Here are seven powerful blog posting habits:

Tip #1: Clear Targeting

The first rule for creating effective content for your business blog is to completely understand why you’re blogging. Have a thorough understanding of your ideal reader’s (your customer’s) profile and of your core message as it relates to your business. If you have a really clear idea about who you’re writing for, it’s going to be easier to write. Your blog posts will be on target and on purpose. You won’t be meandering off into subjects that are irrelevant to your audience.

Tip# 2: Know What Your Readers Want

Always write with your reader in mind. Write as if you are answering the question “what’s in it for them?” Your readers are asking themselves all the time whether this blog is worth their time to read. You’re more likely to keep them interested if you’re “walking in their shoes.” Address your readers’ major issues and concerns. If you don’t know what they are, ask.

Tip #3: Edit Often

So many blog posts start off with, “The other day, I was thinking about…” or “You know, summer’s almost over and….” A blog post is not an essay and it’s not poetry. Get to the point right away. Follow the rule of KISS = Keep It Simple, Sugar! (or Keep It Short and Sweet). That means you can actually write less.

Write short, declarative sentences and omit all unnecessary words. This means read and reread your posts before you publish. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t been trained as a journalist or taken a lot of writing classes. If you can write an email, you can write a blog post. However, your blog writing will improve when you reread before publishing to be sure you have taken out all unnecessary words.

After you click the ‘publish’ button, read your post again. Often this is when you will catch typos or grammatical errors you didn’t see before. Show respect for your readers by having clean copy. It doesn’t take much for readers to abandon your blog; some might unsubscribe simply because your spelling is sloppy. In the online world, your words are all you’ve got.

Tip #4: Create Keyword-Rich Headlines

Write compelling headlines by using strategic keywords that are relevant to your topic. Keywords are often touted as gold by search engine optimization experts who want to charge you an arm and a leg for their services. But let’s make a complicated issue simple.

Put yourself in the shoes of your ideal reader. If this reader was searching Google for information or solutions to a problem, would she find you? Make a list of all the words or phrases she might use to search for you, your business, and your solutions. Those are the keywords and key phrases that you want to use frequently on your blog. When you write a headline for your blog post, use these keywords. This alerts the search engines as well as your reader about what’s important in your post.

For an in-depth discussion on writing effective blog post headlines, read Chris Garrett’s post on How to Create Headlines that Go Viral with Social Media.

Doing keyword research from time to time will help you stay on top of what your prospects want. You’ll find out exactly how readers are looking for the information you’ve got. Use the free keyword suggestion tool at WordTracker to make this simple. Your post headlines can also make it easy—or difficult—for people to find the information they want. Headlines should be as descriptive as possible. Don’t be vague. You can be cute (but not too cute), as long as what you’re putting in the headline clarifies what you’re really writing about or what the reader is going to learn.

Remember, it’s all about your readers. It’s about helping them find and use the content you are giving them. Blogging is going to be a fruitless exercise if your readers can’t get what they want out of reading your blog.

Tip #5: Write Great First Sentences

Write an optimized first paragraph using the same keywords you used in your post headline. Make your point right away rather than leading into it. Use clear keywords in the first sentence of the first paragraph, and then summarize them again before you close your blog post. Always close by asking readers for their comments.

Tip #6: Keep it Short and Spacey

When writing, keep paragraphs short. They should be one or two sentences at most, and then break for a new paragraph. White space is your friend. Sometimes just one sentence can be as effective as a paragraph. You want lots of white space between paragraphs on your blog.

Remember, most readers are in a hurry. Text on a computer screen is also harder to read than text on paper. You want to make it as easy as possible for your readers to grasp your message quickly.

Tip #7: Use Bulleted Lists

Use bullet points and lists as often as possible. This makes your post easy:

• To read
• To scan
• To understand
• To remember

Research shows that people prefer things to be easily digestible and chunked down for them. It’s easier for them to remember your message if you’ve given it to them in a list of three to five items. Some online writing experts also recommend keeping lists to an odd number of bullet points, but the important part is to use lists whenever you can.

There are many ways to ensure you have great blog posts. These seven tips provide a good starting point and checklist to help you stay on track and create content your readers will devour and that will move them to action.

What other tips would you add to this list to write better blog posts? Share your best blogging tips in the comments below.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/ / CC BY 2.0

Want to make it easy for readers to share your great content with their tribes? If so, keep reading as I share six social media add-ons you can effortlessly integrate into your blog today. Your immediate result: much better engagement with your readers. And by the way, I’ve used them all—many on this very site.

An aside… The key to encouraging social activity is making it easy for people to act. The less friction there is between desire and action the more likely people will share your content or reach out to you. Fortunately these six excellent tools make encouraging activity easy—and dare I say, fun!

#1 TweetMeme—The Ultimate in Social Proof

In times past it was said that comments were the currency of bloggers. But far too often outstanding content only attracts a comment or two. What if there was a better way to determine if people like your posts (while also driving traffic to your blog)? Well now there is. Introducing TweetMeme’s Retweet Button.

TweetMeme’s button provides readers an effortless way to share your post on Twitter (and much more). Readers simply push a button and your post shows up on their Twitter feeds—driving more traffic to your page! But the real power is in the number it displays on your page. Every time anyone tweets about your article, TweetMeme tracks and displays a number on the page (whether they used the button or not).

This is one of the most powerful social barometers I have ever seen. The bigger the TweetMeme number, the more others feel compelled to read your content and share it.

You can add the TweetMeme badge anywhere on any page (blog or not). I like to display it at the top of the page. The higher the number, the more likely it broadcasts to readers, “Others think this is important, so you need to read this too!”

I really like the WordPress plugin (note that other platforms are also supported) because you can substitute your own Bit.ly account (a URL tracking service) and include your own Twitter ID in any retweets.

Here’s an added bonus. If one of your readers has a TweetMeme account (not required to use), when he or she clicks the “retweet” button, TweetMeme publishes the page to their Twitter account without leaving the page, a really powerful feature.

#2 DISQUS Comment System—The Ultimate in User Engagement

DISQUS is a VERY powerful comment system that takes over your existing blog’s comment functions and adds very powerful features. For example, with DISQUS readers can add video comments or leave comments using their Twitter or Facebook ID, and you can have multiple individuals moderate your comments.

I was a bit critical of DISQUS when I first reviewed it.  However, the service has since increased its features.

A few of my favorite capabilities include an indented comment stream (see image below) and the ability to add and display new comments without the page reloading. The experience is so user-friendly that I found people leaving a lot more comments after I installed DISQUS.

Also, if you have a free account with DISQUS, it recognizes you whenever you visit a site that uses the service. This means no need to type in your name and email, simply leave a comment.

A few pointers: As a commenter, you should register yourself with DISQUS. When you do, set up your name and website address so it will display properly when you leave a comment (under Profile | My Settings). So instead of non-identifiable ID I was assigned (like MikeS22) I can customize it to say “Michael Stelzner” and link to my site. If you do not do this, your name appears abbreviated and will not link back to your site, making it hard for folks to discover more about you based on your brilliant comments. While you’re in there, add an avatar or link to one from your Twitter account.

#3 Gravatar.com—Faces Make Comments Come to Life

Gravatar is a universal platform that displays a reader’s picture based on the email address he or she enters into a blog’s comment form. Thus, when you visit a blog and leave a comment, your email address is matched against the Gravatar database and your picture displays (see sample below). This only works if you have registered your email address with Gravatar and added a picture.

I’m pretty sure the latest versions of WordPress work automatically with Gravatar. However, if you are hosting an older WordPress blog, you’ll want to install WP-Gravatar for Gravatar support.

A few tips.  If you have multiple email accounts, set them all up under your Gravatar account to ensure your mug shot always appears, regardless of which email address you use.

#4 Sexy Bookmarks Plugin—The Easy Way to Share Great Content

There are a number of tools that allow your readers to share your post on different social networks, but none come close to Sexy Bookmarks.

This WordPress plugin allows you to display the social sites of your choosing and is visually appealing.  When a user “mouses over” an icon, it animates on the screen.  And yes, you change the “Sharing is sexy!” text.

The backend of this WordPress plugin is exceptionally sophisticated. For example, you can enter in your Bit.ly API code and the plugin will use your account to create tracing URLs.

#5 Twitter Follow Badge—The Simple Way to Grow Twitter Followers

Twitter Follow Badge creates a nifty little button that always remains on the page as users scroll through your content, making it easy for them to follow you on Twitter. You also can customize it to match the color scheme of your site and determine where you want it to live on the page.

The main benefit of this little widget is folks can easily follow you on Twitter.

#6 Meebo Me—Adding Live Chat to Your Page

Ever been to a website that said, “Click here to speak to a live agent”? How would you like something like that for your blog (or any web page for that matter)? You can with Meebo Me, a simple embedded chat system you can place on any page (or all pages) of your site.

This free service allows anyone to chat with you immediately. What’s cool about this is it integrates into all your other chat accounts. So now you can have them all in one interface AND still answer live questions from your readers.

This chat capability is very powerful and should also be used on your product landing pages.

So what do you think? Do you use any of these tools with success? Do you have others to share? I’d like to hear from you. Just type in your message below.