Blogging is a great way to increase traffic to a website and help you rank better in the search engines.  When I suggest implementing a blog to clients, there is frequently some degree of skepticism and push-back on the importance and effectiveness of it.  I get a lot of questions like “What can I write about?” and “How do I blog and get the most out of it?”

These questions shed some light on why so many people don’t blog as they should.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of benefits that these companies are missing out on from not blogging. After some thought and research, here are 14 ways to leverage your blog to its fullest potential.

1. Title Tags

Create an informative title tag 60-70 characters in length, describing what your post is about.  If you want to rank a particular post for a particular keyword phrase, include it in the title of the page and title of the post.

2. Meta Descriptions

Provide a short description 160-170 characters in length to describe the post in the SERPs, including some sort of call to action at the end such as “Show your [industry] awareness by sharing with your friends”.

3. Social Share Buttons

When people read something they like or find beneficial, they like to share it with those around them.  Add social sharing buttons to every post to top social platforms (Facebook, Twitter, G+, StumbleUpon, Digg etc.), making it as easy for your viewers to share your posts with your friends.  This is a great way to acquire backlinks from readers that may not make the effort to link to you otherwise.

4. Social Profile Buttons

Make sure your social profile buttons and RSS feed sign-up are easy to find on the blog.  When people read blogs, they will often want to subscribe and connect with you through your other social channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.).

5. Comments

Enable commenting on each blog post to help entice people to interact with the author of the post.  This is a great way to build relationships with people in your industry, and potential clients.  It also allows you to answer any additional questions that people may have after reading your post.

6. Pictures

“Pictures are worth a thousand words.”  Have at least one picture for every blog post that relates to what is being written in that post.  Users like to see pictures it helps entice them to read on and makes the users reading experience more enjoyable.

7. Use Links

Give users access to more information about your topic by linking to other pages of your site, and other trusted blogs and websites that can help shed more light on what you are talking about.

8. Titles

First impressions can make or break you.  The title of your blog post is your opportunity to make that first impression.  Create titles that are interesting to your viewing audience and that entice them to keep reading.

9. Content

In SEO, original and unique content is king.  Updating your blog on a consistent basis will entice visitors and search engines to continually come back to your site to read more.  Blogging frequently with high quality content will make you a reliable and creditable resource in your industry, ultimately helping you rank better in the SERPs, and can create a loyal following and clientele.  Write good posts that people want to link to, share, and that provide good usable information.  Below are some examples of what types of articles people love the most.

1. Create top ten lists – such as “10 easy tips to help you [insert topic here].”
2. Create resource lists for a specific topic.  Link to sources to go to get more information.
3. Create content that is easy to understand so everyone can understand and spread your message.
4. Talk about recent news that affects your industry.
5. Allow other authors to guest blog post on your blog.  This can help you get links from other industry related sites.
6. Share and create surveys and studies that help people interact with your blog
7. Hold a contest. Contests make great link bait. A few hundred-dollar prizes can result in thousands of dollars’ worth of editorial, quality links.
8. Write about topics and keyword phrases you want your site to rank for, then link to that page from your post.

10. Tags

Use appropriate and relevant tags on your blogs.  This can help you rank your post for those phrases in search engines.

11. Promote Your Content

Generate readership and build a following by promoting your posts on your own personal social platforms, inclucing Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, etc.  Often, you can use social sharing widgets that give you a quick and easy way of seeing how many people are sharing your posts through those platforms.  You can also submit your blog to various blog directories.

12. URL Structure

Use the title of the post as part of the URL structure so it is easy for people to remember and link to.

• Example: www.seo.com/blog/title-of-blog-post/

13. Call To Action

Use calls to action at the end of your blog post, inviting readers to take a specific action.

For example:

1. “Let us know your opinion on the topic and leave us your comments below.
2. “Learn more about {topic} here (link to a page on your site).”

14. Have Fun with it!

Blogging is meant to entertain and provide useful information.  Don’t be afraid to use analogies and jokes to help people relate to what you are saying and endear them to you. Blog posts don’t always have to be serious.  Create articles purely for entertainment purposes from time to time.

Example:  Top 5 Villains You Never Make An Appointment With

Please share this post with your friends and let me know what you think of these tips in the comments section here or on Twitter.  Thanks for Reading

14 Tips to Get the Most Out of Blogging is a post by SEO expert Shawn Barrington. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.

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Bing Webmasters Tools are a set of tools made available to a site’s webmaster by Bing, allowing you to see how Bing sees your website.

Bing Webmaster Tools provides you access to the following data:

1. How often Bing has crawled your site
2. Problems Bing found while crawling your site such as
   1. Malware found on your site
   2. 404 errors
   3. How many 302 and 301 redirects are in place
3. How many pages on your site Bing has indexed
4. How many links Bing has found going to your site
5. How much traffic Bing is sending to your site
6. What keywords are bringing traffic to your site from the search engines.

Bing Webmaster Tools also allows you to submit your xml sitemap so Bing can crawl your site more efficiently and effectively.

What is Bing Webmaster Tools? [Video FAQ Series] is a post by SEO expert Shawn Barrington. For information about our SEO services or more great SEO tips and tricks, visit the SEO.com blog.