How To Write A Blog Post Like A Pro

Everyone has a blog these days. My dad (just turned sixty last month) has three. He has his business blog, his personal blog and he’s got a twitter blog where he’s writing a novel at 140 character installments six days a week. ??So what makes your blog special, and how do you write a snappy, eye-catching, engaging blog post every time?

Journalism 101

Seriously, if you want to write a blog and you’ve not taken a basic course in journalistic writing, do so. You’ll discover ‘The Inverted Pyramid’ and a semester’s worth of other concepts that can be applied directly to your blog. A creative writing course would be nice, too, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Most important are the 5 W’s: Who, What, When, Where and Why. Here’s a crash course.

Who are you Writing For?

It’s a simple question, sure, but it can have a difficult answer. Who will be reading your blog post? Are you writing for ten year olds or twenty-something’s? Do you intend to be read by colleagues, fans, friends, employers, locals, internationals, or bi-lingual’s?

Having a targeted demographic will help you to picture your audience while you’re writing your blog. It will help you to choose a tone, vocabulary, and topic that will appeal to them, as well as be understood by them. More important than knowing what you’ll be saying is knowing who you’ll be saying it to.

What Will You Be Writing About?

This one is pretty simple, really: “What is this blog post about?” If your blog is designed to share your adventures with friends and family while you’re teaching English in South Korea, your topic is already decided. If it’s more of a soap-box upon which you champion a political stance and ideology, you might have a little more work cut out for you in coming up with a topic.

When Will This Be Posted?

It’s at this point that I have to confess that I’ve modified the journalistic “5 W’s,” in order to better meet my own needs. The original ‘When’ refers to “When did the event happen?” That doesn’t work well in an overall guide for writing blogs. So instead I’ve chosen “When Will This Be Posted.”

You need to decide whether or not you’ll be posting immediately, delaying the publishing date, or even implying that it has been posted weeks prior to the day you actually wrote it. Knowing this while you’re writing allows you to maintain continuity with other posts you may have written. If it’s an article about Halloween posted in April, you might want to explain why.

Where Will This Be Seen?

You know your audience, your topic and your time, now know your stage. Does your blog have any recurring themes, concepts or standards you have to adhere to? Is it moderated by an outside censor or is it governed by your own good judgment?

Second to deciding who will be reading it, knowing where it will be read will help you to craft an appropriate tone and vocabulary. These are key components of the ‘voice’ of your piece.

Why Are You Writing?

I’m not getting metaphysical on you. If you’re an artist, poet, or novelist, you could be writing to express yourself, or gain exposure. If you’re an activist you could be writing this blog to engender awareness and provide a voice to the voiceless. If you’re a fan you could simply be pointing out why United is better than City (over and over and over again), or if you’re a freelance writer you could simply be trying to build a good name and reputation for yourself while sharing useful and hard-earned knowledge as a guest poster on quality websites.

Having an honest answer for this final ‘W’ enables you to write your post with purpose and drive. Your readers’ time is too precious to waste with unclear thoughts and ramblings. Make sure you always know why you’re writing, and why it matters to your reader.

and “How.”

Like the five vowels ending in ‘and sometimes Y,’ our 5 W’s end with a “How.”

The concepts above aren’t a magic key to always writing good blog posts, but it’s how you start. It’s an easy to remember mnemonic device for building a foundation before you type every blog post. I take the time before I sit down to actually write out the five W’s and then build my article on top of them. That’s how I do it.

Jake Walker is a freelance writer and has been working on the web on and off for the last 10 years. An avid blogger he has had many posts featured on major social networks and other news portal websites. He currently works as a search engine optimization consultant with the other smart people at SEOP.com

SEO In The Dating Niche

Dating is one of the most competitive industries when it comes to the web because so many well funded sites are appearing to grab their piece of the pie. The paid dating sites have huge revenue budgets to allow them to spend a fortune in SEO as well as advertising and promotion in general. The free sites however are able to recruit thousands of members which create thousands of internal pages on their websites creating a very strong search engine optimized site.

Both free and paid dating sites have their advantages and disadvantages, but for this case study we will discuss smart SEO techniques for promoting a free internet dating site that has an average monthly advertising budget but needs to do smart SEO. The simple SEO techniques still apply, such as strong on site content as well as submitting the site to a plethora of strong directories. The problem with being in the dating niche is that there are not a lot of dating related blogs like there are in other industries. This lack of normal every-day-joe blog’s means dating webmasters need to make up for it somewhere else, and that usually means it is a competition of buying the most links.

However, with a smart search engine optimization plan, this is not necessary. The are the recommended link building strategies for a site in the competitive dating niche would be social bookmarking, blog commenting, press releases, strong internal structure, and throwing a small contest to attract bloggers to write a dating site that they otherwise wouldn’t have on their blogs. Hope this is a good start for all of you in the free dating niche!

Think big by targeting small in your SEO

It has been of my own experience, when you ask most companies which main keywords they are going to be targeting for their new flagship startup company, they will tell you that they want to rank for very competitive keywords in an unbelievable time frame. While yes it is true that ranking for mortgage, debt, dating, or banking will bring you a plethora of high quality traffic that will convert into leads and sales, getting those rankings without years of work or lots of money is impossible.

Most search engine optimizers do not realize there is a better solution. All you need to do is to start thinking big by targeting small. It does not matter what niche your company or website is in, every single niche has a more targeted keyword that you can be targeting. You will be able to rank higher for this keyword, in a shorter time frame. When you start ranking for this niche keyword, you will start receiving a representative sample of the traffic you will be seeing for the big keyword you are targeting for the long term. You will be able to build up sales, leads, customer contact information, and most importantly cash while you are slowly building up to your long term keyword goal. It is often easier to rank for the number one spot for five to ten niche keywords with a high volume traffic than it is to rank for one mega keyword as it is often called. For those of you who learn by example, imagine you own an affiliate company that sells supplements. Ranking for for a term like weight loss will result in potentially hundreds of thousands of sales because so many people search for it every day, however the traffic is only semi targeted. Instead of trying to target a term like weight loss, a company that sells bottles containing maqui berry could target a term like weight loss pills, which is a slightly more targeted and less competitive keyword. Depending on the size and competition of the niche, you could keep going smaller and smaller in your niche search. Instead of targeting weight loss pills, you could target a very longtail term like how to lose weight fast. The more longtail and smaller the niche, the faster you will be able to rank. You can then easily rank number one for a niche term which you can then shift the focus to a bigger keyword, ultimately moving closer and closer to ranking for your ultimate keyword in the long term. If its going to take two years to rank for a term like weight loss which will let your company make ten thousand dollars per day… wouldn’t it be smarter to rank for ten niche keywords earning you a thousand dollars a day and then have an entire year of that to rank for your big term and have the benefits of 11 income earning keywords, 10 of which have been earning you money every day for an entire year? I think you are finally now seeing the benefits of targeting small, so go out and search google for your favorite keyword tool and start doing keyword research to find the niches you can rank for in a lot shorter timeframe than trying to stick it out with your main keyword.

Looking For a Powerful SEO Tool? Hire a Freelance Writer

The Internet has propelled many businesses, small and large, from inception to stardom. To this end, all webmasters strives to engage in this catalyst by ensuring that their website is attractive and appealing to their prospective clients. However, it is not only your clients that you must appease; it is also the search engines.

Your Website is Live! Don’t Pop Open the Bubbly Just Yet

Congratulations are in order when your website has gone from the drawing board to fully functional. However, the efforts must not stop there – in fact, they are just beginning.

Regardless of how beautifully crafted your site may be, or how competitively you may have priced your products or services, if your site cannot be found via the major search engines, you are liable to end up in the deepest, darkest corners of the internet.

How to Outshine Your Competition and Thrive

The old adage “Content is King” still reigns true today, and with the connectivity of the Internet, wherein millions of companies compete for the same market share, this adage may be more relevant now than ever before.

Ensuring that your content is well written, compelling and engaging is critical. Does this sound like a daunting task? It certainly is, yet there is more. Your content should also speak to the search engines by possessing an optimal keyword density and latent semantic indexing algorithm considerations. This is where the professionals come in to help your content shine.

Hiring a Freelance Writer

To ensure that your content sings to your audience and romances the search engines, a freelance writer is imperative. However, not all freelance writers are shaped from the same mold. You must be certain that the writer possesses significant search engine optimization knowledge, as well as an ability to capture the essence of your products or services in the best light possible.

CommunicateBetter.org is one such company that provides a harmonious blend of eloquence and SEO infused content. In addition to their affordable services, CommunicateBetter.org has a stellar reputation, with nearly 200 client raving testimonials, all boasting 100% satisfaction, verified via an independent third party.

By leaving your content in the trusted hands of a professional writer, you will increase the likelihood of your online success, while simultaneously enhancing your search engine rankings. Thereafter, it will be time to pop the bubbly!

Does Size Really Matter In Search Engine Marketing?

Does size really matter? The age old question that rings in the ears of man, now haunts the webmaster looking to make his way online, through search engine optimization. The answer to this question can be applied to both scenarios – its not the size that matters, its what you do with it.

Big websites carry out big marketing schemes, because they can afford to. In a sense, they have to, as competition is fierce. These companies often go to the extreme to reach the top of the rankings, investing in expensive services and staff to make their sites more search engine friendly.

If you find yourself competing with a company ranking higher in the search engine, don’t sweat it and certainly don’t break the bank trying to keep up. Instead, focus on a set of keywords that compliment your site and appeal to your audience. Most importantly, build your site with rich content, that will encourage the conversions for which you’re looking. Just because the big companies outrank you, doesn’t mean that they will have more traffic or sales than you.