I was originally going to put my blogging glossary in a post, but it was simply too long – and too valuable as cornerstone content – for me to eventually bury in the archives.   Therefore, I created a new page for it.  Go check it out! (and get comfortable and maybe grab some snacks, because it is long).

It is organized alphabetically – I thought about dividing it into categories, but too many terms fit into more than one category and I didn’t want to double up and list terms more than once (it’s long enough as is). If you’re looking for something specific, please scroll down or use the control-F/find command to search for it.  And in case you notice a glaring omission or have a question about any of my definitions, please comment or email me.

By the way, creating a new page for a dictionary of terms related to your niche, a FAQ, or other cornerstone content can be an excellent move, especially if it is lengthy (and my dictionary certainly is).

Your About page may be the most important one on your blog.  By telling readers about your purpose, your background, your expertise, and your personality, it helps you create a connection with them.  It also tends to be one of the most visited pages – after all, when you come across an interesting blog, isn’t it one of the first things you click on?  People like to know who they are reading about.

Don’t be afraid to depart from the standard bio/resume format.  After all, being too formal can make you seem boring – and we’ve already established that no one wants to work with robot.  Tell your readers about your life, share your passions, let them know what is important to you and include a few quirky details.  For instance, check out my About Page – I include some of my favorite writers, other blogs and sites I write for, and a few fun facts about me.

I also link to a “100 things about me” list that I wrote for my personal blog.  Making a similar list (it doesn’t necessarily have to be as long, but once you get started, you may find yourself on a quite a roll) can be a good starting point even if you’re blogging for your business.  It humanizes your blog and makes it memorable.  Think about the details that you’re likely to remember about someone else, and try to include those on your About page.

Of course, you do want to show off your business chops at the same time, so you should still should include the more prosaic aspects of your life (credentials and such), but even that doesn’t have to be boring.   If you’re passionate about your work, what you’ve created, and how you can help others, that will still probably come through in your writing.  On a related note, the About page is also a good spot to put links to a few of your best posts – your flagship content.

Think of your About page as a online press kit, as your own corner of the blogosphere, and as your elevator pitch to potential clients.   It is where you let readers know the key information – who you are, what you do, where you are (contact info), how you can benefit them, and why they should read your blog.

Cornerstone Content is Essential

A good blog rests on a solid foundation of cornerstone, or flagship content.  This is the content you build your blog around – it is indispensable, it is essential, it is what people absolutely must know in order to understand your brand and do business with you.  It should also be some of your most compelling content – it’s the ace up your sleeve, it’s what readers come to your blog for, and it’s your best stuff.

Flagship Content and SEO

Flagship content is naturally keyword rich.  As a central component of your blog, it should focus on your main message and therefore contain tons of your keywords. When writing your cornerstone content, you should focus on creating value for your readers – after all, compiling a useful resource is one of the ways to generate incoming links.  One of the things that your flagship posts should accomplish is to answer the most relevant questions that people searching for your content are asking.  Ask yourself “what kind of content would ensure that my readers get the most out of my blog?”

When you place flagship content with a high keyword density in a prominent position on your blog and reference it in future posts, it helps to promote the post in search engines and makes it more liked to be linked to by others.  Amazing flagship content has the potential to go viral, because a useful flagship post or series of posts gives people something to link to, recommend, and remember.

How to Create Cornerstone Content

Okay, so you know that you need to write some compelling flagship posts that benefit and hook readers.  Now what do you write about?  Here’s a few ideas:

1.  A glossary of terms related to your business.  This is a especially useful if your in an industry with lots of specialized jargon that can be intimidating to outsiders (note: coming soon on Create Compelling Content: a “Blogger’s Glossary”).  It’s also beneficial in the SEO sense, because you can use tons of keywords in this post.

2.  A series of tips for newcomers to your industry or niche; for instance, “Ten Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started….”.  Fill in the blank with your expertise.

3.  How-tos.  A clearly-written how-to post or series is an excellent way to provide value for your readers, and it lets you show off your chops at the same time.  Bonus points if you can make it uplifting and inspirational, i.e. “anyone can attain this goal if they put their mind to it, here’s how”.  Inspire someone and they will not only remember you, they’ll recommend you and link to your blog.

4.  A powerful vision.  Do you have a particular vision or amazing, innovative idea for your niche?  Can you write about it in an eloquent way? Go for it.

5. Organized databases of product reviews or other resources for your niche.  You can even include outside links as long as they add value and support your overall brand somehow (just be sure that these outgoing links don’t directly contradict your message).

6. FAQs about your business and industry are simple but very useful, and they are very easy to create and fill with keywords.

7. All of the above – videos and podcasts of any of the previous options are another great flagship, and they allow for your readers to access your content in their preferred format (some people like to read information, others learn best by watching or listening).  Use the many different methods of web-publishing to your advantage and create a video or podcast of your cornerstone content.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but it’s a good jumping off point.  Feel free to share your own cornerstone content in the comments!

Search engine optimization is not all about keywords and optimized site design, although those are certainly essential. However, the number of incoming links your site has also matters. I’ve touched on the matter of incoming links before, but I didn’t mention how important they were to your blog’s rank.

Link Building and Link Popularity

Link Popularity is a score based on the number of incoming links pointed at your blog.  Clearly, the more incoming links you have the better, but link reputation and page importance play a role as well.

You’re nobody until somebody links to you – link building is the single most important part of achieving a high ranking website in modern search algorithms.  I repeat, link building is the single most important part of achieving a high ranking website in modern search algorithms.

So how do you get other bloggers and webmasters to link to your blog? First of all, create compelling content that others will be interesting in linking to – content is still king.    Secondly, participate in the blogging community.  Be active in relevant discussions, leave substantive comments on other blogs, post on related forums (as always, be sure to place a link to your blog in your signature), and trade links with topical hubs and related sites.

Third, link to other blogs in your niche – you can trade links, or just reward other bloggers with links and it’s likely they’ll return the favor.  Fourth, write glowing testimonials and reviews of services and products related to your blogging topics – chances are they will link back to you when they post them on their own sites.

The Role of Keywords in Link Building

Think of each post and page on your blog as a building block – each is its own unit and has it’s own ranking potential and relevant keywords. Use some of your keywords in each post’s title (search engines index posts by title) and resist the urge to write cutesy or attention grabbing headlines that have little to do with the actual content.  You may be successful at gaining some traffic, but it might not be the valuable kind that’s targeted to your blog.

Writing keyword rich titles and headings that are also crisp and concise can do wonders for your blog’s rankings.  Not only will descriptive titles let search engine readers know they’re in the right place – they’ve found what they’ve been searching for – it will also help you out when others link to your site, even if they use the whole URL to cite your blog. Basically, you want people to know what they are clicking on, so you want your keywords to be part of the links that point at your blog.

The next post in my SEO For Bloggers series will cover link baiting and how to use your content as bait to lure in the linkers and readers.

You’ve probably heard the term search engine optimization , or SEO, being used before, but you might not have realized how simple it is to apply some of the techniques to your blog.  By choosing the right platform, much of the nitty-gritty design work will be done for you, but it’s up to you, the blogger, to create quality content that uses SEO to target new readers and promote your brand.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site via search engines and search results.   The goal is to achieve a high ranking, or to show up early (ideally in the top five) in the listings for relevant search terms, or keywords.  Many SEO techniques can integrated in your blogging to ensure that your blog ranks highly in the search engine results for the keywords that are most important to you and your business.

Although SEO isn’t the only thing to consider when setting up your blog, it’s important to keep it in mind from the very beginning.  First of all, you need to make a comprehensive list of all the potential search terms, or keywords that people could use when searching for your business, product, or service.  Pay particular attention to synonyms, alternative phrases, and even misspellings (www.thesaurus.com is your friend here).

Next, you want to place your most important keywords in title and tagline.  For instance, if you’re a real estate agent based in Chicago, use those words in your title – a possible title and tagline would be “A Chicago Real Estate Blog: From Lakeshore Drive to Wicker Park”.  Not only is the title the first thing your visitors notice when they come to your blog, it’s what the search engines display in their results listings.  Be sure to place your text before your logo or any other images in order to maximize your site’s findability.

Once you’ve started actually blogging, be sure to use your chosen keywords liberally in your posts, categories, and tags.  A high keyword density is key to search engine optimization.  To continue with the Chicago real estate agent example, some obvious keywords for that blogger would be Chicago Real Estate, Chicago Condos, Wicker Park Real Estate, South Loop Condominiums, and other related terms.

If you’re blogging about your business, it’s fairly easy to place keywords within the content naturally, because you’d probably use the phrases while discussing those topics anyways.  Aim for organic, natural usage instead of just repeating keywords for the sake of placing keywords amongst other keywords in your content (see how annoying that is to read?).  You don’t want to counteract your SEO skills with unhelpful content.

Combining SEO techniques with compelling content will make your blog a powerful component of your brand.  The simplest way to do this is to put yourself in your readers’ place – you want to make your blog easy to find (the SEO aspect) and beneficial for your readers (the compelling content).  Quality content will also inspire other bloggers and site owners to link to you, and link building – getting others to links to your site – is absolutely vital for SEO success.

Organic keyword use in the context of interesting, informative posts is especially important in regard to link building, the next aspect of search engine optimization that I’ll be covering as part of my SEO for bloggers series, so be sure to check back soon!

So you’ve started your blog, put up a basic bio on your About page, and you’ve got a few good posts up.  The content is good and the search engines are sending some traffic your way, but you’d like to have even more readers.  Now you need to get people reading it (your friends and family don’t necessarily count unless you can get them to pass your link along to everyone they know and then some).

It’s the blogging equivalent of the tree falling in a forest – if there’s no one there to hear it crash, does it make a sound?  By the same token, is your blog a valuable tool if no one is reading it?  Here’s a few ways to get plenty of incoming links:

1.  Comment on other blogs.  I’ve touched on this before, but it bears repeating.  Comment on the blogs that you admire, and try to add something substantive to the discussion.  People are more likely to click on your link if they think that you can provide them something useful, entertain them, or teach them something new.

2.  Create blogroll of blogs that you enjoy, admire, and read regularly.  Not only will this give your readers new blogs to read (sort of a “if you like X, you’ll love Y” thing), the other bloggers can tell you’ve linked to them through their stats or Technorati.  You can also conversationally link to other bloggers with relevant content in your posts.

3.  Claim your blog on Technorati and use your tags wisely.  Technorati is more than just an internet popularity contest, it’s a valuable blog promotion tool (you can see who’s blogging about the same topics, who has linked to you, who has favorited you, and all sorts of other useful stuff.  If you haven’t yet claimed your blog, go do that now – do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not even finish reading this post.

4.  Join Blog Carnivals that fit your subject matter.  A Blog Carnival is a type of multi-author blog event that consists of a list of permalinks to blog posts on a pre-defined topic.  This is an excellent way to garner publicity for a new blog and draw attention to some of your best posts.  You can also start blog carnivals once you become more established in the blogosphere.

5.  Offer to guest-blog on popular blog in your niche.  This strategy is best deployed after you’ve been blogging for a while and already have some incoming links.  Becoming a guest blogger involves approaching the owners of other blogs you enjoy and offering to write a post for them – be sure to emphasize the unique skills and content that you can provide for their readers (and for them - chances are they’ll be happy that they get a day off from blogging).  Used properly, this technique can drive tons of traffic your way.

There are plenty of other ways to get incoming links, and I’ll be mentioning them in the upcoming weeks, so check back and keep creating compelling content.

You’ve probably heard this advice at some point:  “If you want to become a good writer, read everything you can get your hands on” or some variation thereof.  It’s true however – it’s one of the reasons that  people read the work of great writers – in order to learn from them.  This principle also applies to blogging – reading the other popular and/or well written blogs will make you a better blogger.  However, there are few things that are important to remember.

Writing for the web is a little different than writing for print.

For instance, the vast majority of people will not read long paragraphs or large chunks of unbroken content on the screen.  It’s hard on the eyes (wallpapering your site with tons of flash animation and widgets has a similar effect) and it’s boring.  Appeal to the short attention span of the average digital media reader and make your content bite size.  Think sound bite, not manifesto.

How can you do this?  Personally, I like lists, and so do some of the most successful bloggers out there.  Whether you use actual numbers or bullet points, lists are a nice, clear way to organize your content, and most subjects can be divided this way.  Lists are especially useful when you’re enumerating the reasons to do something, i.e. buy a particular product or perform a certain activity.

Another good way to organize your longer posts is to highlight a few main points in bold, perhaps as subject headings.  Really, anything that breaks up a solid mass of text is probably a good idea, whether its relevant images or bold text.

Think of Your Blog as a Book, Not a Journal.

However, some topics just warrant really long posts.  Whether it is something that needs to be described in detail or requires in-depth discussion, consider turning it into a series of posts.  Not only will you then have several posts taken care of, you’ll give you’re readers an incentive to suscribe to your feed or bookmark your blog so they can finish the story.  It might be helpful to think of your blog as a constantly updated serial book instead of a weblog/diary.   

In the next few days, I’ll go more in depth on the “blog as book” topic, as well as listing some of the things not to do on your blog.

Yesterday I went to the Printer’s Row Book Fair (one of the many interesting events in Chicago) to check out all the cool books for sale and meet up with a few local writers.  Not surprisingly, many authors have blogs that they use to promote their work and share their stories.  However, just as many seem to either dismiss both the internet and blogosphere as a community of dilettantes and plagiarists.

Although everyone is entitled their own opinion, I think that neglecting to realize the full scope of the web is dangerous.  There is some great content online, and for many, the web is their main source of news, information and entertainment.  Younger generations even tend to view search engines as an extension of their brains.

Blogging has democratized publishing – anyone with a computer and an internet connection can become a writer.  Granted, there is a whole lot of chaff out there, but once you separate the wheat you see how blogs can be a very powerful promotional tool and means of expression.  You don’t necessarily have to be the next Hemingway, either.  Just write simply and clearly about what you know.  It’s a way to build your personal brand and share your expertise with current and potential employers, clients, and customers.   Even the New York Times (check out this article entitled “Can Blogs Become a Big Source of Jobs?”) has recognized the value of blogging!

If you’re really worried about plagiarism, encourage people to link back if they quote you (this is just good “netiquette” anyways) and add a Creative Commons license to your site.

In closing, here’s a cool book to pick up if you’re interested in how digital media is changing publishing, I picked up a book called Bookmark Now: Writing in Unreaderly Times.  It’s a collection of essays by young writers about writing, technology, and the web.  Edited by Kevin Smokler (who has a blog, naturally), it’s a good read even if you’re not part of the media world.

Blogging is a lot more organic than most marketing strategies.  There is no prescription for success and the only surefire to get a ton of readers and keep them around is to provide useful, compelling content.  However, you can create a plan that will at least help you get started.

Think of your “blogging plan” like the opening drive of a football game.  Many coaches script their opening drive and then adapt their schemes from there, according the rhythm of the game and the opportunities that come up.  You can script some things – a posting schedule, a weekly links roundup, etc., but as your blog grows, you’ll probably find yourself deviating from the plan. 

Things you should script include the previously mentioned posting schedule (it’s easier to remember to blog when you make it a regular part of your day) and certain types of posts.  For instance, many successful bloggers post a links round up on Fridays – a list of their favorite or most useful posts and articles

You can also script a plan to share some of your knowledge or expertise with readers.  Look at this like you’re teaching a class – don’t post all the information at once, instead, divide it in manageable chunks.  Creating a schedule for this frees you from having to come up with something new to post every day, and it keeps readers coming back for more. 

Of course, the free form nature of blogging means that all sorts of things will come up – readers might email you with useful questions to answer, blogging carnivals (more on those later) will occur, or something major will happen that you just have to blog about.

Having an organized plan is important, so script your opening drive, but keep an eye out for the open receiver down the field.

So you’ve started your blog and written a few posts.  You’ve told readers who you are and what you do and maybe uploaded a few pictures.  But how do you stand out from the pack?

There are millions of blogs out there and thousands are being added every day, so why should people check out yours?

1. Be educational.  Teach your readers how to do something or point them to useful information (links).  Show off a little of your expertise.

2. Be entertaining.  This one is tough, because everyone has a different sense of humor and what’s hilarious to one person is offensive to another.  However, all bloggers should remember to keep things fairly light – blogging is an informal medium.

3. Be expository.  This one is related to #1, but break complicated subjects down into bite-size pieces so that your readers can learn from your blog.  Share your knowledge, particularly if you’re an expert a particular topic.  Actually, especially if you’re an expert.

4. Be focused.  Stick to a posting schedule (you can always write multiple posts and save them as drafts to publish later) and stay on topic.  Spreading yourself too thin by blogging about too many different topics leads to a disorganized blog with few readers.  Staying on topic is also important in regard to search engine optimization.

5. Be colorful.  I don’t mean using a rainbow-patterned template, but share your hobbies/quirks/amusing anecdotes with readers.  If you look at the popular blogs, they all have a distinct style or voice (yes, there will be future posts about developing your voice on Create Compelling Content).