If you have a well established blog then you will probably not need to encourage visitors to stop and comment. If, on the other hand, you are a relatively new blogger then gaining readers and comments can be difficult. A relatively new plugin for WordPress call Keyword Luv may help. When it comes to blog plugins, this is one of the easy ones to use.

Keyword Luv allows commenters to include a keyword with their name when leaving a comment. Rather than just leaving a name and email, the visitor can enter name@keword then their email. The comment link will appear with the keyword rather than just their name.

Blog plugins are designed to add to the functionality of a blog - this one does the job well. The use of the plugin brings up another point. When leaving comment on other sites, do you just leave your name?

It would make sense to use a keyword name such as ‘name at keyword’ when leaving a comment so long as the blog owner doesn’t object. Making small changes like this can make a big change when it comes to comments and links back.

Of course, if the nofollow plugin is not used the whole issue of keywords and links becomes moot.

There are many blog and website services around the net; however most only provide partial services. Reputable services are able to offer businesses, particularly those that have a web presence and want to extend that by adding a blog, a wide range of options. Here are some of the options available:

Blog installation, setup and ongoing maintenance.
Installing a blog can be straightforward however the setup and particularly the ongoing maintenance can be time consuming. If you don’t have any experience with blogs then selecting and using the appropriate plugins can be confusing.

Blog SEO
Setting up a blog is just the start. Using the right plugins to help with your blog SEO is a must. Setting up appropriate categories and tags is also a part of your blogs SEO.

Blog Theme
If you have a website then your blog should either match the websites design or complement it. A blog and website service provider will help to get a theme that does complement both your website and your business.

Blogging Service
If you find it difficult to provide well written regular content for your blog then a blog and website services provider can help by writing regular posts and publishing them on your blog. You are assured of good keyword optimized content.

Social Optimization
With a good blog design and quality content that is informative to visitors and assists your blog SEO all that is left is to optimize for the various social media sites. This helps to generate visitors and back links to your blog.

Integration
The final step in the puzzle, and the least optimized for most businesses, is the integration that is required between a web site and its blog. Where to place appropriate links and the correct anchor text can make a big difference. Blog and website services providers have experience with integration and how to achieve maximum results from that integration.

Blog and website services can help with the creation and ongoing development of your business blog. The long term benefits include extra traffic - and sales and increases in search engine rankings.

Writing blog or web site content on a regular basis can be difficult.  If you add in a dose of the dreaded writers block, chances are you could sit at your keyboard for hours and not type a single word. Perhaps social bookmarking can provide some inspiration.

For many writers, they have their favorite sites - but do they have their favorite bookmarkers? If you have added individuals with similar niche related preferences then checking items that they have bookmarked can be a good start. To a certain extent, this was the original idea behind social bookmarking.

The alternative is to use a social bookmarking site like StumbleUpon. Set your preferences to your niche then sit back and let SU take you through a random series of popular content. Stop and read what is relevant, stumble through to the next item if it has no interest.

There are several major benefits in using social bookmarking site for inspiration. The first is obvious - you do get inspired by an article. Other benefits include the introduction to new sites you may not have come across before (or a reminder of a site that you had forgotten about) and learning. You will be surprised at how much you can learn just by randomly visiting sites that others have bookmarked.

Many consider social bookmarking and the random viewing of pages as a ‘time waster’ and that this time could be better utilized. Sometimes,  by ‘wasting’ 30 minutes  you may find you have acquired new knowledge, been inspired to write (often more than one post too) and found new and interesting sites. It seems to me, with the right attitude, social bookmarking could also be considered an investment.

Social bookmarking is not just about promoting yourself. Sometimes you can gain a lot more by letting others promote to you.

There is more to running a blog than just content and blog SEO. The blog design needs to be right as well and by that I mean it needs to fit the niche you are writing in. Many bloggers just grab a free theme they like, install it and away they go.

I don’t have anything against free themes per, especially if you are first starting out and are don’t have many readers or visitors. However as you start to build a name and reputation of your blog online you need to think about a theme that is unique for your blog. Your theme becomes a part of your branding - a part of your image.

Free themes come with several problems, the first and obvious being that many others share it. While this may not be a big problem, it can be for your image and branding - remember, you need to be unique - to stand out in the crowd of the millions of blogs active on the web.

Other problem associated with free blog themes includes hidden links in the footer that may go to sites that may hurt your SEO efforts. This can be a serious problem you can lose visitors as well.

Your blog theme is the first thing that visitors see, well before the content. It has to be attractive and inviting while selling you and your brand and image. It needs to convey a feeling of authority, even if your site is just full of jokes; it still needs to sell that feeling.

Free themes won’t cut it in the long run. They won’t support your image and they won’t help to sell you. Getting your own theme designed is not always that expensive, it can however make a huge difference.

You need to be blogging, if you are not already. Blogs are a very powerful and effect marketing tool.

The pros of blogging are:

• they provide fresh content to your website
• the search engines love them and will index blog posts very frequently
• installation and the “optimizing” of your blog is not too time consuming
• they are tons of ways to promote your blog via directories, link etc.
• they are a social marketing tool, thus can help you connect to others in your field or subject matter

Now there are some cons and the two major ones are:
• they can be time consuming-for writing and/or promoting ones blog
• some technical knowledge is needed to install and properly “optimize” the blog

Now these cons can be overcome but hiring someone to do it for you but of course that cost money

The main point of this post is to share with you a couple of examples of the power of blogging.

A while back, I got a phone from SuperPages asking about my account. I told them everything was fine and not to bother me again. Well after a few more “telemarketing” type calls from them (from an overseas call center) I decided to blog about it and vent.

Not two days later, someone from SuperPages called me and asked for details! I was impressed and amazed that someone actually called. Within a week, they had taken care of the problem and took the time to call me back.

I asked them how they heard about my blog post. They said that someone in marketing saw the post via Google Alerts and took action.

Another great example is from my associate Tim at Convert Offline. I will let you read his blog post but basically he got a new “dream job” because a company looking for someone with his background and experience, found his blog, contacted him and within an hour, offered him a job.

The point is that people and companies out there reading, searching for information on-line and blogs are a perfect vehicle for getting your message across. If you are promoting yourself, your company, or your product and service. The pen is mightier than the sword!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Larry Sullivan has been online for over 8 years – helping small business to increase their online visibility. Larry specializes in local search marketing and blogs about local search and other related Internet marketing topics at LocalBizBits.com.

Is there such a thing as to much content, or in this case, a post that is too long? I would argue that, at times, posts can be to long. Blog content can be fickle and your readers more so.

There are two solutions to a post that is too long. One, break it into two or more pieces and post it as a series, or edit it back to a shorter post. Blog content needs to be bite sized or provide a quick read. These are two options generally suggested to bloggers. There is one further option which can often be the best solution.

People want a quick fix. Occasionally however, a longer article is worthy of its place as a single entity. For a series to work,  each unit of the series needs to be able to stand alone. Many articles cannot be written this way. A good example is a “how to” with many complicated steps. It needs to be followed from A to Z and will not break naturally into two posts - let’s face it, who wants to get half through baking a cake then wait until tomorrows post to find out what to do with the batter?

When caught in this situation, the post is probably better off being a static page and not post. Publish the article and then write a post that summarizes the steps and then points to the static page using appropriate anchor text.

The benefits are many. You now have two items to publish for the price of one. You will have created an authority page and future reference point. Blog content does not have to be about regular posts. If you use a software package such as WordPress, then creating a static page is as straightforward as creating a post. Don’t waste a post because it is too long - put it to better use.

Your visitors are valuable to your blog or web site for many reasons. Obviously, the more visitors you receive the better particularly if they are targeted visitors through advertising, organic search results or through social marketing programs. Visitors can also hold the key to your future successes.

Knowing where your visitors come from, how and where they arrived on your site and what they do on your site is valuable data. This data can be used in a variety of ways. Here are few that might make a difference to your sites future.

Keywords: Knowing which keywords are being used can help to focus your content where your visitors want it. If you provide content in a number of areas, each ranking reasonably well in the search engines, having one or more keywords out perform the others should send a message.  Concentrate on providing content in those areas and perhaps you can be seen as an authority in that area.

Pages:  Knowing which pages your visitors are predominantly landing on opens up a few doors. If some pages are proving to be popular and you have monetized your sites, perhaps placing your best performing ads on those pages can help to increase your income. Be sure the ads are appropriate for those pages.

Origin: If the majority of your visitors are coming from the US then having ads related to the UK could be costing you money. Placing ads that relate to the UK may increase your income. It may also help to fine tune your content concentrating more on what that particular audience is looking for.

Organic Search: If one search engine is outperforming another then you need to see why. If it is Google then it is understandable. However, if you are getting more oganic traffic from Yahoo! you need to check why. Is Google indexing your site or is just a quirk? If there are problems with Google indexing your content, fixing that problem may increase your traffic.

Knowing all about your visitors can be a great help in fine  tuning your blog or web site. Providing what your visitors want will increase the frequency of their visits and perhaps even your income.

The old saying, ‘look before you leap’ is very true when it comes to selecting your blog and website services provider. There are many unethical providers offering services, services which border on fraudulent acts.

This issue was brought home to me recently when I was asked to help a client change from one host to another. The transfer of the web site went fairly smoothly, however, as the domain was due for renewal I thought it wise to check that all information relating to the domain was correct. A simple ‘whois’ check is all that is required and it displayed some interesting results.

Their problem was one that many new website owners face. Starting off with cheap hosting that is unreliable and lacking any sort of support. What really concerned me where the ownership details of the domain. The domains details told me that the domain did not belong to my client. They were the contact, but not the owner. The registered owner was actually the host.

If that isn’t fraudulent then tell me what is! After many emails and finally resorting to threats of further action, the host agreed to transfer the domain over to the rightful owner.  The moral of this story is twofold - first - if the blog and website service is cheap, then cheap is what you are going to get.

When deciding on a blog and website service provider, do a little checking first. Entering the services name into a search engine (inside quotation marks) can provide a lot of valuable information. If there are any forum threads, read them through to see what other users have had to say. Look before you leap and you may save a lot of hassles down the track.

Blogs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are personal while others are trying to sell a product or service. Others are nothing more than spam collectors trying to earn an income through affiliate programs and advertising such as Adsense, Adbrite, etc. Blogs can also be your businesses best marketing tool if they are produced properly.

We live in a digital age and people are becoming used to dealing with unknown faces behind digital walls. That doesn’t necessarily mean they like it. Humans are social creatures - very social. We prefer to be where the masses are - the principle behind the success of Facebook and Myspace and other social networking sites. It can also be the secret to increasing sales on your site.

Your blog can be the perfect vehicle to break that digital barrier particularly now that new communication methods are becoming popular.  The easiest way to break some of these barriers is by including profiles and staff bios together with contact details. I would much rather email a technician by name to try and solve a problem than email a techsupport@ faceless person. To receive a personal email back addressing me by name and signed by the technician also helps to personalize the service - more so if they have also provided a decent solution to my problem.

Having these individuals also write posts on topics from their area of expertise also helps. To this can be added podcasts and videos. Now I can hear and/or see the person I am dealing with. They have a face and personality, they are human like me!

Blogs can serve many purposes, breaking that digital faceless barrier can be just one. It can however be a very important barrier to break.

I spend a certain amount of time traversing the web. I often visit sites of those who leave comments. I look at competitor sites and of course sites that I have helped in the past. One thing that has struck me lately has been the almost reverse blog marketing by many businesses.

By reverse blog marketing I refer to the trend of businesses hiding their blog from view. Generally speaking, its not totally hidden. The link to their blog is just tucked away in amongst some of the links in the footer.

Once I access their blog I start to wonder why. The contents are often good; either entertaining or informative and there is plenty of content available. The blogs are certainly SEO friendly. So why are they tucked away out of site? Is the business ashamed of having a blog. This reverse blog marketing seems a little strange - or is it?

Perhaps these sites want all the SEO benefits of having a blog without having to run a public blog. Sounds reasonable. Blogs can provide a lot benefits to the parent site when it comes to search engine rankings. Blog marketing can occur elsewhere and not on the parent page.

Blogs can be great marketing tools and if your blog is ranking well and attracting customers then it can only benefit your site in the long run if you promote it. Blog marketing starts at home, on your main page. If your blog is going to benefit customers or potential customers then capitalize on it and promote if to the world, don’t hide it.

It can be difficult to generate income from blogs unless you are fortunate enough to receive thousands of visitors each week.  Many bloggers don’t help themselves as they display ads that are totally unrelated to their niche.

If your blog relates to cars then your visitors are there to read content related to cars. To display ads for baby clothes will not draw much in the way of attention or clicks and since most blogging income comes from pay-per-click - it can be a waste of advertising space.

Pay-per-click advertising will generally only work if the ads are related to the content where they appear. Search engines and most pay-per-click ad agencies use targeted ads by crawling your content and delivering ads relevant to the content found.

Banner advertising however is placed by the blogger. These ads could be time based (by the week or month) or affiliate style ads. They can be lucrative if placed on the right blogs. Affiliate advertisers are not really worried about where their ads are placed. If they produce a sale - good. If not, at least they get exposure. As for blogging income - that may get no benefit at all.

To be able to receive any type of blogging income you need to place ads that are relevant to your niche. A car blog that has an ad for car magazines may do well because it is related.

If you are looking to generate blogging income, be genuine and place ads that relate to your niche and that your readers may find attractive enough to respond to.

Blogs are not all the same and each blog attracts a different audience.  If you are going to undertake a blog marketing campaign, then you need to be aware of where your audience gathers in numbers.

Many bloggers take a scattergun approach to what they consider to be blog marketing. In effect they are promoting their blog, they are even attracting traffic, however it is the wrong traffic arriving for all the wrong reasons - why? Because they have been looking in all the wrong places.

Promoting your site through Digg or StumbleUpon and similar sites is not blog marketing.  These sites may well deliver extra traffic, but they generally don’t deliver more readers. Having said that, don’t write these sites off. They can be good for delivering backlinks and can be good for boosting your visitor statistics if you are trying to sell advertising space.

Effective blog marketing requires more interaction and this interaction should be in places where your audience gathers. Forums can be a great place to start as there are many niche forums around. Myspace and Facebook can also be worthwhile investigating.

For simple yet effective blog marketing you could do no worse than blog directories such as BlogCatalog and MyBlogLog. These sites can provide a combination of forum style interaction along with directory style listings. Being active in either one or both of these sites can lead to some long term increases in readers and subscribers.

Blog marketing is not a difficult activity to undertake. It is simply a matter of targeting the right people in the right places. Use the right message and provide content that is worth reading and your visitors will return time and time again.

Whether you upgrade a plugin, theme or version of blog software such as the recent WordPress 2.6 upgrade, you should check your blog plugins for any issues.

The recent upgrade of WordPress has resulted in a number of plugins requiring upgrades as well. After upgrading the plugin, it has been noted that some plugins require reconfiguring.

Joost from Yoast.com has reported that several of his plugins, namely Google Analytics Plugin, Robots Meta Plugin and RSS Footer plugin have been updated. However there are still some issues as the upgrade to WordPress 2.6 seems to reset all the settings for these plugins.

As with all upgrades or updates, it is wise to check all parts of your blog to ensure that things are still operating smoothly.  Plugins can cause havoc with a blog if there are compatibility issues. In this case the only cause for concern is the information within your settings.

Failing to check, and the RSS Footer plugin is a good example, could prove to be embarrassing. If you use the footer to promote products, offer free downloads or just link to special pages, unless you subscribe to your own posts you would never know they were missing (do you subscribe to your own posts as a check that everything is running smoothly?).

Most blog SEO articles concentrate on the on-page or on-site SEO activities that can be undertaken to increase rankings and visitors. There are off-site activities that can also help.

One of the best tools for off-site blog SEO is Google’s very own Blog Search.  You can use Blog Search to find other blogs that are ranking for the keywords you are using. Before going any further, there is a downside to using Blog Search. Don’t expect to enter a keyword and find a nice listing of blogs that rank for that search term. Blog search will often return web pages that are not from blogs so you will need to do a little filtering.

Find blogs with posts that are on similar topics to your own and work them. By working them I mean link to them where it will benefit your reader and comment on their posts.

There are two blog SEO effects of commenting. Comments can often (not always with auto nofollow of  many comments) provide links to your pages.  If you comment on enough blogs with comments that are meaningful and add to the conversation, you will find that other readers will come to recognise your name. They will get curious and follow back to your blog.  If they like what they see they will start to comment on your posts and perhaps even link back.  Visitors and Links - that is exactly what blog SEO is all about.

Commenting can be one of the most powerful off-site blog SEO strategies avaiable. The effect of commenting can far outweigh social marketing or social bookmarking especially if you do a time comparison on the two strategies.

There are literally thousands of blog plugins available for WordPress and the temptation is often there to install one because it is ‘nice’. However every blog plugin you install adds just a little more to the load time of your blog.

For efficiency, you should only the plugins that you really need. That then raises the question, which blog plugins do you really need?

Talk to 100 bloggers and you will get 100 different answers. Blog plugins should be installed based on your needs. Their are two considerations - what is good for your reader and what is good for your blog. My top blog plugins include:

Akismet -  Spam is always a problem. At least with Akismet you have some help

All In One SEO Pack - Almost every thing you need to help with your blogs SEO

Google XML Sitemaps - Create a sitemap and submit to the search engines

Related Posts - Help your readers find previous posts related to the current one

WP Super Cache - Creates a cached version of your blogs pages for faster loading.

There are many others that could be considered essential, some like the automatic upgrade blog plugin are useful for upgrades but otherwise take up unnecessary space.

What blog plugins would you include in your ‘must have’ list and why?