Looking for some ideas to simplify your content creation process?

What follows are 26 tips, from A-Z, to help you create optimal blog posts every time you sit down to write.

#1: Anatomically Correct

A blog post contains several areas that require our attention and care. Pamela Seiple refers to six parts of the anatomy of a lead-generating blog post:

• Eye-catching title
• In-text links to landing pages
• Sidebar/banner calls to action
• Social sharing buttons
• Call to action at the bottom
• Relevancy—making sure the post is relevant from top to bottom

Parts of the blog anatomy.

Example of more anatomical parts to include in your blog posts.

#2: Blogging Platform

By knowing the ins and outs of your blogging platform, you’ll ensure that your posts look as good as they can. Take the time to master the visual editor (or raw HTML, if you prefer) so that you know how to format a post, insert an image and embed a video or podcast.

Whether you’re working in platforms such as WordPress, Tumblr or Posterous, it’s good to stay up to date on the features and new versions.

If you’re not comfortable with the more technical aspects of blogging, try to find someone who can be a resource for you to answer questions as they arise.

WordPress' editor where you can toggle between visual and HTML editing functions.

#3: Categories

Whether your new blog post is a stand-alone article or part of a series you’re writing, it should fit into your blog categories as well as your overall corporate content strategy. Meaning that you want to stay on topic and have your posts fit into the categories you’ve established.

For example, HubSpot has nine categories on their blog. Posts are written to fit in with each of these categories. Writing about category topics such as analytics, blogging, email marketing, HubSpot TV, etc., allows both readers and writers to stay focused on what they can expect to see on HubSpot’s blog.

When you choose your categories, ask yourself, do they make sense, and do they fit into the objectives of my business? Having clearly defined blog categories will help you continue generating meaningful content and topics for your blog.

Write posts that fit into your categories.

#4: Description

Most search engines will use a maximum of 160 characters for your post description on their results pages. If you don’t create a meta-description (defined as a “…concise summary of your page’s content”), a search engine will often take the first 160 characters it finds on your page instead.

Note too, that when you create a meta-description that is fewer than 160 characters, you’ll see the full description in the search engine. Otherwise it will be cut off.

An example of a meta-description created within the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin in WordPress.

An example of how a post's description appears in Google search results with and without the meta-description.

#5: Editorial Calendar

Bloggers find editorial calendars helpful for scheduling and organizing topics for posts. Some people use their calendars to track more elaborate details.

Michele Linn suggests using specific tabs in a spreadsheet to track info for each post such as: post date, author, tentative title, keywords, categories, tags, call to action and status. She says “By tracking more than topic and date it will help to make sure the key elements you need for SEO, digital optimization and conversion are accounted for.”

Download a sample editorial calendar worksheet.

An example of a template for a master editorial calendar as shown by Michele Linn.

#6: Fine-Tune and Revise

Like other forms of writing, a blog post is rarely completed in one draft. Many writers find it helpful to take a post through several revisions and fine-tune the post as you go along. Check grammar, spelling and punctuation, and make certain that all of your links are working.

#7: Guidelines for Writing for Search Engines

By following a few tips and best practices, you can increase the chance that your blog post will be found by search engines—by Google in particular.

The State University of New York at Plattsburgh offers these helpful writing tips:

• Google likes text
• Google likes formatting
• Google likes freshness
• Google likes accessibility
• Google likes outbound hyperlinks
• Googlebot isn’t psychic, so remember to link your pages
• Google likes you to tell it where you are
• Google likes experts

#8: Headings

Joost de Valk offers some good suggestions regarding blog headings. He writes, “The heading structure of your pages is one of the very important aspects of on-page SEO. It defines which parts of your content are important, and how they’re interconnected. Because they have different goals, a single post needs another heading structure than your blog’s homepage or your category archives.”

He offers five basic principles about heading structure:

• The most important heading on the page should be the H1
• There is usually only one H1 on any page
• Subheadings should be H2s, sub-subheadings should be H3s, etc.
• Each heading should contain valuable keywords; if not, it’s a wasted heading
• For longer pieces of content, a heading is what helps a reader skip to the parts that he/she finds interesting

Headings should contain valuable keywords.

#9: Images

Blog posts are made up of more than words and headings.

Judy Dunn recommends five ways the right photo can increase readership and blog views:

• Convey the overall feeling or emotion of your post
• Illustrate a metaphor or analogy that is part of your main idea
• Evoke surprise or curiosity
• Complement your headline
• Make your reader smile

Judy points out too that readers are visual learners and images can help people take in and retain information better.

#10: Journalistic Approach

Bloggers can learn a lot from traditional journalists and the ways that they approach their news stories.

Mickie Kennedy offers five things that bloggers can learn from journalists:

• Get your facts straight
• Trust has to be earned
• Give credit to your sources
• The inverted pyramid works (basic overview in first paragraph and then delve into more details in subsequent paragraphs)
• Editing and proofreading are essential

As shown on Wikipedia.org

#11: Killer SEO and Blog Design

Cyrus Shepard makes an important case for having a beautiful blog. He says, “…the overall design of your site is the first thing visitors see and it significantly influences bounce rate, page views and conversions.”

Cyrus suggests that certain elements on the page will add to a blog’s success:

• Search box
• RSS feed
• Breadcrumbs (helping users navigate),
• Flat site architecture by minimizing the number of clicks it takes to reach your content
• Images
• Keep your best content above the fold
• Link to your best content
• Don’t overdo links
• Watch ad space
• Encourage comments
• Add sharing buttons
• Test the blog for speed
• Check your blog in different browsers
• Pick a powerhouse blogging platform (e.g., WordPress, Posterous, Tumblr)

For a resource that will help remind you of these killer SEO suggestions, check out Cyrus’ infographic, Blog Design for Killer Search Engine Optimization.

#12: Lists

Lists have become a very popular type of blog post.

Nate Riggs offers three types for bloggers to consider: brief, detailed and hybrid lists.

The brief list has little description but can entice readers to bookmark the post to use the list as a resource down the road or to share it across their own networks.

In a detailed list, each bullet is a complete thought and serves as a good way to communicate complex information.

The hybrid list combines the elements of short and detailed lists, often with descriptive narratives or explanations in paragraphs between the actual lists.

Nate’s post has a lot of useful information about lists as a powerful content marketing tactic and is a good example of a hybrid list.

#13: Metrics for Blogging

Magdalena Georgieva identifies five metrics to keep an eye on to know how your blogging is going: visitors, leads, subscribers, inbound links and social media shares.

As Magdalena says, “Measure the performance of your business blog regularly to identify weaknesses in the content you’re producing, what topics your audience truly cares about, and what blogging tactics work for you.”

When you find topics and approaches that work particularly well, try to replicate those efforts and be willing to let go of features that aren’t performing well. Magdalena recommends looking at your five most successful blog posts and asking, “What do they have in common?”

#14: Names, Titles and Bio

Not only are readers interested in the content in your blog post, they also want to know who wrote the post and their role at your organization.

Sometimes you’ll come across a thoroughly researched and well-written post only to find an attribution of “admin.” Even if the blog is only written by you and you’re the administrator of the blog, be sure to include your name, title and a way for readers to contact you.

#15: Original vs. Curated Content

The type of post you write can contain completely original content or can consist of content that you’ve curated.

Pamela Seiple addresses the issue of curated content and makes an important point when she says, “There’s a misconception among marketers that curated content is lazy and unoriginal, but we think it’s the complete opposite. It takes time and careful evaluation to create quality curated content and the result is oftentimes a very valuable piece of content that helps people seeking information on a given topic to cut through the clutter on the web and save time.”

The 26 tips series here on Social Media Examiner is an example of curated posts, pulling in the expertise of others who have written on the topic. As a curator of this kind of post, I love the journey of the research and find it especially rewarding to see the content pulled together in a way that hadn’t been previously available. Curated posts can be incredibly gratifying!

#16: Publish and Promote

Kristi Hines speaks about the publishing and promoting stages of creating a successful blog post. Kristi says that one thing you want to do during the publishing stage is to ensure that your post has some kind of call to action. “Think about what you want people to do once they’ve read the post….”

Promoting a blog post can involve a fair amount of thought and strategy, as you’ll see from Kristi’s approach. She has a different plan in place for “averagely awesome posts, awesome posts and killer awesome posts.”

What differs for the three types of posts is how many social networks she shares the posts with, whether she includes the post in her writing portfolio and whether it’s included in her custom RSS feed or utilizes blog commenting promotion and direct messaging partners in social media to see if they’ll help spread the word.

Kristi describes promotion as taking from a few minutes to a few hours, and recommends taking the time to build a good foundation before you expect to execute a successful blog promotion.

#17: Questions

What are you going to write about post after post, week after week, year after year? Sometimes thinking about content for your blog can seem daunting.

Lee Odden offers a great piece of advice: “One particularly effective way to get content ideas for blogging comes from reviewing web analytics for the kinds of questions people type into search engines like Google or Bing that deliver visitors.”

In one example, Lee said that he noticed that numerous visitors each month were typing in the question “What does a community manger do?” and search engines were sending them to one of his posts about that topic. He used it as an opportunity to explore other related questions about social community managers and providing content in the form of answers.

What questions are your web visitors asking before they arrive on your pages? How can you maximize your content to answer readers’ questions?

#18: Research

Well-researched blog posts can differentiate your content from your competitors’. Being known as a go-to source in your industry will help make your blog stand out. Where do you go to research posts?

I find that utilizing a variety of sources helps me gather the information I’m seeking.

For example, while I can often find a lot of useful content via web-based searches, sometimes there’s nothing like a visit to the library or a bookstore where I often will discover a helpful book on the shelf that I wouldn’t have known existed if I hadn’t been standing there physically eyeballing them.

Oli Gardner makes a good case for using social media research for your blog posts. He suggests ten social media research strategies:

• StumbleUpon
• Infographics
• Twitter real-time searches
• Facebook events
• Experts who are using LinkedIn
• Uncovering quotes with Delicious
• Letting users tell you within the comments section of your blog and others
• Creating roundup mega-lists with Delicious and StumbleUpon
• Apps on Facebook
• Delicious and Google Marketplace
• YouTube and the UrbanDictionary

#19: Stand Out

When you’ve been blogging in a competitive marketplace for a while, chances are good that you’ll see other bloggers writing on topics similar to yours. It doesn’t mean that you have to stay away from the topic completely; rather you can use it as an opportunity to see what worked and didn’t work in their post and write yours in a way that will help you to stand out in the topic area.

By reading the comments on similar blog posts, you will get a great view of what questions and thoughts people had after reading the post and you can take a slightly different angle by making sure you cover those areas in your article.

#20: Title

How important is the title of your blog post? Simply put, very important!

Brian Clark writes that the title is the first, and perhaps only, impression you make on a prospective reader.

He says, “Without a headline or post title that turns a browser into a reader, the rest of your words may as well not even exist.

But a headline can do more than simply grab attention. A great headline can also communicate a full message to its intended audience, and it absolutely must lure the reader into your body text.”

An example of an eye-catching title from copyblogger.com.

#21: User-Centered Content

Possibly one of the worst mistakes a blog post can make is missing the mark of its readers, forgetting who they are and their needs and interests.

Georgy Cohen goes as far as to say that content can serve as customer service and that to be helpful, content should be user-focused (asking what our users’ problems and priorities are), communicated clearly and presented in succinct language.

#22: Valuable Content

In the perfect blogging world, creating valuable content would be at the top of every blogger’s list for their post objectives.

While our definitions about valuable content may vary, Ahava Leibtag has created a very helpful step-by-step checklist that reminds us to ask five questions:

• Can the user find the content
• Can the user read the content
• Can the user understand the content
• Will the user want to take action
• Will the user share the content

She suggests:

• Findable content includes: an H1 tag; at least two H2 tags; metadata including title, descriptors and keywords; links to other related content; alt tags for images.
• Readable content includes: an inverted-pyramid writing style, chunking, bullets, numbered lists, following the style guide.
• Understandable content includes: an appropriate content type (text, video), indication that you considered the users’ persona, context, respect for the users’ reading level, articulating an old idea in a new way.
• Actionable content includes: a call to action, a place to comment, an invitation to share, links to related content, a direct summary of what to do.
• Shareable content includes: something to provoke an emotional response, a reason to share, a request to share, an easy way to share, personalization.

Download the checklist for future reference.

Ahava Leibtag's Valuable Content Checklist.

#23: Word Count

How many words should you have in your blog post? Some blogs have set parameters for optimal length and put a value on whether a post is short or long.

Corey Eridon has an interesting perspective on word count and suggests that focusing on blog word count might not be as important as you think it is. “Some topics take 100 words to explain, some take 1,000, and that’s okay.”

Corey suggests that writers focus instead on whether posts are optimized for mobile, use effective formatting, communicate in a clear manner and that outlining the points you want to cover may ultimately be a better use of your time and energy.

If you’re restricted to shorter posts by the parameters set up in advance for your blog, then you could also follow Corey’s advice to link to longer-form content you’ve developed around the topic.

Bottom line: Don’t let the quantity of words dictate the quality of your post.

#24: (E)xcerpt

On the heels of our discussion about blog word count, a shorter blog post can also be an excerpt or summary of what readers will find in your longer-form content—e.g., eBook or white paper—but it needn’t be restricted to words.

You can also use an excerpt of the transcript or a brief description to demonstrate what information the users will learn if they watch your video or listen to your podcast.

Mike Stelzner provides great excerpts from his expert interviews on Social Media Examiner.

#25: Your Story

Readers like to get to know how writers tick and often appreciate hearing a few personal details and insights from the person who has taken them on a journey through a post. While business blogs shouldn’t be thought of as personal journal entries, you can tell your readers a little bit about how you operate.

For example, I stated above that writing curated posts like the 26 tips series here on Social Media Examiner is one of my favorite types of posts to write. (Truth be told, curated posts are also some of my favorite types to read.)

In the description of “research” above, I also shared how research is one of my favorite parts of blogging and how I enjoy researching both online and offline by doing the footwork of visiting libraries and bookstores in search of materials.

What parts of yourself are you willing and able to share with your readers?

#26: Zone for Writing

Ideas for blog posts come at all times—when you’re driving in your car, sitting at your desk, and yes, even in the middle of the night!

Chances are good though that the actual writing of the post will happen in multiple drafts and revisions, and depending on how you work, it may take place over a period of days.

What can be helpful is to create a time and place where you can get into the zone for writing and allow yourself to go with it, with as few interruptions as possible.

What do you think? How do you keep your blog posts consistent and dynamic? What tips would you add? Leave your questions and comments in the box below.

There are lots of blogs today, which means that people have many places where they can go to learn new things.

If you don’t make people feel welcome, they may read and dash without leaving a comment.

Here are 7 ways you can encourage your readers to leave comments.

Tip #1: Check your blog comments settings

Do you make it easy for someone to leave a comment?

That might sound like a crazy question until you look closely at the comments settings available in the two most popular blogging platforms, WordPress and Blogger. Both platforms give you options for limiting who can post comments on your blog without really explaining the impact of your choices.

Every business has a unique situation, so you need to consider your business blog comments options carefully. In general, I recommend that you make it easy for people to comment and (nearly) impossible for spammers to comment.

So how do you do that?

On WordPress blogs:

• Make it easy for people to comment by only requiring commenters to provide their name and email address.

The WordPress comment settings appear on the Discussion Settings page.

This WordPress comment option makes it easy for people to comment on your blog.

• Make it difficult for spammers to comment by turning on comment moderation for first time commenters. This option requires the blog administrator to approve the first comment from everyone. WordPress automatically approves any other comments posted by the same person.

This WordPress comment option requires the blog administrator to approve the first comment from everyone.

On Blogger blogs:

• Make it easy for people to comment by selecting the option to let anyone comment.

This Blogger comments setting makes it easy for people to add comments to your blog posts.

• Make it difficult for spammers to comment by turning on the word verification setting. People must type a word displayed on the screen to successfully submit a comment. Because most comment spammers are computer programs, they can’t complete this typing test.

This Blogger comment option requires everyone to pass a simple typing test before posting a comment to greatly reduce comment spam.

Tip #2: Ask for comments

At the end of your blog post, always ask the reader to leave a comment. It’s like telling someone a story and then saying, “Well, what do you think?”

I recommend that you write a customized comment request statement at the end of each blog post. Rather than writing a generic statement (“Post your comments below”), be specific. Write a unique comment request based on the blog post content.

An example of a blog post asking for reader comments.

Tip #3: Write a blog comment policy

It’s your blog. You can set the rules for what makes a safe conversation zone for your community. What you choose depends on your business and your community, along with your own sensibilities.

For example, the blog for a pub might allow more colorful language than a blog for home schooling.

When defining your comment policy, think about these factors:

• Do you allow people to promote their own businesses?
• Do you allow negative comments? And where do you draw the line?
• Do you allow people to disagree with your opinions?
• Will you correct language and grammar mistakes?

Check out other people’s blog comment policies while you are writing your own conversation zone rules. See how they handle challenging situations to inspire your own solutions.

Tip #4: Provide comment instructions

Do you moderate comments from first-time commenters? Do you have a blog comment policy? Why not include this information right next to the Submit button for your comments?

This type of just-in-time information helps a new blog commenter to get the information she needs to feel confident before placing her first comment.

An example of comment instructions added to the blog post page template.

You may need to get technical support to get your instructions added to your blog post page template. However, once it is in place, it appears automatically on every post, even the ones you have already published.

Tip #5: Respond to comments

While building your blog community, you should respond to every blog comment. It shows people that you are paying attention and that you respect your community.

You want to reply to comments quickly after they post. Most blogging software allows you to set up email notifications when new comments appear. You don’t have to respond immediately, but you should respond within one business day.

Conversations build relationships. Your reply to a comment continues the conversation and builds the relationship further. The more you build relationships within your community, the more they care about you and your business. It’s human nature.

Tip #6: Make people feel good about their comments

What you say when you respond to a comment makes a huge difference in how that person feels about your online community. Your attitude and opinion of their comment leaks through in your word choices and the points you make.

An example of replying to a comment so the person feels good about her comment.

Welcome divergent opinions. To build a community around your blog, you need a thick skin to protect you from people who don’t agree with you. But it goes even deeper than that. You need to welcome divergent opinions. You need to appreciate that everyone has a unique life experience that leads him or her to different conclusions. Just because someone disagrees with you doesn’t mean that anyone is wrong or right. It just means you have different opinions.

The commenter criticized my decision to highlight a company in my blog and found fault with their Facebook page. I didn't argue over his points or defend my choice.

I’ve talked to bloggers who complain about “blog trolls,” these bloggers’ label for people who disagree with their opinions. There are real blog trolls out there—people who argue, make nasty comments about people rather than debating ideas and always want to prove you are wrong and they are right. But someone who merely expresses a different opinion isn’t a blog troll. It’s an important distinction for you to make.

Tip #7: Build community with your replies

Bring a sense of appreciation to your blog comments and to your commenters. They didn’t have to read your post. They didn’t have to leave a comment. In fact, they don’t have to be part of your community. They chose these things.

Always look for something smart in every blog comment, a great point that you can reply to even if you don’t agree with the commenter’s opinion. You’ve had your say in the post. Now, listen to their opinions and leave a reply that makes commenters feel good about you, your business and your online community. You do that by making them feel great about their comment.

Building community through blog post replies is a skill, and it’s something you can learn to do better. Read a lot of blogs and pay careful attention to the comments and replies. When you find bloggers who excel at making the commenters feel good, study what they say. Hang out on their blogs. Engage them through Twitter or email to ask them how they think about their blog comment replies. They might tell you something that changes the way you reply to everyone.

It’s Your Turn

What do you think? How do you encourage people to leave comments on your blog? Have you posted comments on a blog where you felt appreciated and welcome? Share your experience and insights in the comments box below.

Ahhh yes, the lovely LinkedIn.

She warms me up with friendly introductions to powerful decision makers. She brings a smile to my face from the absurd amount of targeted traffic to my websites. And she goes WAY over the top with the number of direct sales referrals she gives me.

It’s a digital romance we have, and I’ll profess my love for her ’til the end of time.

In all seriousness, I’m a big fan of LinkedIn because of the direct business I receive from it. And although I’ve written books about LinkedIn, given webinars and presentations on the topic and written articles like Top 5 Ways to Market Your Business With LinkedIn, I’ve never done a dedicated article about the advanced applications… until now.

Get More With LinkedIn Applications

In this article I want to share with you the top apps you can leverage to get more leads, traffic, product sales, brand awareness, ticket sales, investors, sponsors, consulting engagements and more.

Let’s dig into some of my favorite apps and how to get more from them.

Add Your Blog to LinkedIn

Surprisingly, I’ve seen some of the top bloggers in the world miss out on displaying this app. Failing to include this WordPress app on your profile is a huge mistake because it can help you drive more traffic and shows those who come to your profile how to learn more about your expertise.

This is a simple app that every blogger should have on his/her profile.

Autoplay a Video!

Imagine someone lands on your profile and instead of seeing the same old boring profile, they hear a voice. This voice either comes from you or a raving fan giving a testimonial. This technique is used so rarely that people can’t help but be shocked when they hear a voice and watch a video on your profile.

Adding the SlideShare.net app allows you to showcase presentations you may have, but it also allows you to add a video that autoplays when people land on your profile. Currently the video must be on YouTube for it to work, but it definitely adds a nice touch. Learn more about how to add video to your LinkedIn profile here.

Showcase Your Books or Others’ Books

Many bloggers are coming out with their own books, but are forgetting about a valuable resource to help promote and sell more of them: their LinkedIn profiles! The Reading List by Amazon is great because it helps you to stand out while adding to your credibility.

Even if you don’t have a published book on Amazon, you can still add this app and include the top books that you’re currently reading to give others a better sense about your interests and ongoing education.

This allows you to add a picture of your book on your page.

Syncing With Twitter on LinkedIn

I synced my Twitter account to LinkedIn when this app first launched. Some said they were annoyed when they saw all of the Twitter updates come to their home feed, but after about a week people got used to it.

I find that I often get as much or more interaction from my Twitter updates that sync to LinkedIn than those same updates on Twitter. Your messages don’t get lost in the feed as much on LinkedIn and there are threaded conversations similar to Facebook so you can continue the dialogue for days after.

I recommend doing this if you’re active on Twitter as you will look like you’re interacting on LinkedIn and continuing to stay on top of the minds of your LinkedIn connections even if you don’t use LinkedIn very often.

A great way to stay connected and updated.

Feature Your Events on LinkedIn

Hosting a major industry conference, regional networking event or maybe a small TweetUp and want to get more exposure and ticket sales? If so, look no further than the most powerful events promotion tool online today—LinkedIn Events app.

An example of a major professional event by Gary Vaynerchuk.

Here's an example of how powerful promoting your events on your profile can be.

You can see how many people have RSVP’d for your event, who’s interested and who’s exhibiting. You can also see a picture of those who are attending or interested, their industry, how you’re connected to them, what company they work for and more.

There are a few features I wish they would add to help event organizers promote better (like adding a messaging ability to all of those members who are interested), but other than that, I love the way you can use this app to get the word out about your events.

More Advanced LinkedIn Apps

There are a handful of other apps I haven’t mentioned that help a variety of industry professionals.

Business Apps:

There are a number of general business apps. Some of my favorites include Box.net Files, Tripit Travel, Google Presentation, Huddle Workspaces and Polls.

Legal Apps:

There are two apps specifically for lawyers. The Legal Updates app allows you to “get legal news that matters to you and your business. (Lawyers, upload your articles and other content. Be found for your expertise on LinkedIn).”

The Lawyer Rating app allows you to “showcase your Martindale-Hubbell® Peer Review Ratings™ and Client Review Ratings™ to further validate your stated credentials and help you make the right connections.”

Designer App:

The Creative Portfolio Display allows you to “showcase your creative work in your LinkedIn Profile with the Creative Portfolio Display application. Free, easy to manage, and supports unlimited multimedia content.”

There are a number of other apps that you may or may not feel are valuable to include on your LinkedIn profile, but my suggestion is to try a few out and see how you like them.

Since the release of the advanced application section on LinkedIn, they continue to release new apps every so often. Make sure to check the application section for future updates, or find out more by following the LinkedIn blog.

Have you tried using any of the advanced LinkedIn applications on your profile? If so, what is the one you like the best, and why? I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments box below.

Now, this doesn’t mean that blogging isn’t useful and effective, but it does mean that you have to treat your blog a little differently than you did in the past.

In this article, I’ll show you how to make your blog stand out from the crowd. This is important not just from a branding perspective, but also from a traffic and monetization perspective.

As the competition for attention increases, it’s going to become more important than ever to find a way to stand out from the crowd and be unique.

Yes I know, being unique is a buzzword that doesn’t always translate to everyday business terms, but even if your business is vanilla, it doesn’t mean that your blog has to be.

Let’s get started.

#1: Design

Premium themes have never been as abundant and inexpensive as they are now. You can get a nice-looking theme from Theme Forest or Elegant Themes for under $30, and if you’re willing to go a bit further, you can get a framework from Thesis or Woo Themes for just under $100.

The good news here is if you do that, you’re ahead of the game; but the bad news is that you’re not far enough ahead to really make a difference.

If you spend enough time surfing the web, you’ll notice the same themes seem to keep popping up everywhere, and if you don’t want to look like everyone else, then you’ll have to:

• Pick a theme that you don’t see anyone using
• Hire a designer to customize your theme so that it looks original and unique.

Regardless of the theme you use, I recommend that you spend some time customizing it to best fit your mission.

For instance, David Risley recently spent quite a bit of time creating something special over at PC Mech, while my favorite musician, Oleg Mokhov, rocked the heck out of a Theme Forest theme for the entrepreneur’s podcast, Lifebeat.

Another option is to have a designer custom-build a theme from scratch (much like Social Media Examiner has done). If you’re a serious business, then I recommend you strive to get to this point. It may be costly, but it’s worth it to treat your blog like a business.

For just $39, you can access nearly 50 premium WordPress themes via ElegantThemes.com.

#2: Make Your Blog Social

For many of you, this might be old news, but I repeat it for the sake of completeness. If you don’t make it easy for people to share your content, then they won’t… period.

Millions of people are on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon, so why not get your content in front of them?

Here are my favorite WordPress plugins for doing just that:

1. Twitter RT Button (Official): I like this one because it not only looks professional, but you can also use Tweetmeme.
2. Facebook Like Button: Just months ago, this button didn’t exist. Now it’s a staple on every major blog I know of.
3. Sexy Bookmarks: This is a great way to add a variety of essential social sharing icons. It looks great and is easily customizable.

If you aren’t on WordPress, that’s not a problem. There are other versions of these plugins for almost every blogging platform.

Notice how easily you can share this post via the various social sharing buttons?

#3: Take an Angle

If I see one more blog on the topic of social media, I’m going to explode. The same goes for almost every vanilla niche out there. You won’t want to hear it, but there are already dozens of great blogs on almost every topic, so why compete with them?

Instead of taking an ordinary angle on an ordinary topic, why not pick a side and give people something different to think about?

Red Head Writing does a great job by offering a snarky take on all subjects digital marketing, while Jordan Cooper does the same with his “not a pro” take on blogging.

There are only a few people capable of dominating a niche; i.e., Mitch Joel, Chris Brogan or Jay Baer. However, there are an infinite number of takes available to you if you’re willing to pick one.

If you sell cleaning supplies, don’t talk about the business of cleaning supplies; instead, talk about the effects of chemicals on the environment and how your company, and others, fix it.

Pick a fight, share an opinion. Don’t preach to the choir, convert people!

Erica Napoletano is well-known for dishing out some social smack. Rather than shy away from the attention, she embraces it.

#4: Use Images and Infographics

Two of my favorite marketing blogs are Flowtown and Kiss Metrics because they offer detailed and insightful infographics for me to learn from.

Infographics are a great way to present data because they’re attractive and easy to read. Most people aren’t going to read through a 2,000-word case study on product spending, but if you take the time to quantify it in an infograph, suddenly you’ve got a great piece of evergreen content.

If infographics aren’t your thing, I recommend you take the time and select attractive images for your blog posts. Check out some design blogs for ideas.

For example, try Smashing Magazine or PSD Tuts. You’ll get great help on selecting images and how to display them so they look fantastic. Two other sites are Site Sketch 101 and Freelance Switch.

Great feature images work well to increase conversion from front page to post page, and in-post images keep readers scrolling to the end.

Take a look at your favorite blogs and see how they’re doing it. Look at the difference between a great image and a poor image—it may be subtle, but it’s there.

So where do you get great images? Try Shutterstock or iStockPhoto. As a last resort, you can perform a Creative Commons search on Flickr and find good images until you have enough money to invest in stock photos.

If you’re going to use screenshots, please take the time to make them look proportionate and give them a nice-looking border.

This is just the first 20% of a recent infographic created by Flowtown. Notice the quote from our very own Michael Stelzner.

#5: Create Evergreen Content

Here’s a list of popular content from Social Media Examiner. Notice the post titles. It doesn’t get any more evergreen than that.

Evergreen content is valuable 24/7, whether it was written last year or 5 years from now. Many of the basic principles of search engine optimization (SEO) have remained unchanged over the past several years, and blogs like Search Engine Land have done a great job of creating content that lasts for years.

The same goes for any niche, be it digital marketing, social media, blogging, etc.

Someone who does this extremely well is Glen Allsopp, founder of Viper Chill. If you take a look at his average blog post, it’s well over 2,000 words of extremely useful evergreen content.

Why does evergreen content matter so much?

It makes it easy on you by letting old content bring new readers up to speed, so you don’t have to keep repeating the same message over and over again. It’s also great for search engine rankings and long-term traffic.

Evergreen content is easy to monetize because it’s always going to be valuable to advertisers.

Wrapping It Up

This isn’t an all-inclusive list. The blogging rules are changing by the day and the techniques that worked in the past—like guest blogging, commenting and even social media—don’t work well unless you’ve done at least 75% of these things right.

Why is Social Media Examiner one of the most dominant blogs in the social media space? They’ve done almost every single thing on this list extremely well. In a sense, they’ve made this entire blog evergreen as a result.

It’s not enough just to be good, you have to look and act the part too.

Disagree? Let’s hear it. Do you have any suggestions? Leave your comments in the box below.

While major social networks offer tremendous reach and millions of users, sometimes that scope can actually be distracting for certain interest groups that have a more narrow focus. BuddyPress is a great solution for groups that want to set up their own social network to concentrate interactions around a shared cause.

BuddyPress allows users the opportunity to create a social network with specific membership and publishing rules. These features make the BuddyPress platform useful for all sorts of organizations and groups.

On a technical level, BuddyPress is a set of features combined into a plugin that turns any WordPress blog into a private social network, or “Social networking in a box,” as the tagline goes. BuddyPress allows the same user-friendly publishing and drag-and-drop functionality that WordPress users know well.

BuddyPress, like WordPress, is free to download and install, and it boasts a robust community of developers who add features to the offering on a regular basis. The site also has an in-depth “codex” that contains documentation for how to install the plugin and extend it.

#1: Potential Uses

Companies can struggle to share information about projects and campaigns effectively through emails and intranets. A BuddyPress blog can allow effective commentary on company information, and you can password-protect the data so it’s only accessible to team members. The ability to protect data while also allowing social features like threaded posts, comments, and status updates provides the collaborative power of social networks along with the protection of a private network.

Other private network options like Ning and Dolphin are more expensive than the hosting costs associated with BuddyPress. Just be sure to have adequate security on your BuddyPress installation just as you would on your WordPress blog to avoid any data breaches.

CUNY demonstrates how BuddyPress can be used to foster professional communication, using groups and individual blogs to share ideas and organize activity.

#2: Group Collaboration

Often when sharing information about an event or coordinating activities, crucial details can either get lost in emails, or only shared with a portion of the group. BuddyPress allows the group to dedicate a space for information about an event or mission, which can be useful for collaboration, especially if all team members aren’t in the same location or have busy schedules. The ability to put certain information behind administrative access can be really useful for events where it’s necessary for leadership and participants to see different information.

#3: Collecting Topical Information of Interest

Icon from the TastyKitchen BuddyPress community inviting people to join the network

As Tasty Kitchen demonstrates, BuddyPress is a great way to add social functionality to a shared set of interests. Instead of creating yet another food blog and making users interact only through comments and external sharing of the content on social networks, Tasty Kitchen has used WordPress to make its own social network around the main content repository.

• Users submit recipes that the community can then review and comment on.
• Users can also build profiles where they list their favorite recipes and information about their cooking style.

You can use BuddyPress to establish a similar community around a topic of your interest.

Potential Drawbacks to BuddyPress

• Cost of Installation – While BuddyPress is free to download, you’ll need to host the program yourself. Hosting costs are very minimal but it is an expense to consider compared to creating a group on a public social network such as Facebook.

• Gaining Reach – Facebook and Twitter have millions of users, so gaining a following for your community is easier through viral sharing and promotion. To publicize your BuddyPress community, you’ll need to integrate with these networks and others to push traffic to it. Consider if that effort might yield more results if the traffic was staying on the public networks before beginning a BuddyPress community.

• Privacy – While the features of BuddyPress are useful and plentiful, many companies will have reservations about using BuddyPress due to concerns over sharing confidential information. Some of these concerns can be offset by paying for stronger security from the hosting provider, but that increases the cost of the installation.

Overall, BuddyPress is very feature-rich and worth a shot if you’ve got collaboration needs or an interest that hasn’t been well-served by the public social networks. Though there are drawbacks to using BuddyPress, in sum, it’s a very useful, inexpensive solution that can provide some clear benefits to your organization.

Have you tried BuddyPress? What are the positives or drawbacks? Let us know your comments in the box below.

As online publishing platforms and social networks have exploded in popularity, there is a new need to aggregate and search the dynamic “real-time” web.

New platforms hold much promise for marketers who want to understand trends and customer problems in real time. In this article I review three of the top real-time search engines (in no particular order), and each has a unique profile that fits certain use cases particularly well.

#1: OneRiot

OneRiot is the largest real-time web search engine today. It aggregates information about popular topics from Twitter and other social media sites.

OneRiot consolidates all these articles into one headline that you can click that leads you to a list of articles associated with a topic. This is a great way to see multiple articles on one topic all at once and in real time.

Instead of having to search different news sites looking for a hot topic, users can access OneRiot’s aggregated real-time information on the topic. Also, OneRiot does a good job of blending hot topics from different spheres. It has a balanced mix of entertainment news and hard news, but seems to concentrate more on entertainment news.

OneRiot has a bar on the right side of the page that breaks common topics into categories. If you’re looking for the latest news on trends or culture, politics or technology, you can easily find it.

Though OneRiot focuses on news organization sources and provides more reliable information, it lacks the personal touch from integrating commentary from individuals into the feed. This eliminates how the public is reacting to the news. OneRiot is great for lists of news articles related to the topic, but it’s important to get the public’s take on these articles as well.

The best way to use OneRiot for online marketing would be to use its search results about important topics. You could give your audience up-to-date information aggregated from multiple social networks. For instance, if you sell cars, linking to the OneRiot results page with the latest information about models you sell could be a great way to display feedback for people who own your cars.

By going to OneRiot, you can quickly see what the most frequently posted information is at the moment. Overall, OneRiot has the potential to be a great source for generating organic leads.

OneRiot’s real-time results display information about the first person to tweet a story, up-to-date news coverage and social media commentary on those news items.

#2: Collecta

Collecta has more of a mainstream U.S. and international news focus, and does not offer the entertainment and lifestyle content that OneRiot integrates into its results. As a result, Collecta is a great source for people who want important news stories and like to view several sources to understand the breadth of angles on a topic.

The main page displays a general headline for each topic and then three suggested articles related to the topic. This makes it easy to read and gives it a professional, news-style approach. Also, Collecta does a great job of gathering recent social media updates from several sites such as WordPress, Digg and niche blogs; whereas OneRiot seems to pull most of its content from Twitter.

Collecta aggregates multiple sources and displays them based on recentness. There is the option to filter results based on the sources of data you want to include in the results.

Though Collecta does a good job at pulling information from multiple sources, its user interface makes it somewhat difficult to see the information it’s pulling from Twitter and other social media sites. The first suggested article on the homepage is usually an article related to a popular topic, but the next two subheadlines are the newsfeeds for the various social media sites discussing the topic.

The best way to use Collecta for online marketing would be to scan a variety of social media sites updated with the latest information on your business and industry within seconds. Collecta maintains a newsfeed that is updated by the second with several personal and professional social media accounts listed. This is a great way for marketers to research how the public is responding to a topic in real time.

#3: 48ers

48ers focuses more on the collective reactions of individuals to news events in real time. The site is great if you’re searching for keywords and want to see what people are discussing about a certain topic. For example, during the eggs recall you could enter a search for “eggs” and see the discussion on all social media sites about eggs.

The tradeoff here is that if you aren’t aware of a particular topic, you don’t know to search for it to explore it further. Twitter and Google have both overcome this problem by adding trending results and searches. The main page of 48ers is set up almost like Google where you type in one word and review the results. The difference is that 48ers results are social media results, not news articles or irrelevant articles about eggs from last year.

This is a great source for viewing the most up-to-date information on a particular topic, but it isn’t great if you don’t know what everyone is already talking about. OneRiot and Collecta are superior to 48ers in this respect because they offer the functionality of 48ers while also offering suggested hot topics.

48ers has a more streamlined interface than either Collecta or OneRiot, but it also integrates multiple data sources and offers the ability to filter results based on source.

The best way to use this site for online marketing is to analyze a larger number of social media results on a particular topic and discover brand mentions or industry discussions. Results are being pulled by the second and you have a lot more content to work with compared to the suggested social media results from OneRiot and Collecta.

The Final Word

All three profiled real-time search engines offer benefits, and it’s not clear who will plug the holes in their service first and offer the most compelling real-time search offering.

These independent companies are also competing with Google, Facebook, Twitter and other larger companies that are offering some version of real-time search and actively seeking to improve them.

Have you used real-time search engines? Do you think they hold promise? Let me know your thoughts 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.

This represents a big opportunity for your business.

A Little Context

In the early days of the Internet, websites were static creatures. Once a site was published, that’s pretty much how it stayed. Websites were built by programmers and even minor changes required contacting the designer or a specialized web manager.

Then came the blog.

Blogging turned the once-boring website into an ever-changing, dynamic creature. With the advent of the blog came blogging software and the ability to quickly publish content.

With more than 9.5 million downloads of its latest version (as of this writing), WordPress on a self-hosted server is one of the most popular blogging platforms available. But WordPress is no longer just for blogging.

Ease of use combined with open-source development has turned WordPress into a powerful tool for building full-service websites. At this point it’s safe to say that WordPress is changing the way we use the web.  In fact, Social Media Examiner is driven by WordPress.

Here are six ways WordPress is changing the web:

#1: The Power of Publishing for Anyone

When Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in 1440 he forever changed the way we communicate. What took days or even weeks to produce could now be quickly mass-produced at a fraction of the cost.

And while history has yet to determine the impact of blogging platforms such as WordPress, there’s no question they’ve changed the way we publish information. It’s now possible for anyone to quickly reach a global audience for only pennies.

With a blog, anyone can publish information, voice an opinion and potentially reach a global audience.

Now, armed with little more than a cell phone, a high-school journalist can attend the same function as a Washington Post reporter, publish her version of the event and if she can attract the audience, compete on the same playing field as the Washington Post.

This puts the average citizen in a very powerful position. Along with the ability to quickly reach a global audience, incorrect information or an angry consumer can quickly do damage to large corporations.

#2: Anyone Can Build and Manage a Website—Today

WordPress is democratizing the web. Thanks to its ease of use and low cost (free), almost anyone can launch a website. Although hiring a designer has its advantages, it’s possible for an individual with little programming knowledge to launch a very nice-looking site for the cost of a hosting package.

Most web hosts offer programs such as Simple Scripts or Fantastico, which will install WordPress with the click of a button. WordPress’s “Famous Five-Minute Install” is now about a five-second install. Even better, it doesn’t require FTP uploads or messing about in the server database.

Once installed, WordPress plugins, themes and upgrades can all be installed from within the WordPress control panel with the click of a button.

Some themes come with extra widget options allowing for advanced design with minimal programming.

Publishing and changing content is just as easy. If you can manage a word processor, you can publish content in WordPress.

WordPress content management system makes it easy to edit and publish content.

#3: Blogs Can Power Entire Websites

In the old days, a blog was a place where somebody wrote about his cat. Not anymore. Businesses are finding that blogging software makes it easy to quickly change and publish web content. While many businesses are working to incorporate blogs into their websites, many more are using WordPress to build their entire website.

And it’s not just small businesses using WordPress to build their sites. Companies like UPS and The Wall Street Journal Magazine are building high trafficked, advanced websites using WordPress. Take a stroll around the WordPress Showcase and tell me if you can see the difference between a website and a blog.

UPS Racing is a WordPress site.

#4: Sharing and Commenting Aren’t Just Encouraged, They’re Expected

Blogs by their very nature are designed to be shared and comments are encouraged. As the separation between websites and blogs blurs, so has the way businesses are expected to communicate with their customers. It is no longer safe to hide behind the corporate walls. The discussion will go on with or without input from the company. Dynamic websites give businesses the ability to influence where their customers go for information, manage the discussion and quickly respond when the need arises.

#5: Professional Websites Without a Web Designer

Thanks to the fact that WordPress is an open-source program, there are thousands of plugins (modifications) and themes (templates) available that can make WordPress do almost anything you need it to do. Photo sliders, contact forms, podcasts and more can all be added using plugins.

Premium themes such as StudioPress allow users to install professional-looking websites with minimal or no programming knowledge. The Headway theme even uses a visual editor that allows users to drag and drop content and design pages without the need for CSS or PHP programming.

While professional design has its advantages, for small businesses or the budget-conscious, it’s possible to build very powerful websites at a very low cost.

#6: Websites Can Now Do More

As it gets easier and less expensive to create websites, they are expected to do more. Internet users expect a certain level of professionalism and often pass judgment based on a quick read of a company website. Sites that are not up to par reflect on the company as a whole.

However, this does create an opportunity for small businesses. As costs come down and ease of creating professional-looking websites increases, small businesses can create websites that compete with much larger corporations.

What do you think?

Are blogging platforms such as WordPress changing the way we use the web? Have you used blogging software to build your website? In today’s world of the Internet, is there a clear separation between “blogs” and “websites”?  Let us know your thoughts and ideas below.

Are you a blogger? Using WordPress?  This article contains a number of powerful plugins that will take your blog to the next level.

Blogging and Social Media?

Where does blogging fit into your social media mix? Many people I encounter still haven’t taken the time to start a blog for their business.  I’ve heard many different reasons for not having a business blog—from not having enough time to insecurity about writing style.

Blogging should be one of the cores of your business. It should be right in the middle of your social media mix—the bulls-eye, the main target.

It’s important to note that your blog is the hub into which all of your social media networks feed for optimal exposure. Some people feel overwhelmed by the notion of starting and maintaining a blog, so below I discuss 11 essential WordPress plugins to get your blog off to a racing start.

Before I share this list, I want to demystify the #1 procrastination of those who haven’t started their business blog: I am NOT a writer!

Yes, it’s important to check your grammar and spelling; however, blogging is about sharing your knowledge. You have specific knowledge in your particular niche that your customers need to know. If you feel insecure about your writing style, be sure to keep your eyes on the top bloggers in your industry. As you read other blogs, learn from their style and don’t be afraid to have your own voice.

Now, on to 11 WordPress plugins that will get your blog off to a great start:

#1: SEO Friendly Images

SEO Friendly Images is a WordPress optimization plugin which automatically updates all images with proper ALT and TITLE attributes. This plugin improves traffic from search results.  Images are great for your blog and it is so easy to shorten the actual name of the image file as you upload it. I have had 60% more traffic to my blog just by naming my image files with keywords.

#2: Platinum SEO Pack

Platinum SEO plugin is the ultimate WordPress SEO solution.  Platinum SEO plugin offers all the features of All in One SEO plugin plus more. Here are a few key features:

• Optimized Post and Page Titles for search engines
• Generates all SEO-relevant META tags automatically
• Helps you avoid duplicate content

#3: Google XML Sitemaps

Google XML Sitemaps plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines like Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Ask.com to better index your blog. Additionally, it notifies all major search engines every time you create a post with new content.

#4: Akismet

Akismet is a collaborative effort to make comment and trackback spam a non-issue and restore innocence to blogging, so you never have to worry about spam again.

#5: Contact Form

Contact Form is a great choice if you value simplicity and flexibility. It provides a form on your website as an easy way for your readers to contact you. It allows you to customize the form and mail settings. You can manage multiple contact forms as well.

#6: TweetMeme Retweet Button

TweetMeme Retweet Button is for website and blog publishers who want to encourage their audience to share their content on Twitter. The button shows a live count of the number of times your web page or blog post has been tweeted.

#7: Yet Another Related Post

Yet Another Related Post gives you a list of posts and/or pages related to the current entry based on a unique algorithm for display on your blog and RSS feeds, introducing the reader to other relevant content on your site.

#8: Sexy Bookmarks

Sexy Bookmarks, though the name may be a little “edgy” for some, has proven time and time again to be an extremely useful and successful tool in getting your readers to actually submit your articles to numerous social bookmarking sites.

#9: CommentLuv

CommentLuv is a plugin that gives something back to your community straight away by including a titled link for readers’ last blog post or tweet on the end of their comment. It’s a great way to encourage comments on your blog.

#10: Broken Link Checker

Broken Link Checker checks your posts for broken links and missing images and notifies you on the dashboard if any are found. Obviously you don’t want your readers to be annoyed by clicking a link that leads nowhere.

#11: WordPress Mobile Edition

WordPress Mobile Edition is a plugin that shows an interface designed for visitors who come to your site on a mobile device. Mobile browsers are automatically detected and the list of mobile browsers can be customized on the settings page. More and more people are accessing the Internet via their mobile devices, so you should make sure your blog is mobile-ready.

Other Plug Ins

There are thousands upon thousands of different WordPress plugins, but keep in mind that depending on your theme, certain plugins may not work well with other plugins. It is highly recommended to install plugins one at a time to make sure there are no issues with the presentation of your blog design.

For example, the Disqus Commenting System is another great plugin, but it conflicted with my blog design and didn’t work properly. After adjusting some programming code, this plugin is now working properly on my blog. I love this threaded commenting system that allows me to interact with my readers in a more seamless manner.

For further reading, Top 10 Easy Steps to Start a Business Blog is another great resource here on Social Media Examiner to get you started in the right direction for your business blog. It is vital to know your ideal reader, your core message and your business objectives, among many other things shared in this article.

This is just the start for your WordPress blog. Keep in mind that providing excellent content is the most important factor in the success of your blog.

Which WordPress plugins are you using to help to build community, optimize search engine results and increase viral potential? Let us know in the comments.

How many of us have created a LinkedIn account and left it dormant for months?

It was my goal recently to attend more LinkedIn webinars and teleseminars to learn more about this mysterious network. I have often thought to myself, “I’m a professional. Why am I not utilizing this site?” I’ve even heard LinkedIn referred to as the “red-headed stepchild” of social media.

Here are some interesting facts that I learned about this often misunderstood network:

LinkedIn is a search engine and has a ton of authority on Google and other popular search engines.

Likely if you Google your name and you have a LinkedIn profile, it will show up on the first page of Google. This demonstrates the ranking authority of LinkedIn on Google.

Here are the top 6 things that I learned about this powerful network:

#1: Boosting Your Search Engine Optimization

There are three areas to add website links to your LinkedIn profile. Instead of displaying “My Blog” & “My Website,” click on Edit and then click on Other.  Type in a keyword phrase that describes how people can search to find your business.

For example, I changed my main mortgage website to say Foreclosure Options

I changed “My Blog” to say Social Media Marketing

I changed my Facebook fan page to say Facebook Marketing

What an incredibly easy way to boost your rankings in the search engines! Be sure to optimize your LinkedIn profile as soon as possible before your next client enters your main keyword(s) and finds your competition.

#2: Promoting Your Blog Feed

It is also possible to import your WordPress blog feed to your profile by searching for the WordPress application. This is a quick way for others to scan your blog content at a glance.

There is also another blog application on LinkedIn—Blog Link—which supports TypePad, Movable Type, Vox, WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Blogger, LiveJournal and many more.

Promote your blog and develop your personal brand. Everyone knows blogs are the best way to cultivate your personal brand. Now you can share your thoughts and insights on your blog on your professional home, LinkedIn.

#3: Creating LinkedIn Ad Campaigns

I had no clue that LinkedIn has its own Direct Ads Campaign targeted to professionals. I felt like I found a hidden treasure at the bottom of a huge sea! Because LinkedIn is a professional site, there is less likelihood of views from random people; rather, more from people interested in business-related information. I will definitely be utilizing this advertising feature this year.

Reach a rapidly growing community of over 57 million professionals (average household income: US $108,000), and select your ad’s audience by seniority, industry, job function, company size, and more.

It is possible to write, target, and start your ad in minutes, pay by clicks or impressions and get started with as little as US $50. Be sure to leverage the power of LinkedIn by using your professional brand to put a face to your business.

#4: Utilizing Events to Engage Clients

I really love LinkedIn’s event features because I “plan” to be an event planner in my next life. It’s not required to be the event coordinator to create an event. An event can be created if you have an interest in going to an event or will be an attendee.

Invitations can also be sent to your LinkedIn network, which will give you an opportunity to meet face to face if they decide to attend. The best feature is the ability to view at a glance all of your network’s upcoming events. As an event planner geek, it rocks my world to promote business events online just like I do in my personal hemisphere.

#5: Using Groups to Connect With People

Most people join groups and never come back to participate in them. I can raise my hand and say that I’m guilty of this bad practice too. I’ve started changing and participating in a lot more groups lately. However, STARTING a group is a great way to have access to email and stay in touch with your group as it grows. It does take some focused effort to grow your group but a great place to start is to invite your current network. As the people from your network join your group, this is visible to their networks’ news feeds which can potentially pique new interest.

I’m really amazed at the size of various groups on LinkedIn. Then I remember that professionals really enjoy networking, so I really shouldn’t be so surprised. Let’s take a look at a few groups on LinkedIn:

Social Media Today—18,078 members at the time of this writing

On Startups—Community of Entrepreneurs—123,680 members at the time of this writing

Real Estate Open Networkers—17,795 members at the time of this writing

Can you imagine having access to this many people at your fingertips?

#6: Getting Recommendations to Attract More Clients

Recommendations are one of the unique features of LinkedIn that sets it apart from other social media networks. What better way to really market your business than by having your colleagues and clients share your expertise?

I’m sure your next question is, “How can I obtain recommendations?” The best way is to live by the old adage:

“Give and you shall receive.”

Recommend your peers and they will return the favor. This is one area that I need to work on this year. It doesn’t take that much time, but if we don’t make it a focus, it won’t happen.

So what about you? Do you feel that LinkedIn is the red-headed stepchild of social media? Do you have any plans for this network in 2010? Let us know in the comments.