might take the form of being outrageous or controversial.

11. Post tags. This will help your readers find you.

12. Respond to comments as soon as possible. Treat your reader like a friend. If your friend calls you and leaves a message, do you wait days to respond?

13. Make your blog post easy to share. This may include adding widgets such as Tweet, Reddit, Delicious, Stumble Upon, etc.

14. Post frequently. This helps keep your blog fresh and entices search engines to index you more often.

15. Promote your blog. This involves posting your posts to bookmarking sites, such as Stumble Upon and Delicious. Use Facebook and Twitter or other virtual communities such as LinkedIn and Craigslist (I use the ‘community’ section for this purpose).

Dear reader, what other social media best practices have worked for you?