When a blogger decides on writing the blog on a certain topic he should keep certain points in mind. A blogger can be classified into two broad type :
1. A personal blogger – who blog simply to record his personal activity, to let others know about himself, or, to give vent to his own feelings.
2. A ‘blog to earn’ blogger – who blogs to make money online.
For both the type of bloggers ( specially the bloggers who does blogging for money) need lots of traffic to their blog sites. The more the traffic, the more the earnings. SEO ( site engine optimization) with many techniques should be done to get a good pagerank in the search results. There are unending number of ways which the blog publishers resort to while publishing their websites / blogging site. I give below a check list which most bloggers check before publishing their blog post.
THE BLOG CHECKLIST
The blog check list can be classified into 5 parts
Part 1 : The Blog site URL
Part 2 : The Blog post title
Part 3 : Blog content writing
Part 4 : Monetizing the blog site
Part 5 : SEO & post publishing activity
Part 1
The Blog site / Website URL
Blog check 1 : The URL of the blog site is important. Select words or characters for the URL that gives the reader an idea of what the blog site / website is all about. Make sure there are important keywords in the URL.
By now, you must have found out the best blogging platform. I have discussed it in my post Where to Blog. Read it.
For additional help read URL and SEO Best Practices for URL Structure
Also read SEO Friendly URL Structure
Blog check 2 : The meta tags of the blog site / website must be appropriate.
Blog check 3 : The description of the blog site should inspire the visitors to read on and have keywords impregnated in it.
Blog check 4 : Blogger templates : The blog site template should be attractive and appropriate with the blog topic.
Blog check 5 : Layout for blogger : The layout of the blog site should be uncluttered. The readers should find all the important things in the blog site with ease. Use blogger gadgets for the purpose.
Part 2
Blog Post Title
Blog check 6 : The blog post title is very important. Use the right keyword in the title so that the readers find them out easily. If your blog is about Siamese cats, use the words Siamese cats in the title instead of cats or pets. Research have shown words like About….., How to….., 10 ways to….., List of….., are mostly used by net users while searching the net.
The topic must be clear to someone who only reads the headline.
The blog title should be 70 characters or less.
The blog tiltle should contain the primary keyword.
To Learn more read Criteria of an effective page title
Blog check 7 : Keywords in the title - you should use the best keywords in the title itself.
Blog check 8 : Research on the topic. A great deal of research is needed to write on the blog topic. Read about the topic from books, journals, blogs in the net, and every possible place. Make notes on them. Try to find out the points that other bloggers have missed.
Part 3
Blog content writing
Blog check 9 : Blog content - write your articles with facts, figures, quotes and charts. It should be informative. Search engine likes fresh content. Don’t steal content from others and avoid plagiarism. The first paragraph should tell who and what the blog is about. Your blog should be newsworthy. A reader who knows nothing about the topic should understand what you are writing about. Your blog content should be free of jargons. The posts must be easy to read. You should always keep the reader in your mind.
The blog post should contain be at least 300 words, but 500 words will be a good word count.
Blog check 10 : Keywords in your content – Find the best keywords for your blog post and insert them in the content. Pepper the headline and the post with keywords and phrases that will attract search engines. Get may add Wordtracker FireFox that lets find keyword. You may also use Wordstream's FireFox addon (paid) that lets you find keywords and the count of each keyword.
You can find the right keywords from Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Use other google apps also.
Blog check 11 : Focus on keywords – Focus should be on a particular keyword or phrase appropriate to the blog post. This will help in site engine optimization.
Blog check 12 : Keyword density – The whole content should comprise of keywords and its density should be high to get a good PageRank,.
Blog check 13 : Blogging software / Content writing software’s – You can use content writing programs and software’s like www.inboundwriter.com to help you write the content.
Blog check 14 : Link (Internal and external) – Insert internal links (blog posts you have written earlier) and external links (links to relevant websites and blog sites that the readers will find interesting.Internal links are very important for rankings.
Learn: why links in content are more powerful.
Read more: blog post checklist
Blog check 15 : Illustrations in your article – Insert photos, images, graphs to dress up your blog. Photos and images makes your blog more interesting. Remember, too many images and big size Images load slower.
Learn more:
Learn how to optimize image size to make your pages load faster.
Blog check 16 : Videos and You tubes – Insert videos or you tubes in the blog post to let your readers see and hear what you want to convey.
Blog check 17 : Your blog archives – Mention the blog posts you had written earlier at the bottom of the content, so that the visitors can visit and read those blogs as well.
Blog check 18 : Comments - Incite the reader to write a comment on your blog post. Ask your readers a question at the end to stimulate readers to comment?
Blog check 19 : Labels, categories, tags – Assign your blog post to the right category, label and apply tags.
Blog check 20 : Spelling and grammar – check for spelling and grammar mistakes.
Part 4
Monetizing the Blog site / Website
Blog check 21 : Adsense ads – Insert Adsense ads at appropriate places to earn revenue. Google Adsense is the best revenue earning program and you should use it judiciously.
Blog check 22 : Other Ads – Insert other ads of your choice to earn money from your blog site. You can join different affiliate programs for the purpose. You can also join www.google.com/affiliatenetwork .
Part 5
SEO of Blog site / post publishing activity
Blog check 23 : Ping it – Add pings to the blog site for seo. You can try www.pingler.com or www.pingoat.com for the purpose.
Blog check 24 : Submitting to directories : Submit your blog to the blog directories for seo.
Blog check 25 : Facebook, Twitter integration – Integrate with the social sites to increase the blog site traffic.
Blog check 26 : Link Exchange – Join link exchange programs to exchange links with other sites. This will increase your site traffic.
Blog check 27 : Banner Exchange – Join Banner exchange programs to advertise the blog site.
Blog check 28 : Join Infolinks for earning revenues from the blog site.
Would you like to add anything to this checklist?
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Please leave a comment on the above article.
Check list, a classic in the context of planning and, above all, very streamlined implementation of the following processes. Also, to this day I still use it to work on more complex projects, great stuff :)
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