Blogging’s Big Four

The old saying about a chain being only as strong as its weakest link is certainly true of blogs.  Each time you publish a post, that post becomes the newest link in your blog chain. Actually, it becomes the first link in your blog chain, because all your posts remain on the Internet, appearing in reverse chronological order.

The chain concept is the secret behind blogging’s effectiveness in helping your company or professional practice get found.  “With blogs you’re casting a super-large net of keywords,” explains Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware. “By nature, blogs have more of the positive variables that search engines are looking   for when compared to a website,” he adds, citing four blog qualities:

1. Content-rich
Each blog post should offer expert information and advice in a professional, easy-to-understand way.  Visual aids such as the font you use, bolding, italics, photos, and charts can all add interest, but the main job of business blog posts is to assure visitors they’ve come to the right place, and to tell them why that’s so.

2.  Specific
Arriving at your blog, Web searchers are on a fact-finding mission, looking for information about what you do, what you sell, and what you know about.  Give them “Just-the-facts-Ma’am” satisfaction.

3.  Relevant
Keywords and phrases in the title and in the body of your blog post help search engines make as close a match as possible between the question and the answer, the problem and the solution, or the need and the product or service. Keep those “key people” – your blog visitors – in mind whenever you post!

4.  Personal
“Though we live with digital technology, it’s still an analog world,” comments Tony Fannin of Be Branded. Great marketing, he points out, is still about humans talking to humans, and blogs must give readers a sense of real people talking. (The essence of my work as a professional ghost blogger is to capture your personality and your message and express that to your customers and clients.) 

Before you hit “Publish” or “Submit”, give each of your blog posts the once-over to be sure that newest link in your blog chain meets the “Big Four” test!