Today’s professional workers are much more accessible to supervisors, co-workers and clients than ever before. Email began to change that in the 1990s with smart phones hastening the shift to ’round the clock availability in recent years.

I don’t know about you, but being available well outside of normal working hours is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because you can interact with people in different time zones and get more work. It is a curse because your personal time can easily be compromised, making it difficult for you to enjoy times of refreshing. There must be a balance between work and play — there is, but only if you’re willing to set reasonable boundaries the two by employing the following tips to what you do:

Know your business hours — I am at work early in the morning, taking breaks at breakfast and soon thereafter to walk one of my children to the bus stop. By 9 a.m. eastern time, I am officially “at work” and available to my clients. That availability continues throughout the day and ends by 6 p.m. Thus, my reachable hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday through Friday. I may work on Saturday mornings, but those hours are solely my own. Sundays is for church and family time.

Establish a contact preference — My regular clients typically contact me via email. I use a dedicated email address to have those messages come to my inbox. I don’t, however, have these messages forward to my smart phone, but may do so later this year when my current cell phone contract expires. I want to be reachable, but most “emergencies” can wait. It seems that I’m not the only one who deals with email-happy clients as this Freelance Switch discussion notes. Typically, I get back to email messages on the same business day, often within an hour or two.

Set your phone hours — No client likes to place a call and find you unavailable. This is why with existing clients I ask that they contact me via email first to arrange a phone meeting. If it is a true emergency, then we’ll talk within the hour, otherwise we’ll set an appointment within the next two business days. For new clients, being available is important. I attempt to have these people contact me via a contact form or email first. However, given that some clients may want a press release written and submitted that day, I will make a phone number available as well. As of this writing, I am changing my procedures by securing a toll-free number for my press release service and placing that number on a related website. Also, I will publish a four-hour window of time for people to contact me, likely 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. That will give me enough time to write and submit a press release for next-day publishing. I haven’t chosen a phone system provider yet, but Grasshopper is one of several companies I’m currently exploring.

Inform people of changes — As a writer, I certainly do not want to be tethered to email, a phone or both. My creative juices flow best when I’m not interrupted, which means that my availability to clients has to be limited. But even those hours I mentioned are subject to change if a special project up, one that takes up my time. In addition, when I’m on vacation my availability is severely curtailed if I’m available at all. This means informing my regular clients of my availability and giving out a number in the event of an emergency. I bring my laptop with me too — if a website crashes or some other mischief has been detected, I can handle it quickly on the road as long as an Internet connection is possible. I may also update a website to change my contact information temporarily, but not enough to tell people when I’m away from home and my return information — beware of crooks!

Even as I write this, I find myself questioning some of my practices, knowing that my procedures are subject to change. You may find an entirely different arrangement works for you, perhaps not minding being contacted at all hours of the day, night or weekends, grabbing “free time” on a rolling basis. If it works for you, then go with it.

Earlier this year I was heavily involved with writing guest posts, putting together more than 24 articles in just over a month. I’ve been accepting guest posts across my blog network for several years, although I’ve pulled back considerably with this blog. My strategy is evolving — I am not writing guest posts at the moment, but I am carefully curating posts and changing what appears on the sites I manage with some important changes to linking.

So, how do you know what works now and what can get you into a heap of trouble? The trouble part seems to be evolving, but it has long involved paid links that do not include the “nofollow” attribute. I made that mistake recently when I realized that the links on one of my site were missing that attribute. When clients began to cancel their links, I realized what was going on and updated a related “nofollow” plug-in. I permit following or “dofollow” within related articles as I generously link out, but nofollow is the rule elsewhere.

What works now may not work if you’re reading this article in say, January 2013. In May 2012, I’m reasonably confident that the following practices are still good. I like Jon Cooper’s Link Building Strategies – The Complete List, as he gives specific answers and concise tips at that. I can also recommend that you follow what some of the experts are saying including Chris Crum who seems to have his pulse on the current search engine changes including Penguin.

Here are some things I am recommending that my clients do or continue with:

Blogging — The easiest way to update content on any small business website is to have a blog. Your core pages can be html or you can have your entire site based on a content management system such as WordPress. I prefer the latter as it affords many SEO benefits with its many plug-ins and overall site layout. Articles should not be spammy and should impart useful information. Targeting posts of 400 words or more is wise and you must certainly avoid keyword saturation.

Internal Linking — I am not changing my policy of linking back to other articles I’ve written on my sites, but I am looking at how I do that. Oftentimes, I’ll link after the article with a “See Also” link. From this point on, I’m much more likely to point to another article within the body of the article such as this building links article from Duncan Heath. Go natural!

External Linking — When it comes to guest posting, I’ve long allowed contributors to have two links to their site within the “author information” section at the end of the article. I will still keep the author section, but I prefer to see one related link within the body of the article. The jury is out here, but I’ve been reading what others are doing including Ann Smarty of MyBlogGuest. Ann hasn’t changed MBG’s rules, but she recently articulated her position and shared this information on her blog. Ann discusses FUD — fear, uncertainty and doubt — when it comes to strategic linking.

Expert Reference — Where I am most knowledgeable is with the auto industry, as I operate Auto Trends Magazine, an online news and information source. I update this site frequently, averaging two new articles each day. I avoid many of “me too” stories that others often feature, preferring to dig deeper or look for a back story to cover. Easily, I spend 2-4 hours per day writing for this site, time worth spending as I speak to people on the phone, solicit questions by email and perform my research. This approach has paid off as I will sometimes be referenced by an automaker in an article or ad. If you have demonstrated expertise in a particular area, work on building your relationships and cover your subject with authority.

Press Releases — I recently revived my PRBeam.com website as a way to reach customers who need small business assistance. Matt’s Musings is a small business or freelance writing site, but I am doing most of my marketing from the PR site. One key selling point I’m using are press releases. Also known as news releases, I am working with customers that want to share their news with media. This means helping to write high quality stories that can be shared and might possibly lead to an interview from a reporter. At minimum, a news release will provide a backlink to the intended site and can quite possibly help that client with his or her SEO efforts.

Evolving Strategy

Like everything we do online, our strategy is evolving to keep up with what the search engines do. In this case, what Google does.

I’m examining some of the other suggestions people have made to gauge importance. Likely, we’ll each be busy trying to adjust and, hopefully, working toward a successful linking strategy.

Photo Credit: Blogless

I just finished reading Melanie Brook’s “Where You Should—and Shouldn’t—Go To Write” article on Freelance Switch and have arrived at different conclusions than what she did. I’m not here to criticize Melanie’s viewpoint, rather to say this: writing away from home can work for you, but your experience can certainly be different from mine.

Places to Work

Melanie noted that writing at coffee shops, other people’s homes and at the park do not work. She also said that writing at colleges and universities, at the library or at a hotel can work. I have experience working at each of the venues mentioned by Melanie, so please allow me to explain what works for me and what doesn’t.

Coffee shops — As I write this, I am working at the Hope Cafe in Raleigh, N.C. I frequent this place approximately once per week, sometimes twice per week in the summer when my kids are home from school. This place is relatively quiet and, yes, I do get some interruptions. However, the “social” time here is typically very beneficial, allowing me to converse directly with other freelancers while still getting my work done. Tip: — Hard deadlines should be handled in a quiet place such as in your home office.

Other peoples’ homes — Rarely do I work in someone else’s home, but when the need arises, I arrange for this well in advance. This summer we’re taking a trip and I’ll need to bring my laptop with me. We’re staying with a family friend and she has already arranged for me to work from her home for one or more days, as needed. If her wi-fi connection isn’t up to snuff, I’ll go her apartment complex’s common area to gain a connection.

At the park — The closest I’ve worked in a park is to work in my park-like backyard. I still had a strong wi-fi connection as some parks offer, but it wasn’t getting online that was the problem. Rather, the ample supply of natural light did it for me even as I adjusted my screen to compensate. If you want to work at a park, fine some shade or go on a cloudy day. And, plan to work offline as an Internet connection can be difficult to access. Tip: — Bring along the sunscreen!

Colleges and universities — I tried to work at nearby N.C. State a few times, but Internet access was blocked to everyone who wasn’t a student or faculty member. I’ve worked at a few community colleges where Internet access was open, thus I’ve had mixed results with this option. I’ve learned never to work in a college library during exam time.

Library — My local library offers several branches offering Internet access. The only problem I’ve had here is that the seats may be uncomfortable or the desks aren’t suitable for typing. My favorite library is one where I can find a plush lounge chair sequestered in some obscure corner of the building such as a nook in the seldom-used reference section. Ah, such peace!

Hotels — Whenever I’m on a business trip, the laptop is with me. At hotels I seem to always enjoy excellent access to the Internet and can get a lot of work done. Melanie mentioned renting a hotel room to get the work done. I have yet to do that, but if there is ever a big project I need to tackle, then this option is a good one. Just hang the little sign on the door to remind the cleaning people to stay out! Tip: Internet access should be free with your stay and not a system that throws you out periodically.

Giving it a Try

If you haven’t given these options a try, what is stopping you? Hopefully, not someone’s opinion. In any case, if you have some ideas you would like to share or have some other feedback, then do tell.

See Also — Taking it on the Road: Smart Tips for Freelancers

At some point in your freelance writing career, you’ll have the opportunity to take your show on the road. What I mean is that a client will contact you about visiting their facility or a business might pay your way to attend a conference or other event of significance.

Automotive Specialty

I write about a number of subjects, but my speciality is automotive. I’m so involved with this industry that I maintain an online publication, Auto Trends Magazine to showcase my work and to keep tabs on an industry I thoroughly enjoy. Auto Trends is typically updated twice daily, much more so than this site or any other website or blog that I manage. My traffic numbers are good and I have a loyal following of readers including a number of influential industry people.

Beyond online writing, I contribute to print publications, which raises my profile further. Collectively, my visibility has gotten me noticed, so much so that I’m regularly invited to check out a new car, am flown out at the business’ expense to drive one or more vehicles, I get to interview engineers and marketing professionals, and will rub shoulders with my colleagues. Last year I made five such trips; this year I’ve already taken two and expect to take at least six more.

Trip Benefits

I wouldn’t take these trips if there wasn’t some side benefit. Typically, I do not get paid to travel. But, my expenses are covered including airfare, lodging and show access. My lone expense usually is the fees for leaving my car at the airport. If it is for one or two days I expense it. For longer trips I have someone drop me off at the airport or I pass this cost on to the client.

I’ve been taking client-sponsored trips for more than four years, but have taken business trips for more years than I can count. Soon after I launched my freelance business in November 2002, I began to travel, but I must say that it has been in the past five years that my traveling has stepped up, particularly since 2011 as the economy recovers.

All this coincides with a few steps I made on my end to take advantage of my more frequent travels, changes that pay off in rewards sooner and later:

Sign up for airline miles — Most of my trips involve one airline, Delta, therefore I have a Skymiles account. I soon realized the importance of having one when my clients asked for my frequent flier information. Previously I had airline miles accounts with American and Southwest, but Delta is big at Raleigh-Durham where my trips originate. So, Delta is my choice and whenever I fly those points are assigned to my account.

Choose an airline credit card — Naturally, I need a credit card when I fly and I chose an American Express card that added 20,000 or more Skymiles to my account the moment I used it. I have more than double that amount right now, enough to take a round-trip flight within the continental U.S. for free. I use that card for my other business expenses, but I pay it off each month. An annual fee kicks in after one year, but I have determined that the fee is worth it. Besides, I can deduct it on my income taxes too.

Select a hotel credit card — Most consumers have two or more credit cards, therefore if you are working with more cards, then you may want to get one that is tied in with where you usually stay. For my family it is Marriott so we have a related card for stays there. When I say “us” I mean my wife and I — this card is in both our names and is what we use when we make major purchases. Again, we pay the card off each month and the annual fee is nominal. A trip we’re planning to take later this year will give us three free nights, with only one night for us to cover. We’ll charge that night on the Marriott card to earn double points. Yes, we’ll pay our card balance off to avoid charges.

Discounts on car rentals — Rarely do I need a rental car when I take my trips. I’m met at the airport and then whisked to the test location. I really do not like dealing with rental car companies, but I know that if I need to either one of my credit cards will give me a discount, usually one that is better than AAA provides. Moreover, with my cards I can waive the insurance charge, as both my auto insurer and credit card issuer provide coverage. This summer I’ll need to rent a car for personal use and expect to save up to 40 percent through various options I have at my disposal.

Keeping track of miles — On occasion, I take a trip that involves using my car to get there. If you play it right, your client should cover this expense. Sometimes, however, I pay for the gas to get me to the event especially if there are other benefits available such as the opportunity to interview an influential person or gain access to a show that is hard to get in to. In this case, I carefully track my miles and when tax time comes that trip is listed on my taxes. For 2012, the standard mileage rate allowed by the IRS is 55.5 cents per mile. That means the 300-mile round-trip adventure I took this spring is a $166.50 deduction.

Keep in Mind

One thing to be very careful about is how you handle your trips. What I mean is if you are writing a story and will be posting it to a website or blog, then you need to disclose that the trip was paid for by your client. The way I handle this is by making mention of that at the end of the article by including the following: “My trip to ABC convention was paid for by XYZ automotive.” Or something to that effect. I want to do two things here: 1), abide by FTC disclosure rules; and 2), maintain trust with my readers. My hosts don’t expect a glowing review of a product in exchange for their bankrolling my trip as they know the FTC and journalistic rules too. My reports are objective and hopefully just as interesting to my readers had I paid for the trip myself.

Do I take every trip offered? No, not a chance. If it doesn’t fit into my schedule or isn’t a fit for what I do, then I don’t go. Sometimes, a family obligation or the need to make money trumps going on a trip. If I have plenty of notice, then I plan accordingly, completing my work in advance and taking advantage of all of the goodies while I am away.

See Also — Food Lion AutoFair Offers Something for Everyone

If you’ve been writing for a number of years, you may recall an article or two that has stood out for you. It isn’t always easy to write something that you’ll clearly remember years after the fact, especially if you’re used to writing 3, 5 or more articles per day. But, the article that gets read often is one that you’re likely familiar with, one that keeps appearing near the top of your site’s analytical reports.

Certainly, it is absolutely fun when an article goes viral. You know, when your server goes offline or scores of comments are left. Yes, when scads of Twitter contacts give you a tweet. That short term success can give your blog a needed boost, but it can’t hold a candle to content that gets found and read over and over again weeks, months and even years later.

Creating the right content that regularly shows up in your website’s analytics isn’t rocket science. But, the chances of people finding your best work years later has to do with a few essentials including:

Use evergreen content — News information is good and oftentimes cannot and should not be avoided. But, current event information generally fades away and isn’t thought about again unless it was big news like 9/11. Even then, unless you’re a nationally syndicated columnist, your best writing about a popular event probably won’t stand out — the field is simply too crowded. Instead, write “evergreen” content or something that won’t fade over time. Such content includes instructive “how to” articles that people are looking for as they seek to solve a problem. Write a detailed summary on how to fix a problem. If your instructions are especially detailed, contact an expert in the field to include his or her input. Quote that person and link back to his or her site. People respect authority work and will reference your article frequently as the information never changes. If you like to read and post book reviews, you may find that your review is what attracts ample traffic.

Update your best work — Even evergreen content feels the tinge of age. For example, if you wrote about balloon mortgages in 2006, you know that today this financing option has been put through the wringer. That’s because mostly any nonconventional mortgage has been criticized following the economic collapse of 2008. Balloon mortgages are still around, but they certainly aren’t for everyone. You may want to examine your original article to ensure that the information you share is correct and, perhaps, temper some of your enthusiasm without referencing current events.

Include the appropriate photos — Very detailed and instructive writing is wonderful for conveying helpful information. Even better are those articles that are accompanied by pictures, particularly photographs that show how specific steps are accomplished along the way toward accomplishing a task. For example, if you are including details on how to fill out a form, then showing a picture of that form filled out can be helpful. Draw a big red circle around any point that you want to make to highlight that step. Some people are more visual than others; an appropriately placed picture can speak volumes. An unrelated photo can be a distraction as this “eye candy” picture demonstrates. But then….

Cite with impunity — You don’t steal people’s content, but you most certainly may borrow their ideas. And this is where you can build trust and authority online. When you glean an idea from anyone, make mention of their contribution directly or indirectly. If Laura Spencer of Writing Thoughts gave you an idea on how to write a rant article, then linking to her site — especially to her article — is essential. Laura may or may not see the inbound link to her site, but at least you gave credit where credit is due. Avid web readers know when ideas are borrowed — they’ll consider what you wrote as “stolen” if you fail to cite. Link within the body of your article and/or offer a “References” section for academic work at the end of the article or a “Related Articles” or “Recommended Reading” section for everything else.

Link to your aged content — How many times do you revisit the same subject on your blog? Unless you purposefully write about the same subject time and again, you may not realize that you’ve covered the subject before. Writing about the same subject usually means that you bring in an updated slant to the topic, but are you linking to your related articles? If not, your readers could be missing out on valuable information (never mind the SEO benefit) — offer links to similar articles and you’ll keep your readers around longer. If you have difficulty finding the related links there are two ways to find these:

1. Go to your search bar and type in site:matthewkeegan.com (substitute your domain name for mine) and add in some keywords. In my example I typed in “evergreen content” and found an article I wrote on April 13, 2010. I just linked to the article to show you how easy it is to turn up older, related material.

2. If you use WordPress as your content management system, then you have an excellent weapon at your disposal. There are lots of plug-ins that have been developed to make it easier for you to find something that will do the trick for you. Although I don’t use the contextual related posts plug-in some bloggers use, I can see where it can work out well. Visit this posting from my friend, Lillie Ammann, for an example of this plug-in at work. Scroll down to “related posts” and you’ll see the connection at work.

Of course, frequently updating your website or blog is one of the best ways to ensure that you attract and retain a loyal readership. Even then, those articles that get found and read years after you originally published them can provide an essential foundation for your site. Well read older material tends to be easy to find on the search engine results page and will generally achieve a nice rank from Google. Your personal authority is also raised, giving readers one more reason to bookmark your site and subscribe to your feed.

Related Articles

• 10 Evergreen Strategies To Boost Your Freelance Writing Career (freelanceswitch.com)
• Content is King: Guest Blogging (matthewkeegan.com)
• The Complete Guide to Blogging for your Business (skyrocketseo.co.uk)

This brings me to my main point — does the number of web visitors your site receives really matter? If so, should it?

Granted, there are people that are myopic, putting intense emphasis on the number of web site visitors with everything else falling to the wayside. Some websites exist solely to put up videos and sharing these on YouTube. Other sites live or die by the number of Facebook followers they have. Still others measure success by the number of comments left for every article posted.

Does Your Website Need a Web Content Management System? This fun flowchart can help you decide which features you'll need for your website, and whether or not you'll need a content management system such as Joomla, Drupal or WordPress (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sure, develop the magnetic headline, but consider the people you want to read what you wrote. Likely, the numbers are far smaller than the broad path that many web masters prefer. Indeed, there may be only a handful of people you really need to reach, especially if you have a niche of limited appeal.

For example, you may have a statistician website, but beyond reaching people interested in statistical theory or data collection, there are only 25,000 of you working in this field according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. You may be able to expand your reach by appealing to mathematicians, actuaries and cost estimators, but you’re still looking at a relatively small potential audience. Even then, you may be battling with various other websites including universities and government institutions to attract interest, making it difficult for you to stand out.

At this point you realize that it isn’t the number of visitors that matter, rather their interest in your site.

Leaving comments is, of course, a good way to gauge your visitors and to engage them while they’re on your site. Comments, however, need to be managed and can take up an exorbitant amount of your time. Instead, there are two ways you can build audience loyalty that starts with writing content that is of interest to your readers, but gets to them in two ways beyond your blog or website. And those ways are through both an RSS feed derived by subscribing to your site and a newsletter.

The feed ensures that highlights or full copies of your articles arrive in email inboxes within hours of you publishing same. A newsletter helps you connect with people in the same way, by allowing you to supplement your online writings with regular updates. With the latter, you can highlight your “best of” articles and you can also give information not shared in your original story, such a back story about an important event. Feed subscriptions and an email list can help build a sense of community, bringing your devoted readers to your site directly.

Naturally, whether you have five visitors daily or 5,000, the ultimate measure of your success should be measured by what action people take. Your web analytics can come in handy here — if your bounce rate is high, then people are visiting and leaving without doing anything else. Lower bounce rates mean people are reading more than one article or are leaving a comment. Or, if you have a product to sell, they may be reading your pitch and deciding whether to buy.

So, back to feeds and newsletters. How do you get subscribers? That’s simple: ask. There is nothing wrong with posting a message on your site explaining to your readers that you would like for them to subscribe to your blog, sign up for a newsletter or do both. Only your most loyal readers will follow through, but that is what you want — a cohort of committed people who appreciate your site instead of hundreds, perhaps thousands of individuals that pass through, but don’t return. With the former, you’ll build your base and have a willing group of people interested in taking action such as buying your product or supporting your site sponsors.

See Also — Give Your Blog a 5-Step Makeover

Related Articles

• What is web analytics? (marketing.yell.com)
• How Accurate are Alexa, Compete, DoubleClick and Google Trends? (kissmetrics.com)
• How To Boost Your Site Traffic Through Social Media (bloggingtips.com)

With the Internet now such an important part of our lives, it can seem inconceivable that any company still does not have a website. Some 10 years ago this was still a fair common occurrence, but today virtually every business small or large has a significant presence online. Still, if you are a hobbyist and want to expand your reach beyond Facebook friends or Twitter followers, then putting up even a simple website is important. Read on for step-by-step instructions on how to launch your new website within just hours.

1. Secure a domain name — Don’t host your site at Blogspot or WordPress.com. You want to control your material, avoiding being at the mercy of another company. This also means securing a *com domain name and choosing a name that is as close to your business’ name as possible. For example, if you run Jane’s Haberdashery, you would first attempt to secure janeshaberdashery.com from a domain provider. Visit GoDaddy.com to check your name availability.

2. Choose web hosting — No, this isn’t a paid ad for GoDaddy. Rather, I’m telling you where most of my domains are registered and where my websites are hosted. You can also find web hosting for about $5 per month. Choose Linux hosting because you’ll download WordPress to use as your content management system. GoDaddy and other important web hosting providers typically offer detailed instructions on how to launch a website. Follow those instructions to get your site ready.

3. Design your site — What should you have on your website? Several pages of information including a welcome page. That welcome page is also your landing page or the first page on your site that someone will find when they look for your business online. To get ideas and I mean ideas only, visit your competitors’ websites to see how they set up their pages. You’ll want to explain to visitors what you do and what you’re about, in enough words to get them hooked, but in as little words as possible to keep their attention and wanting more.

4. Choose your inner pages — There are several pages you’ll want to include here. Assuming that you aren’t running an e-commerce site, you’ll want an About page, a Contact form, and perhaps a few pages describing your products. The Contact form you’ll create by choosing a WordPress plug-in. Download your WordPress from your web host and upload it to your files. You’ll be able to access plug-ins which help your site run smoother. I like the Fast Secure Contact Form developed by Mike Challis. Include a phone number and an email address to make it easy for people to contact you. As far as an e-commerce site goes, don’t put one together yourself — you’ll need help from someone who is experienced in this area.

5. Upload and begin — With your pages completed and your site ready to go, upload everything to activate your site. What you should have loaded are five to six pages of information about your company and your products with one or more ways for people to contact you. You’ll be adding pages, changing verbiage and eventually uploading photos and maybe a logo later on. For a quick launch concentrate on the basics first.

Did I make building a website sound too simple? Perhaps. But, there will be no end to tweaking and site improvement as you get your name out there. This means that as your business grows you’ll want to turn the responsibilities of website design and management to someone else, either to a knowledgeable employee or to a competent vendor. In any case, you now have a website that you can call your own with more people starting to find you online than ever before.

See Also — Is Your Website Working For You?

If you have a blog up and running, you may have found that it is not drawing as much traffic as you would like, or that any initial spikes in traffic have not been followed by steady and consistent traffic to your pages. If this is the case, a blog makeover may be what you need to refresh your design, optimize your content so that it can be more easily found, and make your blog easier and simpler to navigate. The better your blog design, the longer visitors will want to stay on your website and engage with what you have to offer, so a good blog design is crucial.

1. Consider why you want to redesign your blog

A common mistake made by bloggers is to overhaul a blog that was already perfectly good and simply needed tweaking to make it better. When you are using a blog frequently it is easy to become tired of staring at the same layout again and again, and you may be tempted to constantly change the design to keep it fresh. Resist this urge – the consistency of your blog layout can be a point in its favor, helping to reinforce your branding and visual identity in the minds of your visitors. Ask yourself why you want to makeover your blog – if it is for purely cosmetic reasons, you should perhaps settle for minor tweaks, rather than a total overhaul. If, on the other hand, you are undergoing a rebrand, appearing in a major news source, or want to give your blog a more professional and corporate appearance, make sure this goal is clear when you go about designing.

2. Define your ideal site visitor and what they want

When formulating the new design, go back to basics and think about who your blog is really for. Try to determine what the age range, gender, likes, dislikes and habits of your ideal audience is, and work out how you are going to tailor the website to hook them and keep them interested. Identify what will set your blog apart and what its unique selling points are – your re-brand should make the most of these. Make sure that you have a plan going forward for consistent and high-quality posts – if you don’t have these, your design will be worthless. Make sure that every post has a gripping and compelling headline.

3. Go through the makeover in stages

While it may be tempting to make all the changes at once, it is far safer for you to stage the changes in a subfolder and gradually transition to the new design. There are several plugins for WordPress which enable you to make a staged blog within a subdomain; or you could simply copy your whole blog to a new domain. This will allow you to work through any design or technical issues before going live, so that you do not disrupt the visitor experience.

4. Get feedback on the new design

Before putting the new design live, test it out on some regular visitors to your blog, as well as users with experience in good design and layout, to make sure that your blog looks good and is easy to navigate. Ask them to identify any obstacles or points of difficulty, and ask them for suggestions to improve the design.

5. Monitor your analytics

Once the site is live, keep a close eye on your visitor statistics. Monitor your bounce rate to see if there are any sticking points in the design and check whether the duration of visits to the blog goes up or down. If users are leaving more quickly, there may be issues with your blog layout that need to be addressed.

Author Information

Sam Mauzy is a blogger who is also a contributing writer for Invesp, a conversion optimization service that helps clients see the average site conversion rate and identify where their site is currently at. Once the kinks in the sales funnel have been identified, improvements in conversion optimization can begin.

Guest blogging is a mixed bag for most of us — we don’t mind providing the occasional well-written article to another website in a bid to procure a nice juicy backlink to our own site. On the other hand, when accepting a guest article for a blog or website, not a few times we’re challenged with finding content that not only shines, but adds value to our sites.

Article Distribution

I recently finished writing more than two dozen articles that I purposely gave away as content for other websites. Those articles ranged in length as well as in depth of research, and were picked up by bloggers and website managers for sites of varying degrees of significance. I used MyBlogGuest to market all but five of these articles, sending the remainder to a website owner I was in contact with directly.

Over the past two years, I have also posted well over 200 guest articles to various blogs and websites that I manage. Each article has to meet certain standards and those requirements vary from site to site. Still, there are some essentials I require before an article can be posted. Read on and I’ll share my guest blogging basics regardless of website:

1. Articles must be relevant — If I am sourcing articles for a college and career website, then those articles must appeal to my readers. No reader wants to read a rehash of some “how to decorate your dorm room” article. What they are interested in is where you help them to solve a problem or at least make them aware of a problem such as campus security. Fluff pieces, even if well written, are basically useless.

2. The writer must know his/her stuff — I like to think that I can write about most any topic. However, there are some subjects I avoid. For example, a number of years ago I was approached by someone who wanted me to write about hair extensions. Now, I could have completed much research and come up with some basic information, but I told the inquirer that I believed that she would be best served by a woman and one familiar with hair extensions. I’ve had to reject several articles where the writer’s knowledge about a particular genre was lacking, inaccurate or both.

3. Give it some length – One writer proposed submitting an article that was just 250 words long. I turned him down. My minimum word count is 400 words or just enough to form an idea and to make a point. Ideally, articles of 500 words or more are better suited, offering detailed information and assistance. I routinely write articles ranging from 600 to 800 words with articles exceeding 1,200 words not too uncommon. Forcing word count is not what I am advocating as clarity and brevity trump are of importance.

4. Follow style guidelines — One website I manage has detailed style guidelines as it is primarily a news website. My contributors also follow the AP Stylebook with an occasional Chicago School of Manual article accepted for academic works. Why? Because I have set a threshold to discourage random bloggers and to encourage articulate writers. It has worked too as this site is often cited and attracts the highest caliber writers. For my other sites, general writing rules apply and I make that known before I encourage anyone to contribute.

5. Make a pitch, please — I mentioned MyBlogGuest earlier as a great way to find bloggers. If your site is established, has good traffic and is considered authoritative, then you’ll get inquirers too. This is what I want people to do when they make a pitch to me: know my site. Read my articles. Get a feel for what other guest writers contribute. Come up with an original story or at least an original perspective. I am not interested in “5 Ways You Can Lower Your Car Insurance,” a subject that has been exhausted. I might be interested in reading about current insurance scams if that story is fascinating and the information is verifiable. Oh, yes, include citations for me to fact check especially for any information supplied that requires such.

Are there other requirements that I have? Yes, use your spell check and carefully go over your article and make grammatical corrections. I may edit behind you, so don’t be offended. You’ll still get the links you want back to your site and you may come away with an article that is polished, interesting and citable.

See Also — You Can Develop A Winning WordPress Blog!

Photo: Wikimedia

Welcome to the blogosphere! Are you thrilled with your blog or are you looking for more? More, as in increased traffic, better photos and ample ad income? I know exactly how you feel! If you want an effective blog, then operating under the premise of “business as usual” is not something that you want to do. Rather, you must set your blog apart from the multitude to help it shake the blogosphere. You might even make some extra money too!

5 Steps To Better Blogging

My personal blogs have to perform to the point where I want them to perform which requires some dedicated work on my part. But, I’m up to that challenge! So, let’s review some ways that you can build a better blog:

1. Your Traffic — I’ve built up traffic to my blogs by connecting them to several sites that I control. My thinking is this: I might as well take advantage of what I have in order to advance what I control. Additionally, when I guest blog on other sites I am not timid about linking up to my other blogs. Ultimately, I add tons of natural links to each blog, a step that has kept the traffic growing.

2. Your Photos — Most certainly, including images with your blog posts is mandatory and with each entry too. On one of my business blogs, I will regularly contact companies and ask for the right to use one or more pictures that they own, and include it with an article I am writing about that business. Of course with this request I am not about to knock the company, so don’t go down that path if you want to receive their assistance. Many people are happy to help as they see you assisting them in promoting their business, even if you’re doing so indirectly.

3. Your News — Replicating and pasting news releases word for word is a bit much and is considered unprofessional. Nevertheless, citing parts of the news release such as using executive quotes and linking back to the original release is a wise move. I have seen blogs where a passing reference is made to a news release, but the words are purely that of the writer’s. This allows you to harness a trusted news source and put your own twist to the story.

4. Your Themes — WordPress is recognized by many as being the best blogging platform and the amount of themes created by users of this blogging software is impressive. Yet, even the default WordPress theme is rather nice which I’ll sometimes use when I’m first launching a new blog. For other blogs, I like to download an uncluttered, but colorful theme that is easy on the eyes and offers visual appeal.

5. Your Ads — Most definitely, there is no need to overpower your visitors with ads, but operating without ads isn’t helpful either, especially if you are wanting to monetize your blog. The essential Google AdSense adverts can be useful as can any banner ad space that you can offer for sale. The thinking with most bloggers is that you should get paid at least something for all of your hard work!

Personal Sweat Equity

Truly, there is plenty that you can do to shape a more masterful blog. If you want to send your blog to the top of your segment, it does take hard work and plenty of it. Put the sweat equity into your web log and you will harvest the reward of more traffic and greater income. Get noticed by building a better web log right now!

See Also — Good, Better, Best Blogging Practices

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