Unfortunately, most companies do not realize how much content can be optimized as news. According to Lisa Buyer of The Buyer Group, press releases, blogs, social media profiles, tweets, Facebook posts, and more can all be included in news results.

To do this, she suggests that marketers, first of all, optimize press releases for news search. She also recommends using tools such as PitchEngine. This tool provides an additional place for marketers to post press releases. Buyer says this effective tool practically guarantees that users will show up on the first page of Google’s search results. Although it does not always stay in the top spot, it does provide instant gratification.

She also points out the importance of interacting with media, especially through Twitter. Specifically, she tells WebProNews that “#journchat” is a great way to do this. The chat takes place weekly and brings journalists, bloggers, and professionals together.

Additionally, Buyer offers advice in regards to promoting content. She says one of the keys to successful promotion is avoiding spammy and pitchy messages. Although it’s easy to take the headline and tweet it out, it is not the most effective approach. Instead, Buyer advocates more creative methods such as using quotes, statistics, questions, or other interesting nuggets of information that will draw traffic back to the release.

Are you utilizing these opportunities to show up in news results?

Marketers know data is important, but sorting through all of it is definitely challenging. As Google Analytics Evangelist Avinash Kaushik explains, most people only look at the first 10-20 results that their analytics tool provides. However, even for a blog such as his that gets traffic from 25,000+ keywords per month, this is only an inkling into what the data can show.

To make the most of your data, Kaushik recommends using the following strategies: inline segmentation, tag clouds, and keyword trees. These strategies take thousands of keywords and create visualizations that allows marketers to understand all the data.

For example, by using tag clouds, Kasushik tells WebProNews that marketers can determine the relationships between keywords. They can also find out how consumers are behaving and what their intent is.

One big problem regarding data is the way that marketers go to their bosses and try to convince them the invest more in search, based upon data. This is often a problem because the data the marketers use does not usually connect with the boss. To resolve this issue, Kaushik says marketers should calculate the value of each goal they have for their site. In turn, this information would provide more clarity to upper management.

Kaushik also suggests that marketers measure all the site’s revenue to help understand that microconversions are happening and where.

“Quantify the complete impact of the site; otherwise, you’re going to be making very bad decisions,” says Kasushik.

Are you looking at the right data?

When people talk about the future of search, they often include factors such as mobile, social, real-time, and other buzz-type words. But it is not very often that they offer an explanation as to how these elements will impact search moving forward. However, in this interview with WebProNews, search veteran Bruce Clay tells that side of the story.

In the early days, Clay says SEO was easy. He goes on to say that it was somewhat defined even 5 years ago, but social, mobile, and local are not defined at all. Now, SEO is more difficult and targeted and will get even harder over time. He calls the top 3 search results the new first page.

“You can’t be good at SEO, you have to be great,” says Clay.

In the next 18 months, he believes the hottest topics in SEO circles will be local, social media, conversions, and somewhat surprisingly, only some discussion about mobile. The reason for this lack of mobile discussion is because people do not like the mobile browser.

Clay thinks the mobile device will become an operating system with the ability to connect apps directly to the Web, which would eliminate the need for a browser. Although he believes a “find” app will be dominant over a search app, he doesn’t believe that mobile will replace search.

In regards to Google’s recent MayDay update, Clay says he saw nothing but good results for sites that optimized for the long tail. While sites that had casual long tail results lost some traffic, he pointed out that it didn’t impact their conversions.

Google Caffeine is another update that has been receiving a lot of attention of late and Clay had a lot to share about it as well. Last year, Google said that it was rolling Caffeine out to one data center and would slowly roll it out to the others. After having a conversation with Google’s Matt Cutts, Clay believes Caffeine is completely rolled out now but just not in 100 percent of the queries.

He goes on to say that advantages of Caffeine are the near real-time page index updates and increased spam filters. In addition, he says there are several behind-the-scenes factors that make it even more interesting. Although Google has not officially announced it, users can now buy Unicode characters in urls and the search engine supports it.

He also brings up a point about how Google recently said that it has 200 variables in the algorithm. As a result, search results were slower and behavioral search was penalized. Moving forward, Clay believes that multiple disjointed queries will determine search results but says it can’t be done without a faster index.

One of the big details that Google has emphasized about Caffeine is its faster index. According to Clay, if behavioral search works, PPC ads will be better and more targeted, which means that ROI will increase. As the ROI increases, the bid will also increase, which would ultimately generate more revenue for Google. All that said, the searchers would win as well since they would be getting better results.

Clay has given us a lot to think about. How do you feel about his projections?

At SMX Advanced, Bing revealed a preview of its new Webmaster Tools. WebProNews caught up with Eric Gilmore, a Group Product Manager with Bing, who says the new tools were built completely from scratch.

According to Gilmore, the tools are all about design and scale. With the new modern architecture of the tools, Bing wants to give users more data, more relevant information, analytics, and more. Gilmore says the three main areas Bing focused on was crawl, index, and traffic.

In addition, Bing is ensuring a simplified user experience and rich visualizations. Interestingly enough, Gilmore indicates that the feedback from users was very instrumental in the development of the tools. He went on to say that Bing wants to create an “open dialogue” relationship with its users.

“We have a whole bunch of things we want to do, so this is just the beginning,” says Gilmore.

Bing is currently fine-tuning the tools before they are released in the coming weeks. For the latest updates, check out the Webmaster Center blog.

It’s no secret that the social Web has exploded and is continuing to do so. As Joseph Smarr of Google puts it, “Almost anything on the Web can be better when it’s social.”

Unfortunately, there is one problem with this social explosion. When most social sites were built, the creators of them did not work together, which means that users have to set up the same information and profiles about themselves for each service.

Users want to be able to transfer their information from site-to-site and utilize their preferred tools in various places. As a result, many developers are working on producing an open set of standards to make this process easier. The downside is that these standards are not yet ready to allow richness to easily flow around the Web.

Some services such as Open ID and OAuth already exist that allow users to sign up for new services with one account. In addition, new technologies such as Activity Streams, PubSubHubbub, and Salmon allow users to express and share rich information about themselves.

“It’s really neat to see these all coming together and increasingly big companies jumping on board and wanting to support them…” says Smarr.

Webmasters can also receive benefits from using services such as Open ID and OAuth. These services allow them to get users immediately by eliminating the set-up process. Users can also share data out with activity streams, which could increase traffic to websites.

Smarr tells WebProNews that it is important to get the open standards right since they will impact the future of the social Web. He goes on to say that because the Internet began with the right open standards, it was able to develop into what it is today.

Posted by randfish

Sometimes, the page you’re trying to rank – the one that visitors will find relevant and useful to their query – isn’t the page the engines have chosen to place first. When this happens, it can be a frustrating experience trying to determine what course of action to take. In this blog post, I’ll walk through some of the root causes of this problem, as well as five potential solutions.

When the wrong page from your site appears prominently in the search results, it can spark a maddening conflict of emotion – yes, it’s great to be ranking well and capturing that traffic, but it sucks to be delivering a sub-optimal experience to searchers who visit, then leave unfulfilled. The first step should be identifying what’s causing this issue and to do that, you’ll need a process.

Below, I’ve listed some of the most common reasons we’ve seen for search engines to rank a less relevant page above a more relevant one.

1. Internal Anchor Text
   The most common issue we see when digging into these problems is the case of internal anchor text optimization gone awry. Many sites will have the keyword they’re targeting on the intended page linking to another URL (or several) on the site in a way that can mislead search engines. If you want to be sure that the URL yoursite.com/frogs ranks for the keyword "frogs," make sure that anchor text that says "frogs" points to that page. See this post on keyword cannibalization for more on this specific problem.
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2. External Link Bias
   The next most common issue we observe is the case of external links preferring a different page than you, the site owner or marketer, might. This often happens when an older page on your site has discussed a topic, but you’ve more recently produced an updated, more useful version. Unfortunately, links on the web tend to still reference the old URL. The anchor text of these links, the context they’re in and the reference to the old page may make it tough for a new page to overcome the prior’s rankings.
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3. Link Authority & Importance Metrics
   There are times when a page’s raw link metrics – high PageRank, large numbers of links and linking root domains – will simply overpower other relevance signals and cause it to rank well despite barely targeting (and sometimes barely mentioning) a keyword phrase. In these situations, it’s less about the sources of links, the anchor text or the relevance and more a case of powerful pages winning out through brute force. On Google, this happens less than it once did (at least in our experience), but can still occur in odd cases.
   _
4. On-Page Optimization
   In some cases, a webmaster/marketer may not realize that the on-page optimization of a URL for a particular keyword term/phrase is extremely similar to another. To differentiate and help ensure the right page ranks, it’s often wise to de-emphasize the target keyword on the undesirable page and target it more effectively (without venturing into keyword stuffing or spam) on the desired page. This post on keyword targeting can likely be of assistance.
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5. Improper Redirects
   We’ve seen the odd case where an old redirect has pointed a page that heavily targeted a keyword term/phrase (or had earned powerful links around that target) to the wrong URL. These can be very difficult to identify because the content of the 301′ing page no longer exists and it’s hard to know (unless you have the history) why the current page might be ranking despite no effort. If you’ve been through the other scenarios, it’s worth looking to see if 301 redirects from other URLs point to the page in question and running a re-pointing test to see if they could be causing the issue.
   _
6. Topic Modeling / Content Relevance Issues
   This is the toughest to identify and to explain, but that won’t stop us from trying Essentially, you can think of the search engines doing a number of things to determine the degree of relevancy of a page to a keyword. Determining topic areas and identifying related terms/phrases and concepts is almost certainly among these (we actually hope to have some proof of Google’s use of LDA, in particular, in the next few months to share on the blog). Seeing as this is likely the case, the engine may perceive that the page you’re trying to rank isn’t particularly "on-topic" for the target keyword while another page that appears less "targeted" from a purely SEO/keyphrase usage standpoint is more relevant.

Once you’ve gone through this list and determined which issues might be affecting your results, you’ll need to take action to address the problem. If it’s an on-page or content issue, it’s typically pretty easy to fix. However, if you run into external linking imbalances, you may need more dramatic action to solve the mistmatch and get the right page ranking.

Next, we’ll tackle some specific, somewhat advanced, tactics to help get the right page on top:

1. The 301 Redirect (or Rel Canonical) & Rebuild
   In stubborn cases or those where a newer page is replacing an old page, it may be wise to simply 301 redirect the new page to the old page (or the other way around) and choose the best-converting/performing content for the page that stays. I generally like the strategy of maintaining the older, ranking URL and redirecting the newer one simply because the metrics for that old page may be very powerful and a 301 does cause some loss of link juice (according to the folks at Google). However, if the URL string itself isn’t appropriate, it can make sense to instead 301 to the new page instead.

   Be aware that if you’re planning to use rel=canonical rather than a 301 (which is perfectly acceptable), you should first ensure that the content is exactly the same on both pages. Trying to maintain two different version of a page with one canonicalizing to another isn’t specifically against the engines’ guidelines, but it’s also not entirely white hat (and it may not work, since the engines do some checking to determine content matches before counting rel=canonical sometimes).
   _

2. The Content Rewrite
   If you need to maintain the old page and have a suspicion that content focus, topic modeling or on-page optimization may be to blame, a strategy of re-authoring the page from scratch and focusing on both relevance and user experience may be a wise path. It’s relatively easy to test and while it will suck away time from other projects, it may be helpful to give the page more focused, relevant, useful and conversion-inducing material.
   _
3. The Link Juice Funnel
   If you’re fairly certain that raw link metrics like PageRank or link quantities are to blame for the issue, you might want to try funnelling some additional internal links to the target page (and possibly away from the currently ranking page). You can use a tool like Open Site Explorer to identify the most important/well-linked-to pages on your site and modify/add links to them to help channel juice into the target page and boost its rankings/prominence.
   _
4. The Content Swap
   If you strongly suspect that the content of the pages rather than the link profiles may be responsible and want to test, this is the strategy to use. Just swap the on-page and meta data (titles, meta description, etc) between the two pages and see how/if it impacts rankings for the keyword. Just be prepared to potentially lose traffic during the test period (this nearly always happens, but sometimes is worth it to confirm your hypothesis). If the less-well-ranked page rises with the new content while the better-ranked page falls, you’re likely onto something.
   _
5. The Kill ‘Em with External Links
   If you can muster a brute force, external link growth strategy, either through widgets/badges, content licensing, a viral campaign to get attention to your page or just a group of friends with websites who want to help you out, go for it. We’ve often seen this precise strategy lift one page over another and while it can be a lot of work, it’s also pretty effective.

While this set of recommendations may not always fix the issue, it can almost always help identify the root cause(s) and give you a framework in which to proceed. If you’ve got other suggestions, I look forward to hearing about them in the comments!

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A guest post by Larry Brooks of Storyfix.com

In the recycled litany of advice on how to grow your blog – recycled because it’s all tried and true – there’s one effective strategy that gets too little airtime.

Perhaps that’s because it’s not for everybody.  Because it’s hard to pull off. 

That said, it almost always works.

Meanwhile, as a first line of more accessible strategy, we’re told to comment on the blogs of others.  We’re also advised to avoid overtly flogging our own agenda in the process. 

“Dude, nice post!” won’t send folks to your site.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to dole out the atta-boys.  Just don’t expect to be rewarded with reciprocal traffic when you do.  If you comment – and this, too, is straight out of Blogging 101 – strive to add value to the online discussion, and in context to the previous paragraph.

We’re told to write killer headlines.  Snatch an edgy image from Flickr.  Never put three sentences of content into a single paragraph.  Pretend like you know Darren Rowse and Brian Clark personally. 

Which puts you in the company of thousands who lay claim to that because they’ve swapped an email or two.  They’re not two of the biggest and nicest people on the internet for nothin’.

And of course, we’re consistently told that content is king.  That this little strategy trumps everything else.  Always has, always will.

Which is precisely why the strategy I’m about to pitch works so well.

Like you, I’ve dipped my blogging toe into all of these rushing online waters, and with varying degrees of success, depending on how you define it. 

Growing a blog by the book is a bit like those sales pages that suggest you can earn five grand a month with Google ads, and then when you do everything they suggest after submitting your fifty bucks, you make about fifteen of them back over the next five months.

If you’re the exception to that generalization, then by all means, illuminate us.

But if you’re looking for something you can sink your strategic teeth into, an approach that solidly aligns with the content-is-king blogging mantra and actually results in an influx of enthusiastic new readers, then consider this:

Write a series

A sequence of posts that offer a sort of mini-symposium, an online workshop that builds upon its own content and momentum.

I’ve done it a handful of times, and each time it jacks my Feedburner number much more significantly than anything else I’ve tried.

I’m in the middle of one now, in fact, and my level of readership has gone up nearly 50 percent since it began five days ago  (that said, Darren Rowse I’m not, so this isn’t a world record).  And my subscriber base has gone up 10 percent after three months of complete flat-lining.

And – here’s the entrepreneurial payoff – I’m selling a bunch of ebooks in the process, at over twice the normal sales pace.

Claiming the Right to Write a Series

To write a successful series, you need to occupy a position of credibility within your chosen niche.  You need to have something to offer, to give away, and be able to demonstrate the chops to do so. 

Also, your series should be about something that can’t be adequately contained in a single blog post.

Sure, we can stuff anything into a single blog post if we try.  I’ve seen single blog posts on solving the problem of unhappy marriages, how to cure cancer and the ultimate answer to recovering from sex addiction, substance abuse and hair loss.

Yeah, like any of those can happen in 1000 words or less.

If you really want to cement your position as an authority on something, on anything, you need to go deeper than what readers normally encounter online.

You need to train them.

One reason this strategy can grow your readership is that it is, in essence, an event.  Which means it can be marketed as such ahead of time.

Beginning a week or two before you launch the series, start writing about it.  Define the problem or need your series will address, and the end result that will be there for those who come to the party.

Attach a tag, a notice, at the end of your otherwise unconnected posts reminding readers of the upcoming series.  Suggest they invite friends that share the same goals and concerns.

Getting the Reader Involved 

Ask for input to the series, allowing your readers to, in effect, take part in the approach and content.  Nothing makes readers love you more than the belief – based in truth – that you are writing precisely what they need to read, and that you understand both their goals and their challenges.

And then, write a killer series.  Write the hell of out.  Don’t just whip them off before bed in a stream-of-conscious psycho-babble of war stories.  Write your series as if you are preparing a masters thesis, but with a sense of style, humor and empathy.

Think of the posts as chapters in a book, with an introductory context up front, then a building series of content blocks that take the reader to the promised outcome.

Not only will they come once you build it, others will write about it on their sites – including requests for interviews and invites to guest post – creating a level of buzz you could never achieve otherwise.

Go deeper than you normally would

With a series you have the time and space to go there, and in doing so you’ll quickly differentiate yourself from other blogs in your niche.

When you write an effective series, you are actually taking blogging to another level.  What was conceived as experiential sharing and observation becomes a valuable gift to all who click on.

And speaking of chapters… I’ve turned three of my series into ebooks that are selling well, with a fourth right around the corner.  Just make sure you don’t simply slap together the eight parts of your series into an eight chapter ebook and call it original, your readers are too smart for that.  And, they deserve better.

You’ve already given it away.  You can’t sell it unless you add more value to it.

Use your posts as a foundation to build on, and expand them into a full and robust informational goldmine on the topic.  Include real life examples as a way to clarify your content. 

People who read your series will flock to it, even if they read it on your site as part of a series, and they’ll tell others.

And in the meantime, your blog and your brand will begin to grow.  Not only because of your content, but as a result of the credibility of your authoritative brand.

Larry Brooks is currently writing a series that deconstructs Dennis Lehane’s bestselling novel, Shutter Island – the book and the movie based on it – on Storyfix.com, an instructional site for novelists and screenwriters. 

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Consider a Series. Seriously.

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A guest post by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl.

As a design & craft blogger, I often struggle with putting tips from sites like Problogger into practice. But I diligently mull them over and translate them to fit my needs. One tip I struggle with regularly is mastering the art of the “list post.”

You know, the “5 Tips for Yada Yada” or “7 Ways to Blah Blah” posts. Sure, these posts are helpful. I like reading them. I frequently glean good information from them. They really work to provide useful, actionable information in an easy-to-read form. They attract traffic to information-driven blogs where people come with real problems seeking concrete answers.

But I don’t write that kind of blog.

My blog, Scoutie Girl, is much more experiential. It’s driven by images, creativity, and stories. Readers come to my blog and others in my niche to experience the artistry & passion of others. Perhaps, when it comes down to it, that’s why readers visit your blog too…

Do your readers long to connect to something greater than themselves? Are they searching for a little inspiration in a crazy world? Maybe they crave a bit of humanity or to know that they’re not alone.

Perhaps, our blogs are not so different.

Ironically, I present you with 3 ideas for implementing a bit of “experience” into your blog:

1. Consider a lesson from your past that has shaped who you are, why you blog, or what you blog about. Share this story with your readers, embrace the personal introspection that you’ll need to endure, and find common ground with your readers when they comment in response to your post. Tell your story succinctly but completely, include details,  free yourself from a few boundaries. Use telling your story to set up a narrative around the point you are trying to make or problem you are trying to solve with your post. Once you’ve told your story, don’t just revert to your information-driven style, embrace the narrative and let the lesson flow.
2. Take the time to source creative or inspirational images for your posts. There is so much more out there than stock photography. Check out the Flickr Creative Commons and use the “Attribution” library to find images that photographers would love for you to use, if you just provide them with a little credit! If you’re feeling especially brave, you might allow a post to be driven by a fascinating image that you find while browsing.
3. Bring in unrelated inspiration. I am constantly amazed how much inspiration I can draw from just listening to public radio, watching good (and, yes, lots of bad) television, or watching my daughter interact from the world. None are directly related to what I blog about but each has provided fodder for some of my most popular posts. Allow yourself to be inspired by outside interests and you might hit pay dirt!

These posts my be more difficult to optimize for search engines but they are sure to engage your readers and elicit great comments. I’m betting you’ll see a nice little surge in social sharing, too! A foray into more “experiential” blogging might just give you the opportunity you’ve been looking for to reach a new level of connection with your audience. It has for me.

Tara Gentile is the editor of Scoutie Girl, the blog with a penchant for the passionately handmade, and the owner for a boutique web design business. You can also find her blogging on her personal site, Write Well, Create Often.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

3 Ideas for Moving Beyond List Posts: Creating an Experiential Blog

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Today I’m pleased to announce the launch of the 2nd Edition of ProBlogger the Book! It’s a book designed to help you take your blog to the next level – so make sure you grab a copy today.

Chris Garrett and myself put together the first edition of ProBlogger the book back in 2008 with the goal of putting together a resource for bloggers that would walk them through many of the aspects of setting up and growing of a profitable new blog.

Between us we’d written literally thousands of tips and tutorials on our blogs about blogging – but a book put the best of them together in a logical order and in a way that a blogger could take and set up a blog.

Since that time it’s been used by many many thousands of bloggers.

Time for an Updated Edition

However 2 years is a long time in blogging and so it was time for an updated version – hence when Wiley asked us to do a 2nd edition we were only too pleased to do so.

This is an update of the 1st edition and not a complete rewrite – however there are a few significant updates including:

• there have been many many small updates and changes throughout the book. New examples, screenshots, updates of new tools, a few deletions of references to old tools, an update to our stories in the intro etc.
• we’ve removed a chapter on blog networks – things have changed a lot in this space and many networks are not hiring any more or have changed their models significantly.
• Chris has added a significant chapter on social media and how it impacts and can be used by bloggers
• I have added a case study chapter that goes through the first 4 years of my main blog – Digital Photography School. I work through how I launched it, what I focused upon in years 1-2 and then in years 3-4, how I monetize it and share the secrets to how I drive significant traffic and income through email newsletters, social media etc.
• Bonuses – we’re offering anyone who buys the book a series of bonuses (some interviews with successful bloggers, some extra teaching etc)

Grab Your Copy Today

The update brings the book into the new decade and we’re excited to see people’s reactions to it.

If you’re going to grab your copy – make sure you do so today because when the first edition was released it sold out pretty quickly and it was a week or two before more copies were available! Amazon have it on sale at 34% off.

PS: this 2nd edition will be available on Kindle in just a few days – you can pre-order your kindle version here.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

ProBlogger the Book 2nd Edition – Available Today!

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In this post Mark Hayward shares some ‘must do’ tips for small business owners who are getting ready to launch a blog.

Are you getting ready to launch your baby? You know, your small business blog.

Blogging for small business is certainly not revolutionary anymore, and it has been well documented that it can improve your search engine rankings, increase your brand awareness, and ultimately bring you more customers.

However, after reading this CNN article, it occurred to me that many small business owners are still struggling with the basics. (Note: If you’re an expert or ProBlogger this post might be a little too introductory for your skill level. However, please feel free to add additional critical tasks in the comments.)

When it comes to blogging, sometimes getting your small business blog up and running can seem more of an actual pain than drafting the content itself. But, if you are at the pre-launch or just launched stage, doing things correctly now can save you from lost blog traffic, a decrease return on investment, and a world of other potential problems that might arise later.

1. Define your customer. Yes, before doing anything technical at all, make sure you know exactly who your ideal customer is:

• Where do your customers come from?
• What type of content should you create that helps them?
• Where do your customers hang out online?

2. Determine if you’re going to create a blog within your business website or on its own. This is a serious decision and you need to give quite a bit of thought to determining if you want to setup your small business blog as mysmallbusinesswebsite.com/blog or if you want to keep it separate with something like mysmallbusinessblog.com.

When I started my small business three years ago, I made the conscious decision to keep my small business blog separate from my business website. I did this primarily because I was going to eventually turn the blog into a second business where I could sell advertising space to other local businesses.

With respect to your small business, you need to ask yourself some key questions.

• What are the benefits to you if you create a small business blog that’s integrated into your website?
• Could you get a blog that’s separate from your website to rank quicker in search engines?
• Do you plan to launch a secondary business off of your blog?

3. Keyword research for domain name. If you are going to setup your small business blog separate from your business website then by all means you should do some keyword research.

As a simple example, if I owned a bike shop in Chicago I might check with Google Keywords for the generic term ‘bikes.’ Just to get an idea of what people are searching for.

And if I wanted to run a more targeted search that includes the additional keyword ‘Chicago’ I can run a phrase based query with ‘bikes Chicago.’

Obviously, the search volume is less, but you can get an idea of what words you should include in your domain name. Keep in mind, if you are going to be using a lot of video, or incorporating a video channel, you might also want to use a resource like the YouTube Keyword Tool.

Above all, remember that you want to secure a domain name:

• that is brandable and has easy recognition with respect to your small business
• has the potential to rank well in various search engines
• sets you apart from the competition and is as short in characters as possible

(Note: as an added bonus, your keyword research can also help you to come up with a list of blog post ideas.)

4. Choose a blogging platform and select a design or theme. Everyone has their favorite blogging platform. I myself am a fan of WordPress for both my small business website and my blog, but you might also want to look at some of the other options that are out there such as Blogger, Movable Type, and Joomla.

According to Matt Cutts (of Google), in his presentation ‘Straight from Google: What You Need to Know,’ WordPress has done a great majority of the SEO work for you (see video below), but have a look around at the other options and make a choice based on your preferences.

Once you’ve chosen a platform, the topics of design and SEO are way beyond the scope of this post, but for further reading see some terrific ProBlogger resources here, here, and here.

5. Register your social media accounts. If you haven’t done this already, before you have launched your small business blog is the time to get this task done. Places you might want to start are:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• FLICKR
• Google (create your Google profile)

6. Measuring ROI, listening, and your blog’s feed. Many would be small business bloggers are extremely concerned about the time they will have to dedicate to producing content while still gaining a valuable return on their investment. After I launched my small business blog, one of the best ways I discovered to discern how my customers were finding me was to just ask them how they heard about my venture.

Free online tools like Google Analytics and Google Alerts provide you with additional knowledge that you can use to learn and track how your customers are finding you online.

Additionally, your small business blog’s RSS feed provides a convenient way for your customers to receive updates when you post new content. And if you offer an email feed option you can start the beginnings of a nice email list.

7. Draft at least ten posts in advance and have them loaded with preset publish dates. Whether you intend to post once a month, once a week, or once a day, having a little bit of a cushion built up before you launch can make your introduction to blogging much easier. As we all know, emergencies pop up all the time as a small business owner and having a stable of posts ready to go can ease the pressure a bit. If you’re struggling with what you’ll write about, here are 31 blog post ideas to help you.

8. Spend some time in forums. Online niche forums are like any real world social situation. You can’t just show up on the day you launch your small business blog with a huge announcement and expect to be taken seriously.

Building trust within forum communities is time consuming and is typically determined by how long you’ve been a member and the value you’ve provided. Spend at least a couple of weeks (or better a couple of months!) helping, engaging, and supporting fellow members.

9. Reach out to key influencers. All small business niches have industry leaders who are online and could potentially assist you with getting the word out regarding your blog. However, if you are going to seek the help of influencers, getting to know them has to be done well before launch day. I learned this lesson the hard way, so please learn from my mistakes.

10. Draft a web optimized press release. When you are ready to launch, you might want to draft a web optimized press release and let the world know your small business is now online. You can use a service like Pitch Engine to submit your release to and you might even get lucky enough to time your launch with some free publicity opportunities that you find through Help a Reporter Out. In order to help you with this final task, here is a great presentation by Brian Solis.

How to Write Social Media Press Releases – By Brian Solis

As a final thought, I always like to tell people that the first week of blogging is euphoric and the third month brings frustration, so remember to be consistent in your efforts. Now go launch your small business blog with a bang!

Want more ‘must do’ small business social media tasks from Mark Hayward? Then subscribe to his RSS or email feed and follow him on Twitter @mark_hayward.

image source: p_c_w

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

9 Critical Tasks Before Launching Your Small Business Blog

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