31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 24. Do a Search Engine Optimization Audit

One of the biggest sources of traffic on the web is Google (and it’s fellow search engines). As a result it makes sense that a blogger interested in building traffic to their blog would take some time to learn how Search Engines Rank sites.

Today’s task in the 31 Day Project your task is to do an SEO Audit of your blog.

I’ve written everything I know on SEO previously in a post called Search Engine Optimization for Blogs so I wont rehash it all in this post and I’d highly recommend you head to that post for a refresher on the topic (or an introduction to it if you’ve not learned much about SEO before).

Invest in Your Knowledge of SEO

If you have a budget for your education and want to learn from a real expert in SEO I highly recommend checking out Aaron Wall’s SEO Book (aff). It costs $79 and is the best resource I’ve found on the topic with 328 pages of instruction (with free updates - and Aaron does update it) plus a nifty little bonus called 33 Days to Online Profits. It has a 100% Money Back Guarantee if you find that it’s not for you.

A few tips for your SEO Audit

It can be easy to get overwhelmed by Search Engine Optimization so if you’re new to it or need a place to start here are a few basics that you might want to work on today:

• Make the Titles of Your Posts the Title Tags of Your Post Pages (Aaron shares how to optimize your title tags for SEO in this post. Also check out Title Tags and SEO).
• Use Good Anchor Text for internal links - hunt back through your old posts for poor anchor text to replace.
• Pick a few posts to do some analysis of your use of Keywords as outlined in the SEO for Blogs post. You might like to rewrite some older posts to make the most of this knowledge.
• Use good keywords in images in your posts - if you are optimizing particular posts that contain images renaming them and using good Alt Tags with the keywords you’re chasing can give you a boost.
• Think about head tags in your posts - here’s a very quick tutorial on head tags.
• Pick some key posts that you want to grow the SEO ranking for. Link to them from your sidebar/menus.

A Last work on Balance in Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization can become something of an obsession (as can many aspects of blogging if you concentrate on them to the exclusion of other factors). For a little balance on the topic you might find my Confessions of a Linkaholic and Should You Write for Humans or Computers? helpful.

Further Reading on SEO

If you want to read more you might like to check out a recent post from Matt Cutts which is a summary of a talk he did on Whitehat SEO for bloggers (or watch the video of the talk below if you’ve got a spare hour - it is really great):

31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 23. Go on a Dead Link Hunt

Today your task in the 31 Day Project is something that most bloggers who have been blogging for a while could probably benefit from doing - go on a dead link hunt.

Blogging is built on the ‘link’. One blog links to another blog who links to another who makes comment on another. This is a wonderful thing - but what happens when one of the blogs that you’re linking to is retired, is deleted, changes it’s link structure, moves etc? The link is a dead one (also known as Link Rot) and can cost your blog on two fronts:

Readability - clicking on a dead link can mean your readers can end up on error pages or being redirected to other irrelevant content to the one they were expected to get to. This can lead to reader frustration or giving the impression that your blog is old and/or out of touch.

SEO - I’m not sure of the technicalities of it or what the latest research shows but from what I can tell a dead link is not looked upon favorably by search engines and you run the risk of penalties.

So how do you detect dead links on your blog?

The most obvious ’solution’ is to surf every page on your blog and manually check all the links. This is something that might be achievable on a new blog - but on older blogs with hundreds or thousands of posts it’s just not feasible.

There are many link checking tools available but to be honest I’m yet to find one that I’m really happy with. I do hear that Xenu’s Link Sleuth is a good option for those using Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP. I’ve also used the free version of Dead-Links.com (which only checks to a reasonably shallow depth) - but I’d be keen to hear from readers on their suggestions of other options.

31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 22. Catch New Readers Up On The Basics of Your Blog

Sometimes after you’ve been blogging on your blog for a while it’s easy to forget that not all of your readers have been reading your blog since you started. While you’re familiar with every aspect of your blog and how to use it - your more recent loyal readers may not.

One way to catch new readers up on what your blog is all about and how to use it most effectively is simply to write a post telling them.

So what should you tell them?

Really it’s up to you - but here are a few suggestions:

• Why Did You Start Your Blog? - the story of how, when and why you started the blog can help readers connect with and own your blog.
• How is it designed to be Used? - while more and more people understand what a blog is and how it operates - some readers may not - particularly non tech savvy audiences. Explain concepts like comments, categories and any features that you’ve installed that might take a little explanation.
• How Can Users Connect/Subscribe? - explain how to use RSS or subscribe via email. It’s amazing how many people don’t understand this - educate them.
• How Can Readers Get More Involved? - if you have forums or a reader community area for readers to get more involved highlight them.
• Where Should Readers Start? - point new readers to some starting points to read (use the Sneeze Page idea that we talked about a few days ago).

You don’t need to do all of the above in the one post - in fact picking just one or two might get your readers attention better and not overwhelm them.

What about Your Regular Readers?

Worried about what your regular long term readers might think of these types of posts? I was too when I first did them - so I decided to invite them to participate in the process to help new readers.

What I did was to ask long term readers to tell the story of how they found my blog and how they use it. In doing this I not only got them involved and distracted from the fact that I might be writing about something that they already know - but I got them participating and enthusiastically explaining to new readers how they love and use the blog.

I also found that a few long term readers told me that they learned something new about the blog that they’d overlooked for a long time.

Want an Example?

Last time I did this at DPS it was with this post - How to Connect with Digital Photography School. Feel free to share your own examples and experiences of this in comments below.

This post is part of the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project.

31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 21. Make a Reader Famous

Do you want to be famous? Do you want to be noticed? Do you want people to know who you are? Do you want to have more influence?

I did an informal survey of bloggers at a workshop and asked them why they blog. The majority of answers had something to do with one of the above questions. While many bloggers also have some desire to make a difference in the world or to help others - to do this they also generally have a goal of being noticed and read by more and more people.

Today’s task in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog project is to take a break from building your own fame and influence and to build the fame and influence of someone else - preferably one of your readers.

Pick a reader (and if you’re new and don’t have any yet - pick another blogger in your niche, preferably a less well known one) and make them famous in some way.

Here are a few ideas on how to do it:

• Promote a comment to a Post - sometimes readers make incredibly insightful and wise observations and tips in the comments of your blog. While they will be read by a handful of people in the comment thread - why not pull it out and use it as the basis for one of your post - highlighting the wisdom in it and the person who made the comment.
• Write a Post about their Blog - visit the blogs of those leaving comments on your blog and pick one that you resonate with to post about. Write an ‘unpaid review’ of the blog - highlighting the best posts and what you like about it.
• Send Your Readers to Comment on Someone Else’s Blog - write a post that links to someone else’s great blog post and instead of asking your readers what they think about it on your own blog ask them to head over and comment on it on the other person’s blog. Shutting down the comments in your own post and saying that you’ve left a comment on their blog already can help make this more effective.
• Give Readers an Opportunity to Promote Themselves - run a project or write a post that gives readers an opportunity to promote themselves in some way. Last week on the spur of the moment at DPS I wrote a post asking readers - do you have a photoblog?‘ As I wrote the post I thought I’d add a line inviting readers to share a link to their photoblogs. I didn’t think much of it until the next morning when I woke up to 250 comments on the post and a whole heap of emails thanking me for giving readers the opportunity to highlight their work.
• Reader of the Week - SingForHim recently left a comment here at ProBlogger talking how how she runs a weekly post called Readers of the Week where she highlights some of her readers and how they’ve interacted with her blog. Here’s one of her latest examples of this (you can see from the comments that readers appreciate it!).

OK - I can hear some of the comments on this post already.

“Isn’t the real reason that you want to make your readers famous so you become more famous?”

True - one of the side effects of highlighting the great things about another person is that it will often come back to you in some ways that benefit you too. Call it ‘karma’, call it ‘reaping what you sow’ or call it anything you like - it’s a principle that you’ll find to be true.

However try to get away from that more selfish motivation for a moment if you can. The blogosphere was built on principles of promoting others, conversation, celebrating diversity, open source knowledge etc. Some days I wonder if those things still exist - and to be honest somedays I wonder if I’ve played a part in making them endangered species. Lets recapture some of it by making others famous today on our blogs.

31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 20. Run a Reader Survey on Your Blog

Your task today in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog project is to ask your readers how you can improve your blog.

At least once a year I like to write a post on my blogs inviting my readership to comment on a number of areas of my blog. These include:

• Content (topics covered, post length, types of posts, post frequency, depth of exploration of topics etc)
• Design (navigation, colors, fonts etc)
• Blog Features (RSS feed, blog tools etc)
• Community (how it could be enhanced)

While some blog readers will give you this feedback from time to time whether you ask for it or not - others like to wait to be asked and many wouldn’t even give it any consideration until they are asked.

Why Survey Your Readers?

There are two main reasons why this exercise is worth doing:

1. Blog Improvement - the most obvious benefit of asking readers to review your blog is that you find out what they like and don’t like about it so that you can make improvements
2. Reader Participation - asking this question draws readers out of their lurking state to make a comment or send an email. In doing this you actually create users who take a little more ownership of the site and who feel like they are being valued and listened to

How to Survey Your Readers

A few more tips that I’ve found helpful when running reader surveys

• Determine What You Want to Know First - I find that these reader surveys are more effective when I have some sense of what I want to find out first. While simply asking ‘how can I improve’ might get some good responses - having some ideas on possible future direction for your blog can be helpful in forming the questions that you ask readers. Use this process to test possibilities. For example in a recent reader survey at DPS (see link below) I asked if readers would be interested in buying a ‘best of… ‘ type ebook to test whether this might be something that I could develop down the track.
• Ask Specific Questions - all some of your readers will need from you to give good feedback is an invitation to do so. However other readers will need a little guidance and asking some specific questions will give them the framework to give you the type of feedback you want. So ask a mixture of general questions (like - ‘tell me what you think about my blog’ and very specific ones (like ‘do you like video post?’ or ‘would you like a forum?’).
• Set ‘Rules’ - you’ll notice in the two examples that I give below of the most recent times I’ve asked readers for feedback that I’ve set some ‘rules’ in place. The reason I do this is to attempt to get readers thinking positively and constructively about the feedback that they give. Comments like ‘this site is crap’ don’t really help you improve your blog - so encourage your readers to make suggestions and be constructive.
• Set Good Expectations - the other thing it is worth doing is giving readers a sense of what you’ll do with their feedback. If you intend to respond to each comment, tell readers that that is your intention. If you can’t respond to each suggestion then tell that. This will save you pain later when readers email to ask why you didn’t get back to them.
• Be Willing to Hear Critiques - don’t ask for feedback unless you are willing to hear it (and not just the glowing praise). The whole point of this exercise is to find things you can improve upon - as a result you’ll hopefully have some of your blog’s weaknesses identified. If you’re not in the headspace for this type of feedback simply don’t ask for it.

Examples of Reader Surveys

If you’d like to see how I do this - I recently gave readers opportunities to comment on my main two personal blogs at How Can I Make ProBlogger More Useful to You? and How Can We Improve Digital Photography School.

So put together a reader survey and post it on your blog. I tend to do it simply as a post and let the resonses come in via comments or email - but you might also want to use an actual survey tool (although I find the response rate to using these is lower). Once you’ve done it I’d love to hear about how you found the process.

What did you learn? What would you do differently next time? Did readers respond? What tips would you give others wanting to do reader surveys?

Another Example

For another example of how do this check out this recent post over at Copyblogger in which Brian asks readers to tell him what Copyblogger means to them. It’s a great question because not only does he learn a lot but readers are responding in ways that cement their readership as they’re telling each other what they like about the blog.

31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 19. Respond to Comments On Your Blog

One of the most basic skills that any blogger should spend time working on from the very early days is responding to comments on your blog - and that’s today’s task in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project.

While this is one of the simplest acts that a blogger can do (I almost didn’t publish this because it’s so basic) it is something that can have a real impact upon your readers.

Despite this - it’s often one of the things that slips for many bloggers over time as a result of a growing blog and/or the busyness of life. I’m as guilty of this as anyone and have been attempting to put more time aside in the last couple of weeks to comment more on my blogs (it’s a daily struggle).

So block out a little time today to scan through the latest comments on your blog. Answer questions, respond to others ideas, leave a welcome message and continue conversations by asking questions of your own.

This acknowledgment goes a long way and is one of the best ways of developing a commenting culture on your blog.

PS: Here’s another quick tip that I found very useful in the early days of my own first blogs. Click the links of those who leave comments on your blog. When you do this you’ll find that some of those who leave comments on your blog who check their own blog’s referral statistics will notice your visit and come back to see if their comments have been responded to.

You can take this another step further by leaving a comment on their blog to further develop the relationship.

This is one of those little 1%er tips that may not send a deluge of traffic to your blog but that can have an impact on a reader by reader basis (you might also find a good blog or two in the process).

31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 18. Create a Sneeze Page and Propel Readers Deep WIthin Your Blog

It’s Day 18 in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project and today your task is to develop a ‘Sneeze Page’ (or pages) for your blog.

One of the challenges that faces blogs that have been around for a while is that they end up with a wonderful collection of posts in their archives that are rarely read by readers.

Write 1 post a day for a year and you’ll have 365 posts in your archives - but if your blog is like the majority of blog it will only be the latest 10 or so posts that readers will see when they arrive on your blog.

The challenge therefore is to work out how to propel readers towards some of the best posts in your archives.

One solution is what I call a ‘Sneeze Page’.

A Sneeze Page is one that simply directs readers in multiple directions at once - back into your archives. Let me explain further by giving a few tips on how to write Sneeze Page and then examining how to strategically position them for maximum impact.

How to Write Sneeze Pages

Writing a Sneeze Page for your blog isn’t that difficult a concept really - in it’s most simple form it is simply a list of links looking back into your archives. However as I think back on how I’ve done it before there are a number of techniques that you might like to use.

1. Themed Sneeze Pages - these are posts or pages on your blog or site that revolve around a single theme. For example - on the front page of the newly designed ProBlogger you’ll now find a section called ‘Best of ProBlogger’ which has a tab in it titled ‘Darren’s Favs’. The five links in this section point to five new pages on ProBlogger which are in effect Themed Sneeze Pages (How to Make Money Blogging, How to Find Readers for Your Blog, How to Write Great Blog Content, Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers and Darren’s Recommendations).

These pages each break down the overarching topic or theme of the page into sub themes and then list off some of the key posts that I’ve written on the topic.

Interestingly - some of the posts that I link to are the central page for a series of posts (which are Sneeze pages in themselves - for example the page on writing content links to the 7 Days to Rediscovering your Blogging Groove series). As a result these pages have the potential to sneeze readers into hundreds of archived posts very quickly.

2. Time Related Sneeze Pages - a Sneeze page that is based around a defined period of time can be very effective. These ‘best of’ posts highlight your key posts from that period to either remind readers of previous posts that they might want to revisit or to highlight posts that they might have missed.

The period of time that you choose can really be anything from a year (here’s my best of 2006 at ProBlogger post) through to a month, week or even a weekend (ie a post that summarizes the posts from a weekend that those readers who don’t read your blog on a weekend might have missed).

3. Hot Comment Thread Sneeze Pages - I haven’t done this for a while but I used to occasionally compile a list of the posts in my archives that had comment threads on them that just wouldn’t die. This drove traffic back to engaging conversations, controversial debates and insightful discussions through my blog. It was actually a great traffic driver that worked quite effectively.

4. Series Sneeze Pages - as mentioned above - the introductory or summary post of a new series of posts can be an effective Sneeze Page. The best current example of this on ProBlogger is the central page for the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog project which will end up being a list of 31 posts from this blog as well as hundreds of reader submitted tips.

Go Beyond The ‘List’

One more quick tip on writing Sneeze Pages - don’t make them just a list of links. Readers will use them a lot more and follow your suggested links into your archives if you take al little time to introduce what the page is about and to describe what they’ll get when they arrive at the page. This little extra effort will mean your page is more useful and useable for readers.

Also resist the temptation just to drive traffic to your money making pages. While you can definitely include pages that contain affiliate links and well converting ads in your Sneeze pages it will be much better received by readers if the posts you highlight are truly your best and most useful work.

How to Strategically Position Your Sneeze Page

The key with Sneeze Pages is to position them in a way that will enable them to be seen and used by the maximum number of readers. On some occasions this will simply been posting them as normal posts on your blog (see discussion below on ‘posts vs pages’ and in other instances it will mean highlighting them throughout your blog in other key positions.

Obviously at ProBlogger I highlight a number of Sneeze Pages from my ‘Best of’ section (something that is working quite well) but in my previous design I had them positioned in my top navigation menus (again - this worked very well).

Another way to highlight these pages is to link to them in posts when you’re talking on an issue. You can do this either within the content itself as you write or at the end of posts as suggested further or related reading.

Posts or Pages?

Those of you who use a blogging platform like WordPress (or now MT 4.0) that have the ability to write pages (as opposed to posts) on your blog will have an interesting choice when it comes to how to present your Sneeze Pages.

I use both posts and pages depending upon their nature. For Sneeze pages that will be linked to prominently for a long time on my blog I tend to go with a page (as they don’t have dates on them that could ‘date’ the page. But for smaller recaps of time periods or hot threads I’ll publish them as posts that will appear on my actual blog.

An Example of a Blog which Sneezes Effectively

Before I send you off to create some pages let me highlight one blog that I see using this technique very effectively - Lifehacker.

Here are four recent examples:

• Around the Watercooler: Best Comment Thread Roundup - this is a regular feature on Lifehacker that drives readers back to the hottest comment threads over the last week.
• Summer Fun Roundup - this one fits more into the ‘themed sneezer page’. Lifehacker regularly does this type of thing - particularly around topics.
• Retro Roundup: One Year Ago on Lifehacker - another regular feature that looks back to the better posts a year ago.
• This week’s Best Posts - another time based sneezer page

Your Homework

It is time to head back to your blog and create a Sneeze post or page for your blog. Use any of the above methods (themed, dated, hot threads etc) or use one of your own. Head back to this thread afterwards to tell us how you did it (and feel free to link to it so we can see some more examples of what others are doing).