The 108 Blog Carnival is a round-up of blog articles on a particular topic. It allows us to share varying perspectives and connect our readers to other bloggers across the web. This inaugural edition is all about blogging – go figure!
‘The rat race’, isn’t that what we call it? But it’s becoming less of a race, and more of a duel as businesses fight to gain a greater share of the customer. And as we fight to be heard by the customer, it becomes more and more important to produce content that showcases your expertise while facilitating connection. Blogging is free and offers daily, weekly, or monthly content to share with your followers. You can allow comments (we enjoy your comments on our Facebook page), ‘likes’, and shares to build new readership across new channels. The possibilities of what you do with your new audience are endless (e.g. engage them, listen to them).
To start you out with the blogging big picture I offer a recent post by Jon Rhodes of Affiliate Help: Ethical Affiliate Marketing. He wrote a beautiful post on What Muhammed Ali Can Teach You About Blogging. It offers advice wrapped up in motivation! A good read for new or seasoned bloggers alike.
Coming up with new ideas to entertain and educate your readers is one of the most difficult parts of blog writing. Luckily, there’s askiyabooyawale.com and her post on generating ideas for your blog posts. It’s an excellent list to have on-hand when you write. It seems all writers and some point hit that brick wall – a list of ideas may be just what you need to jump that hurdle!
Blogging takes care and thought to gain momentum, but it can offer big rewards as you can reach new audiences – for FREE. One way to increase traffic is to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Ashley Baxter of Baxie404 wrote a great post offering 5 Tips For Better Blog SEO & More Website Traffic. She offers some excellent tips to help guide your initial efforts!
David Leonhardt’s SEO and Social Media Marketing wrote a post a while ago on the question of Link Variety or Link Relevance. It provides an excellent in-depth look at building links to your site using your blog posts and submitting articles to other blogs and websites. For those that have their blog in place and would like to take it to the next level, this post offers and excellent spring board.
However, if you currently don’t have a blog, but are considering starting one, may I offer our own (no cost) Six Steps to Strategic Blogging course. Delivered by email once a week for six weeks. It takes you through the various steps to crafting a blog – one at a time. It is especially useful for senior executives or corporations that have a public image to consider as it walks through image and content decisions.
There is no end to great blogging advice on the web these days, and we’ve just touched on the variety of posts available. If nothing else, this post shows just how many elements there are in crafting a successful blog. Enjoy! And see you next month for another 108 Blog Carnival!
Carolyn Bergshoeff is Manager of Projects and Content Marketing at 108 ideaspace inc. – a consulting firm that extends business strategies by innovating in strategy, technology, and design. To learn more about Carolyn or 108 ideaspace, visit www.108ideaspace.com.
