26 Essentials for Blogging Success: What You Need to Know
Do you want to be a more successful blogger?
Are you keeping up with the newest developments in blogging?
Whether you are new to blogging or you have been blogging for years, you will find insight in this article.
It covers 26 blogging essentials, in an A–Z tour of the blogosphere.
Each one has a full explanation, along with a link to further reading in case you want to know more.
Note: For simplicity’s sake, I assume you’re using WordPress as your blogging platform. Many of these essentials, though, apply to other blogging platforms as well.
#1: Akismet: Anti-Spam Plugin
One problem that every blog faces is spam. Shady Internet marketers will attempt to promote their products through spam comments and trackbacks, which create a poor impression for your readers. (Imagine seeing a building covered in graffiti and scrappy posters: it wouldn’t give you much confidence in the company that owns the building.)
Some hapless bloggers spend hours every month deleting a never-ending stream of spam. But Akismet, a powerful anti-spam plugin, will do all the hard work for you. By stopping spam comments and trackbacks, Akismet ensures that your blog comments section always looks attractive and welcoming to readers. As they explain:
Akismet monitors millions of blogs and forums, watching the methods and tricks used by spammers in real time. We know all about their spambots, comment factories, buffer sites and social engineering tricks. 
3 Tips to Manage Your Social Media Reputation
Are you managing your online reputation?
Reputation can affect purchase decisions and influence the growth or decline of a business.
Many businesses are using social media to develop online reputations, manage and respond during a crisis and monitor the conversation to prevent future crises.
Try searching your company and product names to make an assessment of your online reputation. What do you see in the top 10 search results?
What follows are three tips to help you manage your reputation with social media.
#1: Establish Your Online Reputation
When someone Googles your brand name, your business should be sitting right there on the first page waiting for the user. And yourbrandname.com shouldn’t be the only branded search result.
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social brand pages should assist in owning the first search engine results page. Especially if you have a common name, owning your brand name search queries is important for users to find the right information.
How to Use Social Media for Crisis Management
When most people think about the advantages of using social media for business, they immediately think of the marketing benefits.
However, many businesses are starting to use social media as a tool for listening and providing customer service.
When a crisis or emergency erupts, the power of social media can be an amazing tool for businesses. A crisis can include anything from a simple website outage to negative publicity. This article will reveal how to use social media during a crisis and provide many examples you can model.
