Create An Amazing Blog E Book

How to Create an Amazing Blog

Chris Turnquist

How to Create an Amazing Blog Chris Turnquist 2

© 2010 by Proteus Design Studio
Copyright holder is licensing this under the Creative Commons License, Attribution 3.0.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

E-book design is by the amazing Pilar Guerra.
Contact Pilar at pguerra@proteusdesignstudio.com

E-book written by Chris Turnquist
Contact Chris at cturnquist@proteusdesignstudio.com

Please feel free to post this on your blog or share with
whomever you believe would benefit from reading it.

THANK YOU.

Accelerating Business Through Web Strategy™

Table of Contents

4 Part 1:
Create a Good, unique Design 9 Part 4:
Promote Your Blog

5 Part 2:
Content, Content, Content 14 Part 5:
10 Great Blogs for Inspiration

7 Part 3:
Staying Social 16 About Us

How to Create an Amazing Blog

Part 1 2 3 4 5

Create a Good, Unique Design

Congratulations on your decision to start a blog site. When designing
the site, make sure it’s easy to navigate. Use categories and sub-
categories to keep your layout organized. Also use imagery and
illustration to make it unique; see our “Best Marketing Colors eBook”.
Make sure your blog represents your personal or company brand.
Keeping your brand consistent will help so that people will begin to
recognize you.

You’ll want to make it easy for your visitors to share your content by
installing sharing tools or widgets. We recommend the ShareThis
widget, as it is free and feature rich. Also, make it easy for your
readers to subscribe to your blog so they can easily get your
updates. This is one way to build a steady stream of repeat traffic
over time.


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Content, Content, Content

I know you’ve heard it time and time again, but on the web, content
really is king. So your goal once you get your blog up and running,
should be to create lots of original content. Make sure to use your,
unique voice when writing. Try to get in a habit of posting
consistently and on a regular schedule.

Create content that is relevant, helpful and useful for your readers.
Remember that good content gets shared. Use a variety of content
including multimedia. Write powerful headlines for your articles; this
will draw the reader in. Try to make your articles easy to scan;
conciseness and brevity is important for online readers. Always
double check your accuracy, state sources, and include your
references.


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Content, Content, Content

Three words when it comes to content and first impressions;
proofread, proofread, proofread. Don’t be tempted to duplicate other
peoples’ content. Search engines won’t like this and it won’t help
your reputation either. Also, make sure to provide a picture of
yourself on your “About Me” page. Here are a few ideas to get you
started on creating great content:

 Create relevant “Top 10” Lists - people love them
 Create “How To” articles - these help people
 Write a “series” post - people will return
 Make sure to reference and link to other blogs
 Use YouTube to host and embed video to your blog
 Write content that will still be relevant tomorrow
 Offer a download (free eBook) so you can build up an e-mail
subscriber list


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Stay Social

When it comes to having a successful blog, you have to stay social.
Always engage with your visitors that leave comments. Even if it’s
just a “thank you for commenting”. Try to get out occasionally and
comment on other blogs so you will become known. Express your
opinion and Be You; don’t sensor yourself. Use humor and have fun
on occasion.

Ask questions that may be considered controversial; sometimes this
creates the best discussion. Participate on LinkedIn “Answers” and
refer to your blog posts with links when possible. Develop
relationships on Twitter by posting useful news articles besides your
blog posts. Don’t over promote yourself or your products directly
and never spam.


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Stay Social

Here are some useful social networking sites:


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Promote Your Blog

Once you’ve got your blog up an running, it’s time to start promoting
it. In this section, we’ll be discussing the best ways to drive traffic to
your blog and build a readership audience. One of the best ways to
bring traffic and create awareness is by announcing your new posts
on Twitter and Facebook. As new people are visiting your blog, it’s
also a good idea to entice visitors to return.

There are several ways to turn first time visitors into regulars on your
blog. One of the best methods is to have a email newsletter sign-up
on the blog. You could offer a free eBook or Guide that is available
for download once people have signed up. We suggest that you only
collect their name and email address. The sign-up process needs to
be as easy as possible for people in order to achieve the best results.


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Promote Your Blog

Once your e-mail database begins growing, it’s time to put together
an e-newsletter. We recommend a monthly schedule for the best
response. In your newsletter, you can showcase your best 4 to 6
blog posts for the month as articles. Include the title and the first
paragraph with a “read more” link that takes them straight to that
blog post on your site. If people find your posts helpful, funny, or
informative, they will generally visit to read the rest of the blog post.
Other ways you can promote your blog include:
 Add your Blog Link in your e-mail signature
 Use Squidoo and HubPages to write articles that point back to your
blog
 Submit your blog to blog directories


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Promote Your Blog

Another powerful method of promoting your blog is called, “social
bookmarking”. Social bookmarking allows internet users to share,
organize, search, and manage their bookmarks of web resources they
find valuable. Users add Descriptions to their bookmarks in the form
of metadata. Metadata is data describing data. This gives others a
better a understanding of the content of the resource without first
needing to download it for themselves. The most common
descriptions besides text, are votes in favor of or against the content
quality.

“Social Tagging” is also encouraged on social bookmarking sites.
Social Tagging is a method that allows users to add metadata in the
form of relevant keywords to the content they are sharing.
In a social bookmarking community, internet users save the links
that point to web pages that they want to remember, reference later
and or share with others.


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Promote Your Blog

One great benefit of social bookmarking is sharing your posts with
others in hopes that they will find the information useful and pass it
along or vote it popular in the social bookmarking community. This
will give your blog greater visibility. For example, “Digg” is one of
the top social bookmarking sites. If your post is bookmarked on Digg
and gets enough votes by its community members, it will move up to
the home page on Digg. Your blog will then see tens of thousands of
new visitors!

A second benefit from social bookmarking is search engine visibility.
The process of social bookmarking creates backlinks from the social
bookmarking site to your blog. Google and the other search engines
see the social bookmarking site as an authority on the topic that gets
bookmarked. Since there are now links pointing to your blog from
the social bookmarking site, the search engines rank your blog with
more importance for that particular topic in their search engine!


Part 1 2 3 4 5

Promote Your Blog

Obviously social bookmarking is a powerful tool for promoting a blog
website. You’ll soon learn that going to each social bookmarking site
and bookmarking your posts is extremely time consuming and labor
intensive. So time consuming in fact, that it could take you hours to
distribute just a few links to your blog posts.

Don’t worry though, there is a better and faster way to bookmark
your posts and it’s called, “SocialMarker.com”. It’s a free service that
will save you vast amounts of time and effort. It will allow you to you
distribute a link to your blog post on 48 of the best social
bookmarking sites in under 15 minutes!


Part 1 2 3 4 5



About Us

Proteus Design Studio Contact
We are a web strategy firm that 9710 Scranton Road, Suite 170
specializes in community building San Diego, CA 92121
through interactive experiences. We
successfully connect companies with www.ProteusDesignStudio.com
their audiences. This allows them to info@ProteusDesignStudio.com
accelerate business results by leveraging Tel: 858-779-9170
social media technologies. Our clients
are forward thinking companies who
appreciate cutting edge web marketing
strategies and are ready to explode.


Create An Amazing Blog E Book

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Empfohlen

Empfohlen (20)

Create An Amazing Blog E Book