There are a lot of obvious elements you need to include to make a blog reader-friendly: quality, compelling content, good navigation, a contact page, an about page, focus and clarity about the subject of the blog… and there’s a lot of not-so-obvious or overlooked things that can really help make a blog stand out if they’re implemented.

While I do have my own list of do’s and don’ts included, I decided to get input from other smart, savvy bloggers. I posted a request on LinkedIn Answers and received many great do’s and don’ts. I’ve grouped the tips into five categories: Planning, Content, Design, Marketing and Engagement.

#1: Planning Your Business Blog

Do: Know your “Big Why” – Why are you in business? What is your purpose and ultimate goal for serving others? Clarity about your purpose, your goals, your ideal client and how you transform people’s lives will help guide all the content on your business blog.

Do: Know what you mean when you say successful. Are you trying to get more sales? Develop relationships? Inform current customers? Having a specific goal for your blog will shape the rest of your strategy. From Cordelia Blake

Do: Keyword research before starting a blog. First, compile a list of keywords (and, more importantly, keyword phrases) you think your business should rank for. Then, go to Google Keyword tool and type in those phrases to find out how many actual searches are done per month. You would be surprised how different Google’s list may turn out from your own. Use the list Google suggests as your starting point. From Boris Mahovac

Use the Google Keyword Tool to find keywords that have a large number of searches.

Do: Define your target audience and develop a content strategy that they will find interesting, entertaining or informative. Don’t focus too closely on product. As a Twitter friend once said, “If you make dog food, don’t talk about dog food, talk about dogs.” From Heidi Cool

Do: Give it time. It takes a while to build real relationships. From Christopher Gronlund

Don’t: Hide the author of the blog. Make sure you have a real-live person behind the blog. Add his or her photo, name and role in the company. It’s OK to outsource to get help, but for the most authentic connection, have a real employee available to guide, answer questions and provide a true look inside the organization. Even if you only have a few people in your company, this is vitally important. From Phil Gerbyshak

#2: Your Blog Content

Do: Be real.

Don’t: Be stuffy, dull and pompous or use bizspeak jargon. A blog isn’t a lecture hall or a billboard (i.e., one-way or solely self-promotional communication), but is ideally a place for people who are hungry for good information to find you and start to see you as a reliable and trustworthy resource. From Caitlin Kelly

Do: Find an optimal posting schedule that works for you. The more you post on your blog, the more traffic you’ll attract. But more than frequency, focus on posting quality content consistently and constantly.

Do: Establish an editorial calendar that helps you plan for future articles and topics. Set reasonable deadlines. If you know you can’t publish daily, don’t establish that as your goal.

Don’t: Publish junk just to keep up with your calendar. It’s better to miss a post than to post gibberish. (Heidi Cool)

Do: Keep the Four E’s in mind when writing your blog posts: Educate, Entertain, Engage and Enrich. Mix it up to ensure your message is delivered in the way that your ideal reader wants to consume it.

Do: Create Scannable Content. People have different reading patterns on the web than they do on the printed page. They tend to scan down web pages rather than read every word. So give them what they want! Break up your content with shorter paragraphs, headings and bullets. Add images. Incorporate video. From Chris Cree

Do: Create compelling, keyword-rich titles that address your audience’s needs. From Rich Brooks

Do: Use a variety of post types. Some posts can be a quick paragraph, while others are a deep dive into an important issue. Posts can be based around a video, or based around text content. If you mix things up you’ll keep the blog interesting, expand your list of post ideas and fight the tendency for blogger burnout. From Kyle Deming

Don’t: Get too self-promotional. At least 80% of your content should focus on helping your audience. (Rich Brooks)

#3: Blog Design

Do: Blog on your own domain, period. It should also be under “yourdomain.com/blog” subdirectory rather than “blog.yourdomain.com”. This lends some of the search engine goodwill earned by your blog to your root domain. From Scott Allen. (Just about everyone made this recommendation.)

Do: Customize your templates and menus to make it easy for readers to explore page articles. Make good use of categories and tags. (Heidi Cool)

Do: Give your blog readers the tools to amplify your message to their own communities. Have retweet/tweet buttons, Facebook Like button, Digg, StumbleUpon and other relevant social sharing buttons on your blog posts. This falls under marketing and engagement as well. When designing your blog, make sure you include plugins and widgets that can support spreading your content far and wide.

Don’t: Hide author, contact, and subscription information. Make sure you have pages that are easy to find in the navigation so your reader can find out more about you and your company and can contact you with questions and feedback.

Make it easy for your audience to connect with you.

Do build an opt-in mailing list and autoresponder. Don’t rely solely on an RSS feed for your readers to get your blog updates. Most people do know what an RSS feed is; they do know how to opt in to get email. I see this mistake on 90% of the blogs I review. Check out Feedblitz, Feedburner and AWeber for email delivery of your blog content.

#4: Marketing Your Blog

Do: Build time into your schedule to market your blog. You’ve got to put some effort into steering people to your blog posts so that they actually find the great content you’re creating. (Chris Cree)

Do: Automate syndication of your blog posts to your social profiles. Make sure your posts are showing up on your Facebook page, Twitter stream and LinkedIn profile, at minimum.

Do: Find the right balance of keywords. Keywords are important for improving the ranking of your blog in search engines and for increasing visibility and readership. However, more is not always better. You want your blog post to read like a conversation you’re having with a person face to face. From Emily Madsen

Do: Repurpose your blog content in multiple formats and syndicate it on other content-sharing sites. Recreate your content in audio and video formats in order to leverage your time and extend your reach on the web.

#5: Engaging Your Audience

Do: Make time to respond to all of the comments you receive. A primary purpose for business blogging is to build a strong relationship with your audience. When you reply to their comments, your readers will appreciate your personal interest and this will build credibility and trust in your expertise. From Sydni Craig-Hart

Do: Spend as much time engaging as you do creating content. Some of that can be on your own blog replying to comments, but a substantial portion of it MUST be on other blogs in your industry. Competitors are a touchy situation—you really have to take it on a case-by-case basis. But for vendors, clients, industry associations, industry thought leaders/authors/speakers, you should definitely identify all of them and be engaging on a regular basis. (Scott Allen)

Don’t: Disable or heavily censor blog comments. Commenting is one of the best ways to engage and you may get called out if you filter out all negative comments. Use negative comments as an opportunity to respond graciously. (Kyle Deming)

Do: Have a clear plan in place for handling criticism and negative comments. Take the high road and respond to these comments carefully and politely. (Heidi Cool)

Don’t: Take for granted you know what your audience needs. Survey and ask them what three things they struggle with in their business. This one exercise could have you supplied with relevant blog posts for weeks. But also, you’ll be providing great information to your readers to keep them coming back for more. From Terri Brooks

Create simple surveys with SurveyMonkey.com.

Do: Be as authentic as you possibly can. People know when they’re being fed a party line or propaganda. We know when we’re being marketed at or PRed at. Be as real as the circumstances allow. From Erica Friedman

What would you add? Do you have some business blogging do’s and don’ts that are not covered here? Leave your comments and ideas in the box below.

However, what you get when you set up a WordPress blog can be pretty basic depending on the theme you choose. To make your new blog sing and work for you, it’s a good idea to install some key plugins.

Photo credit: Shutterstock.com

Plugins extend and expand the functionality of your WordPress blog. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of plugins you can add to your site to optimize it, customize it, add some bling, make it easy for your readers to navigate and so much more.

Which Plugins Should You Use?

When it comes to plugins, how do you choose which to add to your blog?

To come up with this list, I asked my Facebook fans for suggestions.

Popular plugins fall into a couple of categories: those that enhance your readers’ experience, and those behind the scenes that help you with blog management and optimization.

How to Install Plugins

For the sake of brevity, I picked a finite number to feature. I encourage you to post your favorites in the comments and collectively we can create a great resource of tried and tested plugins.

To install any of these plugins, log in to your WordPress admin dashboard, click on Plugins and then search by name (see figure below).

The Impressive Plugins

What follows are 24 WordPress plugins you should consider.

#1: Audio player:

A simple mp3 player for all your audio needs. You can customize the player’s color scheme to match your blog theme, have it automatically show track information from the encoded ID3 tags and more.

#2: Viper’s Video Quicktags

Super-easy way to add videos from YouTube and other video sharing platforms to your posts.

#3: Photo Dropper

Lets you easily find and add creative commons licensed photos to your posts from Flickr. You can watch a quick tutorial here about how Photo Dropper works.

#4: Sexy bookmarks

Nice visual graphics that encourage your reader to share your posts (as seen on this site). You can select from dozens of social sites, though I recommend keeping it to 5-7 popular sites so you don’t overwhelm your readers.

Make it easy for your readers to share your content.

#5: FBLikebutton

Allows you to configure and display the Facebook Like button before and/or after each post and/or page. If you want to increase your visibility on Facebook, this is a required plugin.

#6: Tweetmeme Retweet button

It’s ubiquitous now. The TweetMeme Retweet button is the de facto standard in retweeting – used by some of the biggest websites in the world. It increases your reach across the web.

#7: Disqus comment system

A service and tool for web comments and discussions. Disqus makes commenting easier and more interactive, while connecting websites and commenters across a thriving discussion community. (Used on this site.)

#8: CommentLuv

In addition to Disqus, CommentLuv is a very popular commenting plugin. When installed, it visits the site of the comment author while they type their comment and retrieves a selection of their last blog posts, tweets or Digg submissions that they can choose from to include at the bottom of their comment when they click Submit. This has been proven to increase click-throughs and is a great tool for increasing community engagement.

Comment Luv rewards commenters with a link back to their blog.

#9: Yet Another Related Posts Plugin

Gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site. This encourages readers to go deeper into your content.

Based on post titles, content, tags, and categories, YARRP creates a list of related posts.

#10 & 11: Contact Form 7 and cformsII

You want your readers to contact you about one thing or another: for support, to post questions, to request info about your services, etc. I found that the basic WordPress contact form was not flexible enough. Contact Form 7 and cformsII both have features that allow you to create and manage multiple forms on your site. Both are simple to customize and you can direct the responses to be sent to any email address for management. You can see an example of a cformsII form here.

#12: Twitter Tools

A complete integration between your WordPress blog and Twitter. Bring your tweets into your blog and pass your blog posts to Twitter. Show your tweets in your sidebar and post tweets from your WordPress admin.

Twitter Tools automates the connection between your blog and your twitter account.

#13: WordPress Editorial Calendar

The Editorial Calendar makes it possible to see all your posts and drag and drop them to manage your blog. It’s a great tool for planning and organizing your posts.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4BnQZsgtZc

#14: All in one SEO

This one is on just about everyone’s list. Out-of-the-box SEO for your WordPress blog.

#15: SEO Scribe (monthly fee)

This tool was mentioned several times by folks on my Facebook page. It is the brainchild of Brian Clark (Copyblogger). As stated on the website, “Scribe is a search engine optimization software service that analyzes the content of web pages, blog posts, online press releases, or any other web content … then reports back and tells you how to tweak your content to get better search engine rankings and more traffic, all while maintaining quality reader-focused copy.”

#16 & 17: Widget Context and Widget Logic

Both of these plugins give you flexibility and control to choose on what pages your sidebar widgets show up. This is helpful if you create sales and landing pages on your domain and do not want sidebar content distracting the visitor.

Widget Context gives you the option to choose what pages you want a widget to be visible.

#18: WP Touch

Automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme when viewed from iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Opera Mini, Palm Pre and BlackBerry Storm mobile devices (used on this site).

#19: WP Mobile

Shows an interface designed for a mobile device when visitors come to your site on a mobile device. Mobile browsers are automatically detected; the list of mobile browsers can be customized on the settings page.

#20: WordPress Database Backup

On-demand backup of your WordPress database. You’ve got to back up your blog on a regular basis or you risk losing everything. Do it monthly at a minimum, more frequently if you post a lot. Enough said.

#21: Google Analytics

It should go without saying that you need to know what’s happening on your blog: how many visitors, page views, referral sources, exit pages.

#22, 23 & 24: Subscription

I also strongly recommend adding an email subscription widget to your blog. The top three in my opinion are Feedblitz (fee), Feedburner (free) and AWeber (fee).

Each of these subscriptions offers a variety of features from basic (Feedburner) to a complete customized newsletter-style delivery system for your blog content (Feedblitz). Technically these are not plugins. WordPress defines widget as “independent sections of content that can be placed into any widgetized area provided by your theme (commonly called sidebars).” Each of these email delivery options requires you to have an account and then you configure subscription form HTML to paste in the sidebar of your blog (it’s not hard, really).

A word of caution. When you’re building your blog, try not to go too crazy with the plugins and widgets. Think about what you want your blog to do for your business and install the plugins that support your goals. That being said, you may also want to test various plugins to find the ones that suit you best. They’re easy to install, activate and deactivate if you decide they’re not right for you.

Now it’s your turn. Do you use any of these plugins? If so, how are they working? Did I miss any of your favorites? Leave a comment in the box below.

The simple answer is: You have to promote your blog and let people know it exists.

Optimizing your blog for search engines is critical, but just like any website, product, book or service you create, you have to promote the launch of a new blog.

There are a lot of ways to promote a new blog and I’m sharing 14 tactics to help you get the word out about your new baby. Heck, you could use these tactics for an established blog as well if you want a boost in traffic and subscribers.

But before you tell the world your blog exists, make sure you have completed these essential tasks first:

1. Does your masthead (banner) make it easy for new readers to know what your blog is about and if it’s right for them (target audience)?
2. Is your name as author/publisher easy to find?
3. Do you have an About/Contact page?
4. Do you have subscription options (RSS and email)?
5. Do you have a call to action to get more info (join your mailing list, get a free report, etc.)?
6. Do you have social sharing buttons on your posts?
7. Do you have links to your social networking profiles?
8. Do you have comments enabled?
9. Do you have 7 to 10 posts published?

Point #9 is important because you don’t want to send people to a blog with only one or two posts. New readers will want to get a sense of your style, content and expertise before they commit to subscribing. I strongly recommend having a minimum of seven posts published before you start promoting your new blog.

Implement the Obvious First

Before I get to the 14 creative ways to promote your blog, implement the obvious and see #12, 13 and 14 in this article.

• Syndicate your blog content to your Twitter stream.
• Link your blog to your Facebook business page.
• Link your blog to your LinkedIn profile.
• Submit your blog to the appropriate blog directories.
• Write and post a media release.
• Send an email announcement to your list.

The Not-So-Obvious

When I was thinking about this topic, I decided to “tap the wisdom of the crowd” to get the best of the best ideas. I posted the following question on LinkedIn Answers:

Question posted on LinkedIn Answers.

There were 27 responses in 7 days. There were many similar recommendations and a few that stated the obvious (like using social media and writing engaging content). I’ve culled through them and offer you a selection of tips I feel are the most effective for launching your new business blog.

#1: Host a Live Streaming Video Event

When Mike Stelzner launched Social Media Examiner, he created buzz and a lot of traffic by hosting four back-to-back video chats with the initial contributors (me, Mari Smith, Jason Falls and Chris Garrett).

#2: Use Offline Marketing

Boris Mahovac recommends going offline and sending postcards to your existing clients, asking them to promote your new blog to their contacts. Using a unique URL will allow you to track new visitors/signups, and this can be a way for you to reward the one client who sends the most traffic to your new blog. You need to give your clients an incentive to promote your new blog—say a chance to win an iPad, or something more expensive, depending on the business (model).

#3: Create a Video to Promote Your Blog

Apryl Parcher suggested using Animoto.com to create a video about your blog. Post it on your YouTube channel and Facebook page. Send the video link to your email list as well. Several others also mentioned creating videos and with the popularity of video, I encourage you to include it in your launch plan.

#4: Use Remote Blogging Sites to Extend the Reach of Your Content

Brandon Uttley uses Posterous.com to post excerpts from blog posts with links back to his main blog and other social media sites. Remote blogging sites often have high traffic and this puts your content in front of potential new readers.

An excerpt of the original blog post is published on a Posterous blog with a link back to the original post.

#5: Host a Live (In-person) Event for Your Announcement

As Barry Hurd says, “I think a lot of people forget the social part of the media. Launching a new blog is really about reaching through your relationships.” Host a private reception, dinner or cocktail party with industry leaders in your niche. Or, go big and host a meetup or tweetup and cross-promote with a charity. Live events are an opportunity to connect face-to-face, get to know the needs of your target audience and build a lot of goodwill.

#6: Repurpose Your Content

I could relate to Kathi Browne‘s suggestion to submit blog posts on article sites like EzineArticles.com.  There’s more on repurposing your blog posts here.

#7: Feature Experts

It comes as no surprise that Liz Strauss , a master at building community, shares a tip about featuring other people on your blog. Start an interview series that features experts who folks want to know better. Invite a wide range of people to participate in short interviews that ask unusual and insightful questions. Include the expert’s name in the blog title.  Additionally, make heroes of other people who are just starting out. Point out their work as well.

#8: Comment on Other Blogs in Your Niche

This suggestion was offered by quite a few people, and with good reason. As Janet Fouts says, “Commenting on other blogs with useful (not promotional) information and insight can pique the interest of other readers and also build those treasured backlinks.”

#9: Do Some Guest Posting

This idea came up many times as well. There are two sides to this: inviting other bloggers to guest post on your blog and offering to guest post on complementary blogs. Both ways can generate visibility for your blog. The value is in creating connections with colleagues and creating win-win-win for you, other bloggers and your readers. The links and buzz will support your blog launch.

#10: Host a Webinar

Along the lines of a live video chat or an offline event, create a webinar or teleseminar to introduce your blog. Rather than simply announcing your blog, make it a learning experience by teaching or demonstrating an aspect of your expertise. Remind your audience they can continue getting the same great content by subscribing to and reading your blog.

#11: Run a Contest

Dawn Pigoni offered this excellent idea: Run a contest based on the content of the blog. Have an “answer hunt” where the answers to win the prize(s) are found within the blog posts. That will get people reading the quality, content-rich posts while attempting to win a prize. Then use Twitter to post questions and the winner(s).

#12: Host an Online Radio Show

BlogTalkRadio is a popular and free site that provides the tools and foundation for creating your own show. Because of high traffic and the syndication options on Blog Talk Radio, a show focused on your niche could generate an ongoing stream of visitors to your blog. If hosting isn’t for you, most radio hosts are always looking for guests to fill their time slots. No doubt you can find many shows that are in alignment with your blog’s niche.

#13: Create a Related Special Report

Brian Clark of Copyblogger.com shared his secret: Release a valuable piece of “extended content” such as a PDF report or video tutorial (without an opt-in) fairly early after the blog launches. While the content itself is valuable, it also acts as a “sales letter” for subscribing to the blog, due to the promise to keep expanding on the themes presented in the extended content in more detail. This allows you to create a “content event” early. And it’s a natural way to attract long-term subscribers if well done. Just be sure to have the opt-in call to action at the close of the extended content, because that’s the action you want people to take.

#14: Advertise Your Site

Clay Franklin recommends using Craigslist, eBay classifieds and Facebook ads to boost awareness of your new blog. This will depend on your budget. If you do want to spend some advertising dollars, you can test a Google Adwords campaign and see what kind of results you get.

If you were to implement just three or four of these ideas, you would see a boost in visibility, traffic and blog subscribers.  Pick the tactics that fit with your business model, style and intended audience and you’re sure to experience success.

Now it’s your turn. What creative tactics have you used or observed to launch a new blog? Share your ideas in the comments box below.

Most people write a post and that’s the end of it. You’re probably syndicating your blog feed to the usual places: Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, at the very least. And that’s a good thing.

Yet there are many other ways to get more mileage out of your content.

As discussed in one of my prior articles, content syndication is just one part of the equation.  But to really get the most leverage from your blog, think about how many ways you can repurpose the content (and then syndicate the new formats to all the usual sites).

Repurposing your content means turning your blog posts into different formats like reports, white papers, articles, slide shows, videos, podcasts, teleseminars, ebooks, etc.

Why Repurpose Content?

It may come as a shock, but not all your ideal clients know about or read your blog! There are people in your target audience hanging out on other sites all over the web. People are looking for information to read, share and learn from, and you want them to find you and your solutions.

When you publish content on your blog, you’re most likely providing valuable, relevant information that demonstrates how you solve the problems of your ideal client or customer.

While having that content on your blog is a great place to start, there are many more prospects you can reach by simply repurposing the content in a few ways and distributing that content on other platforms.

You get more exposure and more value from the time you’ve initially invested in creating the content. Not to mention that you can drive more traffic back to your home base.

What You Need to Know

There is some preparation required when repurposing and distributing your content on multiple sites.  First, you must set up accounts on the sites you want to use for distribution. Always fill out your profile completely, along with adding your picture when you can.

Also I recommend creating a template you can use to hand this project off to an assistant. For every new post you repurpose, you’ll need to have the following information handy: title, short description and keywords. This should be fairly simple to pull from the original post. Now you’re ready to go.

Let’s look at three simple ways to repurpose your blog posts that don’t require a lot of time or technical know-how: articles, PDFs and audio.

#1: Reformat for Article Directory Sites

This is the simplest and fastest way to repurpose your blog posts.

If your posts are about 500-1000 words, this is a great way to get in front of millions of additional eyeballs. While there are dozens, if not hundreds, of article directory sites, two stand far above the rest and will do the job for you: EzineArticles.com and IdeaMarketers.com.

Upload your repurposed blog post to EzineArticles.com to get in front of 30,000,000 monthly visitors.

Both sites have been around for years, have millions of monthly visitors and are easy to use. Both have the option to upgrade a free account to a paid account so you can get faster approval and featured status, but you can get great exposure without the investment.

When you submit your content, you may want to tweak the title and make sure the content is not overly self-promotional. EzineArticles will reject articles with promotional links in the body.

You’ll also need to create an Author Resource box with contact info, a call to action and a link back to your blog or landing page.

Both sites give you the option to have links to your new articles syndicated to your social sites.

#2: Reformat for Document-sharing Sites

Document-sharing sites cater to those who want to share and read documents as PDF, Word docs or slides. Scribd, for example, has tens of millions of readers every month who read and download documents from the site. The advantage here is that you can embed links and images in your documents, unlike some of the article sites that don’t accommodate images.

Docstoc.com, another popular site, gives you the tools to sell your professional documents as well as give them away for free.

Again, it is super-simple to distribute your content. Copy your blog post into a Word doc; make sure it’s nicely formatted; add your author bio with a call to action and link(s) to your blog, site and/or free reports; then convert to PDF. Upload and you’re done.

A cool feature on some doc-sharing sites like Scribd, Docstoc and others, is the ability to embed your documents on web pages and blogs. This gives readers an easy way to share your content and again extend your reach to new audiences.

Scribd and other document-sharing sites let fans embed and share your content on their own sites.

Here are three more document-sharing sites:

• Yudu
• DocShare
• eSnips

#3: Record an Audio Version of Your Post

I’m seeing more and more bloggers create audio versions of their blog posts. This is not difficult to do and gives your audience an additional way to consume your wisdom.

Not everyone likes to read, so create a podcast and you extend your reach even further. There are dozens of podcast directories, and of course the heavyweight is iTunes.

About 13% (27 million) of U.S. Internet users listen to podcasts so this is an audience you don’t want to overlook. They may never find your blog, but they’re using iTunes to find content.

You don’t need to be a recording star to create a decent audio of your blog post. I recommend Audacity, for free recording software. You’ll need to host your mp3 audio files on the web and create a podcast feed. Some options are Podbean or Feedburner if you post the audio on your blog.

Once the podcast feed is created, submit it to iTunes (and any other podcast directory you wish). To submit to iTunes, go to the iTunes Store, navigate to the Podcasts directory, and click on the Submit a Podcast link.

The information you’ll need to have on hand when you’re ready to submit your podcast includes: title of your “show” (the collection of audio posts you’ll be creating from your blog), description, keywords, category, and if possible, a graphic image or logo for your show.

Once you have the podcast feed created and submitted to iTunes, then it’s simply a matter of recording each blog post. I suggest a two-step approach to distributing the audio: 1) add the audio to your blog post so people can read or listen on your blog as they prefer and 2) add to your podcast feed so people can download to their mp3 player and listen on the go.

Add an audio version of your blog post to reach a bigger audience.

TIP: when you record your blog post, make sure to add a call to action or invitation to visit your blog along with your name and URL of the blog.

Much of this work can be done by a virtual assistant, especially submitting your article/document to the various sites. You write and record the post, provide the info: title, description and keywords, then have your assistant do the formatting and submissions.

Articles, PDFs and audio posts each provide an opportunity for you to reach new audiences. Now you’ve got at least three more paths from high-traffic sites leading back to your home base.

How many ways are you leveraging your blog posts? These are just three examples. What other formats have you found to effectively repurpose and distribute your blog content? Please join the discussion by commenting in the box below.

But first, there’s a big myth (and it may be your roadblock) that needs attention.

The Myth:  I Have No Time to Blog

Every now and then I poll my blog readers and ask about their challenges with blogging. Without fail, most people say that their number-one challenge is that they don’t have time to write on their blog.  Frankly, I think that is a false problem because you make time for what’s important.

I suggest reframing the challenge from “I don’t have time to write on my blog” to “I make time to market my business.”  In the context of your business, blogging is a marketing tool.

A business blog is one of the best tools you can use for extending your online visibility because it’s the dynamic hub of your business on the web. The content you create can be leveraged in many ways that will work for you 24 hours a day, so making time needs to be a key part of your marketing plan.

I propose you devote a minimum of 30 minutes per day focusing on your blog marketing activities.

It’s not really that much time when you think about it, especially for the return you can get from consistent effort. Yet I know there are other social marketing tasks competing for your attention. Just keep in mind that the content you create on your blog can be syndicated and leveraged on other platforms as well.

So how do you make time? I’ll state the obvious: you’ve got to schedule it.  That’s how I advise my clients and it’s how I manage my blogging time.  Following are six tips for how you can efficiently tackle your blogging tasks.

#1: Create an Editorial Calendar

There are two steps to creating an editorial calendar. First is to assign your blogging to time slots when you know your creative juices are flowing, when you typically feel inspired and productive.  For me, that’s usually in the morning.

To build a body of content that is quickly indexed by the search engines, I suggest writing on your blog two to three times a week at minimum.  So block that time off—for example: Monday, Wednesday, Friday from 9:00 to 9:30 am is blogging time.  That’s the time you spend writing.

Need some inspiration? Check out the article on 13 Ideas to Inspire Your Blog Content. Maybe once a week, spend an additional 15 minutes and write a longer, more detailed blog post.

Next, two days a week, spend 30 minutes reading other blogs in your industry and leaving comments where appropriate when you have something of value to add.  Not only does that help give you more visibility and more exposure, it also can drive traffic back to your own blog.  It positions you as being active and brings you to the attention of other people who you might not have known before.

#2: Plug in the Types of Posts and Topics You’re Going to Write About

This will make your blogging time more efficient because you don’t have to spend precious time trying to figure out what to write every time you’re scheduled to write.

Make a list of categories that are of interest to your audience. Take a look at your categories and make a list of 5 to 10 subtopics that relate to each category.

If you have 10 primary categories and 5 subtopics for each category, you have 50 blog posts at your fingertips. You can add another layer to your planning by assigning each topic to a style of post:

• How-to
• Top 10 List
• Opinion
• Case Study
• Q&A
• Interview

Finally, assign each subtopic idea to a date on your editorial calendar and you’ve got four months of blog post ideas so you’re not facing a blank page. Of course this system serves only as a guide. There’s nothing stopping you from being spontaneous when a current event or hot topic in your business must be addressed with a blog post.

#3: Keep a Running List of Blog Topics

The more you blog, the more ideas you get. Everything you do, every conversation you have, every book, article or blog you read, becomes fodder for your own blog posts.

I have a long list of ideas and links that I find and want to share. Most of them will never become blog posts, but if I’m stuck or uninspired, I’ve got my list to prompt me.

#4: Write Several Blog Posts at One Time

Many bloggers use this time management strategy. Maybe you really do only have one hour a week to focus on your blog. If that’s the case, grab your laptop, head to your favorite coffee house and pump out a series of blog posts.

Queue articles up to publish over the course of a week or two.  All blogging software I’m aware of has the option to schedule your blog posts.

#5:  Find Guest Bloggers to Help You Out With Content

Occasionally if you’re pressed for time, find someone to help.  Depending on the purpose and goals of your blog, a great feature to add is the voice of others in your industry. Perhaps once a month you showcase the ideas of other members of your team, your vendors, your colleagues and thought leaders in your industry.

If you’re a solo blogger, a great service out there for finding guest bloggers is Blogger LinkUp.  Submit a request of what you’re looking for, and people who write on that topic can contact you and provide blog content for you.  You can indicate whether you want original material or will accept content that has been previously published.

#6: Interview Experts

Finally, another great way of creating content quickly is doing interviews.  This could be a weekly or monthly feature that you plug into your editorial calendar.

Identify 12 to 20 industry leaders who’ve written books on your subject. Prepare a written interview with five to seven questions and invite them to respond, then post the interview on your blog. Not all of them are going to take the time to respond, but some will.

Tell them what’s in it for them… Exposure to your audience and links back to their blog, website or book. I don’t know of any authors who don’t want more readers and more visibility for their book! What’s in it for you? Content you don’t have to create that positions you as a credible expert and trusted filter of the best information for your readers.

Don’t forget to plug the interview posts into your calendar – either weekly or monthly depending on the posting schedule you’ve created.

This is a sample model that may or may not work for your business and schedule. You need to develop a schedule that works for you so you can maintain an active blog.

Posting two to three times per week keeps your blog fresh and relevant. Investing a couple of hours a week on creating content that works for you 24/7 will pay off in more traffic, more leads and more opportunities for your business.

These are a few ways to save time and be more efficient with your blogging time. I know there are many more and would love to hear how you manage your blogging time.

What’s your top tip for managing your blog writing so it doesn’t suck up too much of your time?  Share your comments in the box below.

No matter how great your product, service or business is, if your prospective customer can’t find you on the web, it’s like you don’t exist.

As you know, anyone who has access to the Internet (at last count, there were 1.8 billion people), uses it to find solutions to their problems.

Here’s a three-step formula to get you started creating a visible presence on the web, resulting in more opportunities for your business: leads, prospects, sales, media queries, speaking gigs and joint ventures.

#1: Use Your Blog to Set the Stage

A blog is your foundation and starting point for strategically getting your message out to the world.  If you don’t have a blog yet, the place to start your planning and preparation is this article: Top 10 Easy Steps to Starting a Business Blog.

Using your blog as your hub, or home base, not only provides a presence on the web where you can go deep and intimate with your prospects and customers, it’s also a money-saving tool.  A blog is far less expensive to build, design and maintain than a traditional static website that may cost thousands of dollars.

Your blog is where you have the opportunity to demonstrate your expertise, expose your personality and give your audience the chance to get to know, like and finally trust you as you share valuable, useful content that makes their lives better.

Keep in mind that a blog is a search engine magnet. When you post consistently and constantly, the search engines tend to index your content more frequently. Using keywords relevant to what your target audience is looking for gives your content a good chance of being in the top results in searches. You become visible and findable on the web.

To target your message and/or campaign, publish a series of posts directly related to the topic you’re promoting. Whether it’s your new book, a service or a product, post content for several weeks prior to the launch date of your promotion.

If you don’t have a specific promotion, create an editorial calendar and frequently post on the prime topic and/or keywords for which you want to be found. For example, if you have a book being published, start seeding your blog with excerpts and snippets about the launch date, book signings and other events and news.

#2: Next, Use Facebook Strategically

There really shouldn’t be a lot of debate about this. With nearly half a billion users, you’ve got to have a presence on Facebook. As a business, that means you must have a page.

From a visibility perspective, this is essential because the content you post on your page gets indexed by the search engines. (If you’re not convinced your business should be on Facebook, read this article.)

At bare minimum, syndicate your blog content to your page using the Notes application.  This app pulls your blog content to your page wall and ensures your deeper content is front and center for people who land on your page and aren’t familiar with your blog. This one tactic will drive many qualified prospects back to your home base.

Use the Notes app to pull your blog feed to your Facebook page.

But that is just the minimum. The true value of Facebook is the relationships you build that create the desire of your “fans” to take the step and click through to your content.

Make sure you’re constantly growing your page by reminding people to join. Ask and answer questions with your keywords, send updates and let people know what you’re up to between promotions.  The more active your page, the more visible it is because every action taken by a member of your page is posted on his or her own profile with a link back to your page.

#3: Do Not Ignore Twitter

With 40 million Twitter updates every day, you want to make sure your message is on the popular microblogging platform as well. Tweets are showing up in real-time search results and with tools like http://search.twitter.com and Twitter management clients like TweetDeck and HootSuite that enable you to search and follow keywords, it’s critical to have your content show up when your ideal client does a search.

Use plug-ins (Twitter Tools on WordPress) or automation services like twitterfeed and SocialOomph to make sure your blog posts and announcements about your programs are being fed to your Twitter stream on an ongoing basis. Ideally, this should be no more than 20% of your Twitter activity.

You do need to spend some time every week on Twitter, in real time, responding, replying and sharing great resources (that support your objectives). It’s a smart practice to follow your own keywords in a dedicated search column (on HootSuite for example) so you can quickly respond to comments and queries related to your products and services.

Set up columns in HootSuite with each of your keywords searches so you don’t miss opportunities to connect.

This isn’t rocket science but many entrepreneurs, service professionals and small and large businesses don’t integrate these tactics in their marketing plans or they are reluctant to spend the time to build their visibility. A social media marketing industry report recently revealed businesses that spend 10-20 hours a week actively working on a visibility strategy see the most rewards in terms of opportunity—whatever that looks like for your business. Those who work consistently to build an online presence will be profitable.

These are a few tactics you can quickly implement to start building your visibility on the web. Once these are in place, add one or two new tactics every week and soon you’ll be hearing people say, “I see you everywhere!”

This is really just the tip of the iceberg. There are many ways to build visibility on the web.

Have you tried any of these tactics? What are your top tips?  Please comment in the box below.

After all, without a steady stream of traffic to your blog, there’s little opportunity to engage your audience and convert readers to raving fans.

Methods change and evolve over time. When I wrote my first “how to drive traffic” post about five years ago, the list looked a lot different. There was no Twitter, no Facebook, no social sharing buttons, and no retweet button.

Yet some methods I advocated back in 2005 still work, so think of this as a refresher if you’re already employing all the social tactics for driving traffic.  You would be surprised at how many people don’t actually take the time to implement a variety of tactics. Maybe you can pick up a few new ideas or implement some old ideas you may have overlooked.

This list is in no way complete. I invite you to add your favorite tips in the comment section.

First, the tried and true:

#1: Publish as frequently as possible

The more frequently you post, the more traffic you get because the search engines are indexing your content more frequently. Of course your content has to be compelling as well, but that goes without saying, right?

#2: Pay attention to the headlines (blog post titles)

Using numbers (see title of this blog post!) usually generates good traffic. Titles with “how to” also attract a lot of traffic.

#3: Send an email broadcast

Send email to your list when you have a great blog post you want to share. Ask for comments to encourage engagement and interaction.

#4: Add a link in your email signature

If you use web-based email like Gmail, add WiseStamp to your email signature so you can include links to your blog. Add your blog’s RSS feed so your recent posts are always featured in your emails. WiseStamp works with web-based email services including Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail and AOL.

WiseStamp adds all your links to your email signature and is simple to install and edit.

#5: Include multiple subscription options on your blog

Most blog platforms have RSS feeds built in, but don’t forget to add an email subscription option as well. Email is ubiquitous and if you only offer RSS, you lose a huge opportunity for people to get your content and become regular readers. Email subscription services include Feedburner, Feedblitz and AWeber, to name a few.

Give your readers multiple options for getting your blog updates.

#6: Try article marketing

Article marketing is a powerful way to attract traffic. Post your articles at EzineArticles.com and include a link to your blog in your author resource box. Also set up your author account to automatically send a tweet when you post new articles. That drives traffic to your article which drives traffic back to your blog.

#7: Comment on blogs in your industry

This is all about outreach and boosting your visibility on complementary blogs. Target influential blogs, read them on a regular basis and then contribute to the conversation as appropriate. When you comment, you have the option to include the URL to your blog.

#8. Do some guest posting

Writing on other people’s blogs can introduce you to a new audience and create a surge of new traffic to your blog. You can find more information and a great resource for getting guest posting gigs here.

#9: Conduct surveys and polls

People love to give their opinion. Use Polldaddy or SurveyMonkey to ask your readers what they want or get their opinion. More often than not, those who respond will help spread the word, especially if you ask and/or offer a gift in exchange.

#10: Submit your blog to directories

While it’s debatable how much traffic you’ll get by having your blog in directories, it can’t hurt to be listed. Most definitely I would recommend you add your blog to Technorati, the largest blog directory on the web, and Alltop.com, a popular directory with the best of the best organized by topic.

Now the social media tips:

#11: Make a Google profile

You can’t ignore Google. Set up your profile on Google and include links to your blogs and websites. Whenever someone does a search on your name, a link to your profile will be featured at the bottom of the first page of search results. You can include pictures, links to your blog(s), products, website, and social networks.

Build your profile on Google.com/profiles with links to your blogs.

#12: Syndicate to Twitter

Use a plug-in like Twitter Tools (WordPress) or an application like Twitterfeed.com to syndicate your new posts to your Twitter stream. Hootsuite, the Twitter management tool, also offers this function. TypePad has this option built into the platform as well.

#13: Syndicate to Facebook

Use the Facebook Notes application to pull your blog feed into your profile and/or fan page.

#14: Syndicate to LinkedIn

You can add three URLs (make sure one is your blog!) to your LinkedIn profile, as well as syndicate your content with the Blog Link application.

#15: Use Hootsuite

Use Hootsuite if you have multiple blogs to syndicate your new content to multiple platforms including your Twitter accounts, Facebook profile and fan page, LinkedIn and Ping.fm to broadcast to more sites for even greater reach.

#16: Distribute your video

Distribute your videos on all the video sharing platforms. Include a link back to your blog home page or specific blog posts that are relevant to the content in your video. TubeMogul is a free site where you can upload your video once and it will be published on up to 20 video platforms including YouTube, Vimeo, Blip.tv, and more.

Distribute your video to many sites with Tubemogul.com

#17: Add the retweet button to your posts

Grab the plug-in or the code from Tweetmeme and make it super simple for your readers to click and share with their networks.

#18: Consider share buttons

There are many plug-ins and add-ons to add buttons to your blog that make it easy for readers to share your content on Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Delicious, Reddit, StumbleUpon, etc. Find the style that suits you and add it to the footer of your blog posts. The popular plug-in used on this site is Sexy Bookmarks.

#19: Use social bookmarking

Use sites like StumbleUpon, Digg and Delicious to share your content. When you have a particularly great post, ask your readers to help you out with bookmarking. Don’t overdo it, but if you think your post deserves some additional attention, don’t be afraid to ask.

OK, your turn. Are you using any of these tips with success? I know there are at least 100 more ways to drive traffic to your blog.  Please add your tips to the list by commenting below.

But what makes one blog successful and another mediocre? The majority of “so-so” blogs lack one or more of four important elements…  In this article I will introduce the CODA system and how it can driven traffic and engagement with your readers.

Some bloggers may be writing well, posting relevant and valuable content on a regular basis, but they aren’t encouraging reader interaction. Or they might have built a blog whose purpose isn’t evident.

Some blogs are difficult to navigate, making it nearly impossible for readers to find important information. Some look good, but they don’t have frequent or relevant posts.

And, most important to the first-time visitor, many blogs lack critical design elements. They offer no way for busy readers to quickly size them up and decide whether the blog is worth reading.

This is where the CODA system comes in, to serve as a guide for bloggers to monitor four elements of their blog and keep it on track as a marketing tool that serves their business. CODA focuses on Content, Outreach, Design and Action.

C Is for Content

The first essential component to a successful blog is content. It is often said that “content is king” because it is the critical element that will make or break your blog.

Always write with your readers in mind. If your posts are not interesting to the people you’re writing for, then they’re not going to come back. They’re not going to subscribe. And they’re not going to buy your products or services. Your content is where you have the opportunity to really penetrate your niche market and dominate, to become the de facto authority.

When developing content, keep in mind the three E’s of content: Educate, Entertain and Engage. The two primary reasons people use the web are to find solutions to their problems and to be entertained (as seen in the phenomenal growth of online video).

The first E is Educate.  A great example of educational blogging is Dr. Eben Davis’ Back and Wrist Pain Blog. Dr. Davis uses his blog to teach prospective and current patients about how the body works, why they might need help, or how he can solve their problem.  Nearly every post is educational and recently he told me that about 50% of his new patients come as a result of reading his blog and that they are getting better results because they are better educated.

Educate your readers so they know how you can solve their problems.

The second E is Entertain.  Video inherently is more entertaining than text (unless you’re really good at writing humor, which is tricky). Use video to tell a story or to better express your personality.  Check out Gary Vaynerchuk and his WineLibrary.tv blog. He posts videos five days a week and because he has a huge personality and is incredibly passionate about his subject, he rarely fails to entertain—as well as educate and engage—his audience, which is evidenced by dozens of comments on every post.

Video is inherently entertaining and quickly engages the viewer.

The third E is Engage. How do you get people to actually connect with you and participate in the conversation?  One way to do that is to use polls. Some of the free polling sites are vizu.com and polldaddy.com.  Create a one-question poll to encourage people to take the step and interact by answering your question.

Even simpler is asking for comments.  I often hear the complaint, “Nobody ever comments on my blog.”  My response is, “Do you ask for comments?  Do you tell readers how to comment?”  People need to be told what to do.  You might need to say at the end of your blog post, “Please let me know what you think about this.  Click on the comment link below.”

Keep in mind that when somebody actually interacts with something—they click a link, they post a comment, they take a poll—they stop being a passive reader. Now they’re actively engaged with you, and that can help bring them one step closer to becoming a client or a customer.

Ask for engagement. A poll gives your readers the opportunity to tell you what they think.

Finally, with all your content, keep it conversational and thoughtful, and be authentic and personal.

I covered content in more detail in previous articles—7 Tips to Create Better Blog Posts and 13 Ideas to Inspire Your Blog Content. Now back to the next step in the CODA system.

O Is for Outreach

Part of being a successful blogger means you should leave your own blog and participate on others in the blogosphere. It means reading and commenting on other blogs related to your industry or audience, reaching out to other bloggers, and becoming more visible. This is how you get known; this is how you build relationships that can turn into joint venture projects and guest interview spots, and attract more traffic and prospects back to your site.

I covered Outreach in more detail in the article The Secret to Growing Your Blog Following.

Outreach is also about participating on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace, among others, if that’s where your target audience hangs out.  Set up your profile. Make sure your avatar is consistent throughout so no matter where people find you, they recognize you.  Most important, make sure your blog content is syndicated via the RSS feed so your connections on social networking sites see your deeper content and can follow you back to your home base—your blog.

D Is for Design

Strong blog design involves a number of layout and usability factors. Design issues can greatly affect how readers experience your blog.

• Is it easy to use and understand?
• Does it build trust with readers?
• Is it easy to navigate?
• Does it look good?

The aesthetic elements also help people feel confident about working with you.  They may like your content, but does it look professional? Does it represent you well?  Do you make it easy for readers to hire or buy something from you?

One of the things to keep in mind when you’re designing your blog is it must be well-branded and it should be memorable. Make sure when people land on your site, it doesn’t look like every other blog.  Just about every blogging platform has templates.  If you use a standard template, that’s OK, but take a few minutes and customize the look and feel by using your brand colors and logo, at minimum.

Adding a custom-designed banner on your blog will help set it apart as well. Make sure to include the name of your blog and a tagline.  Remember that every day someone new lands on your blog.  When they land on your blog, are they going to know what it’s about?  Are they going to know if it’s what they’re looking for?  Make sure you have a tagline that tells people what the blog is about—what they can expect to learn about your subject.

For more details and a video demo, please see my article on 7 Essential Design Elements for Great Business Blogs.

A Is for Action

Finally, ‘A’ is shorthand for call to action. That is, are you encouraging people to act? How do you get your readers to become customers, to click on links, and to sign up for classes, reports, and other offers?

Effective business blogging is results-oriented, which means persuading people to interact with you in some way. Calls to action are crucial. Depending on the goals of your blog and/or specific post, you may include calls to action for:

• Posting comments
• Asking for a retweet
• Directing to download a freebie
• Downloading a white paper
• Taking a survey
• Registering for a program
• Checking out your new product or service

Being clear on the next step you want your readers to take will help them know what to do and help you get the results you want from your blogging efforts. You can see clear examples of calls to action on Rich Brooks’ flyte blog.

Tell your readers what you want them to do.

Putting it all Together for a Balanced Blog

If you’re going to invest time on your blog, you want that time to pay off. You want results.

Keep in mind that no matter which of the four elements (Content, Outreach, Design and Action) you like to focus on, a successful business blog—one that gets results for your business—requires all four to be addressed. A balanced blog that is built and maintained on the CODA system will contribute to getting more visitors, and more customers, for your business.

What would you add? Have you tried any of these techniques with success? What do you consider the most important element for a successful blog? Share your opinion in the comments box below!

A well-designed business blog:

1. Uses visual interest to make posts easy to read
2. Brands your business in a consistent way
3. Places useful information in places where it is easy to find
4. Isn’t cluttered with things that aren’t helping you promote your business
5. Makes it easy for readers to do what you want them to do

Good blog design is practical

While there are many elements that go into designing a blog that grabs attention and engages readers, here are seven elements that must be integrated at the outset. You can develop the visual look and feel over time, but start here to begin building relationships, trust and credibility:

1. Graphic header with name of blog, tag line and author name
2. Email subscribe form
3. About page with photo
4. Use a variety of media: text, video, audio
5. Plenty of white space to make it easy to read
6. Links to share your content
7. Links for readers to connect on your social networking sites

To illustrate each of these points, I’ve made a short video showing blogs that incorporate these elements.

If you would like to study these blogs in more depth, here are the links:

• ChrisG.com
• Mari Smith’s blog
• Nuts About Southwest
• Build a Better Blog
• Altitude Branding
• Comcast Voices
• The Social Media Marketing Blog
• Wine Library TV
• Social Media Marketing Strategies
• The Social Media Handyman
• Copyblogger
• JimKukral.com
• Street Smarts Marketing

What are the essential design elements you think belong in a business blog? Please share your ideas in the comments and link to blogs that illustrate best practices.

This article will provide you unique ideas that will help you keep pumping out great content.

The following 13 content ideas are designed to help save you time and stimulate some new ideas.

By the way, if you’re following the blogging basics outlined here, you’re well on your way to creating and maintaining the kind of content that will keep readers coming back for more.

And if you’ve been blogging for any length of time, you know that when you don’t post on your blog for a few days, your traffic takes a nosedive.

Here’s ideas to get you going.

1. Set up Google Alerts

With Google Alerts, you can set up alerts for topics and subtopics in your niche to see what’s making news and what’s being said by others. Monitoring online news and conversations can inspire ideas and introduce you to new content sources.

2. Search Blog Directories

In the context of blog outreach, I mentioned Technorati and Alltop in my article on The Secret to Growing Your Blog Following. Both sites are also great sources for finding what other bloggers are posting about your topic. When you’re stuck, do a keyword search on Technorati. Set up a channel on Alltop with blogs in your industry to scan what’s new at a glance.

3. Subscribe to blogs

Monitor blogs in your field by subscribing to influential blogs by email or subscribe to blog feeds with your preferred feed reader.

You want to find out what your competitors and other experts in your field are discussing. Not only will you get inspiration for your own writing, but you’ll stay on the cutting edge of your field.

4. Share from other blogs

Other bloggers’ posts are often useful jumping-off points for writing your own. Some bloggers simply report on somebody’s post, link to it, and that’s it. A more strategic way to do this is to either agree with the blogger you’re citing, disagree, or add your own perspective.

Adding to the conversation makes your blog more valuable. Although you can read a lot of good stuff in the blogosphere, it hasn’t all been said. Use the good stuff as inspiration and ask yourself, what can I add to that? The blogosphere loves controversy and a good argument. How can you stir things up and encourage your readers to interact and comment?

5. Post a poll

This is a great tool that can boost readership and encourage people to come back to vote and share with friends. Set up a poll as a blog post or in the sidebar, and ask readers to vote on their biggest challenge, their worst nightmare—you name it—as long as it’s relevant to your topic. What do you want to know from your readers? Ask them.

There are many free polling services that enable you to add polls to your blog: Polldaddy and Vizu are two I frequently use.

Use poll results as fodder for writing additional follow-up blog posts, an article, or a media release.

6. Toot your own horn

Announce your own live events, speaking appearances, products, and services. Any time you have something new going on, let your readers know about it by writing a post for your blog. If you’re writing press releases for your business, post those on your blog as well.

7. Share information

Share information and tips you think might interest readers. Do it in a way that provokes a conversation, rather than reporting on topics as a journalist. This is also an opportunity to ask your readers for their perspective. Remember, an important reason to blog for your business is not just to disseminate information, but also to engage in a conversation with your readers.

8. Make smart use of categories

Take a few minutes to make a list of the main topics you’re blogging about, and then make a list of three or four subtopics. If you think about it, when you’re focused on your reader and your expertise, most of what you’re going to be blogging about falls under five to seven main topics.

Once you’ve got the list, set up a simple editorial calendar. Each day, you can write about a particular subtopic. On Monday, you write about subtopic A. On Wednesday, you write about subtopic B. On Friday you write about subtopic C. This gives you focus for each day of the week, so when that day comes around, you don’t find yourself wondering what to write about.

9. Ask your community

Similar to doing a poll, throw a question out to your communities on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. You’ll probably get an immediate response.

On Twitter:

On Facebook:

10. Invite guest authors

When you don’t have time to write, you can write posts in advance and postdate them so they’re published on the days you’re away. But if you’re really pressed for time, a great way to avoid a gap in blog posts is to ask someone who writes on a similar subject to be a guest author.

This is a win-win-win. 1) The guest blogger writes a few posts while you’re away, giving you content. 2) The guest blogger gets links back to his or her website or blog, as well as exposure to your readers. 3) Your readers get new perspectives on your subject.

11. Grow blog antennae

It sounds funny, but this happens. After you’ve been blogging for a while, you develop blog antennae. You’ll find yourself continually scanning the web, newspapers, magazines, email, and even your own personal experiences for interesting items to blog about.

Expect this to happen after you’ve been blogging for a couple of months. Even the slightest life challenge or mistake can become fodder for great blog posts. But to make that happen, you have to keep your ears and eyes open and receptive. The good news here is that just about any event can make an interesting blog post. Make sure to jot down your ideas and keep a running list. About 90% of my blog ideas never get posted but they serve as great inspiration when I feel at a loss.

12. Write a top-10 list

Here’s a great tip for creating content and building readership and getting links back to your blog: Make a list of your top 10 favorite blogs in your industry.

Generally the people on that list will be excited because they made the list. More than likely, they will write on their blog about you and your list because they’re going to be tooting their own horn: “I just made so-and-so’s list of favorite blogs.” It’s a great way to get known and build readership.

13. Refer to the classics

When writing about nearly anything, your content can be more valuable and unique when you can refer effectively to the classics, history, or authoritative books written about the topic being discussed. Many people in the blogosphere treat content superficially.  How can you place your product or service in historical context? A great example is a post on Copyblogger called 5 Essential Blogging Tips from the Father of Chinese Philosophy.

By adding depth, you add value to your blog. This helps position you as a thought leader and a credible expert in your field.

Now it’s your turn! I would love to add more ideas to my list. Where do you find inspiration for your blog posts? Please share your tips and resources in the comments.