My girlfriend is not alone.  I receive dozens of emails each week from people wanting blogs and websites created for their “idea” and I can tell at least 75% have no clue what to do or where to start.  The classic signs of this state of confusion are the words “thinking” and “maybe” and “possibly” and of course the phrase “not sure”.  Let’s be realistic here and understand that thinking and maybe and possibly are all wishy washy and they do not equal a plan.  To make money on the internet you need a plan. Without it, you’re blog will struggle and you’ll lose interest and you will inevitably waste money.   I want to give you a blogging plan.

A quick check of Google search volumes shows that over 14,800 searches are done for “how to blog” each month.  That is a lot of people looking for a blogging plan of attack. That also means you have over 14,000 people thinking about or potentially starting a blog each month.  Lots and lots of competition.

My initial thought was to send her a quick how-to guide for blogging.  Then I realized that this should be a teaching lesson for more than one future blogger.   So I’m whipping my how-to guide into a blog post for the masses.

Let’s Walk Through the Process for Getting Started With Blogging

Pick a Topic – You’re blog needs to have focus and it needs to be focused on something you know and love.  If you’re going to right about something a lot, you need to love it with all your heart.  I love internet marketing, but I’m a geek.  My girlfriend is a better example of a real life, nongeek blogger.  Mary is going to have a travel focused blog which is perfect because Mary loves to travel.

Check Keyword Search Volumes – Before you finalize your blog’s focus, you need to make sure people will actually search on the topic.  You may love to talk about your bottle cap collection, but it won’t generate any revenue if no one actually searches for terms related to your bottle cap collection.  A quick visit to Google’s Adword Keyword Tool will provide an excellent source for keyword research and finding keywords and phrases people actually search for on the internet.

Register a Domain Name – You need to have a URL (www.something.com) so people can find your blog.  There are lot of extensions available, but I tend to stick with the .com group.  Few .com URLs are available because so many people are holding them hostage.  Be creative, be unique, and if needed use dashes.  I register my domains at GoDaddy.  Search the internet for GoDaddy deals and coupon codes, but remember not to host at GoDaddy.  They’re good for domain registration, but not so great at actual hosting.

Pick a Blogging Platform – If you’ve ever been to my website before, you already know I’m a WordPress girl through and through.  There are other blogging platforms available, but WordPress is by far the best.  You can go 100% free via WordPress.com, but you will be limited on your capabilities.  You can go down the path of WordPress.org and have a world of opportunities available to you.  You will have to self host your blog, but this is easy once you realize there are great hosting companies that do everything for you.

Pick a Hosting Company – Like my allegiance to WordPress.org, I am also a firm advocate of Blue Host.  They offer one click WordPress installs, have great performance, and their technical support team is top notch.  I have literally had to stop the technical team and explain I don’t need education on WordPress, because I’m a website designer.  But the gesture is appreciated and their response time and performance applauded.

Pick a Blog Theme – As with everything else in my life, I am very opinionated here too.  Do not be fooled into thinking free WordPress themes are all you need.  Not only are they generic, they can come with hidden code that links to nasty websites.  Invest in yourself and your blog by picking a solid WordPress theme.  These would be called premium themes.  My favorite (I stress favorite) premium theme provider is StudioPress.  Their Genesis framework is functionally robust and has great performance.  It is all we use at my firm when we create custom themes for websites and blogs.  Should you not find what you want at StudioPress, you can visit ThemeForest.net to find hundreds of WordPress themes from a slew of theme developers.  Be careful though, because not all ThemeForest designers will live up to the technical support provided by the StudioPress team.  Some are very good and others not so much.  Expect to pay at least $30 for a premium theme that is off the shelf and about $1,500 to $5,000 for a custom theme.

Remember Images Matter – A blog needs some eye candy and images are that eye candy.  Images help break up the text and they add depth to the posts.  I like to use BigStockPhoto.com and iStockPhoto.com.

Pick the Right WordPress Plugins – WordPress is awesome, but WordPress plugins extend this awesomeness exponentially.  Not all plugins are good and some are just stinky.  Once I find a good plugin, I tend to use it over and over again for client websites.  My favorite ones include:

• Akismet – The rock star of spam fighters.
• All in One SEO – Easy to use tool for search engine optimization.
• Contextual Related Posts – Provides a list of related blog posts based on content.
• Digg Digg – Easy to use share buttons for content distribution.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Produces a list of content for the search engines and updates them when new content is published.
• Gravity Forms – A premium plugin that makes form create simple.
• NextGEN Gallery – Easy to use image grouping and display.  Don’t forget to add a lightbox.
• Robot.txt – Protects your WordPress core files from search engine indexing.
• Subscribe to Comments – Great for user engagement.
• Taxonomy List Shortcode – Good plugin for creating a A-Z index of your blog topics.  You can see an example of this by clicking on the link in my sidebar.
• WP-DBManager – Back up and database optimization all in one.  Yes you do need to optimize your database.  It’s kind of like brushing your teeth WordPress style.
• SEO Smart Links – Creates automatic hyperlinks to your pages, posts, categories, and tags.
• Outbound Link Manager – Easy way to manage outbound (aka affiliate marketing) links in one page.

Connect With the Search Engines – Submit your XML sitemap (see plugin above) to Google and Bing.  They both have some version of Webmaster Tools available for this process.  Take the time to establish an account and then check back for errors or messages.  Google and Bing have lots of information available, so explore and return often.

Find a Revenue Stream – Your blog should make money.  If you’re good at blogging, you can make lots of money.  You need to sell a product, service, or have ads.  With the help of Google and the affiliate marketing network, getting advertisers is easier than you think.  You can use the Google Adsense program to have their network of advertisers matched up to your content or you can go the affiliate marketing route.  Affiliate marketing refers to placing ads on your blog and you are paid for each impression, click, or action resulting from your ad.  Google has an affiliate network and other popular ones are ClickBank and Share a Sale.  Pick one or more, but have a plan to generate revenue.

Use Email Communication – Stay in touch with your readers and give them a reason to come back to your blog by emailing them regularly.  You can use a free service like Google’s FeedBurner to automatically update subscribers when you publish a new blog post or you could create custom newsletters with email campaign software from Constant Contact or Bronto or Mail Chimp.

Become a Social Media Goddess – Social media does work and it is more than a buzzword.  These days everyone thinks they are great at social media although in all fairness, few really are.  Just remember the goal is to connect with people and engage them.  To succeed you just need to be honest, be open, and be present.  Use YouTube, Facebook Pages, Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn.  Every time you publish a new blog post, it should be shared via the social media websites.  Just don’t forget to read through some social media best practices and blunders before you start posting.

Analyze Your Traffic – Huh?  This simply means pay attention to how many people come to your blog and watch what they do once they get there.  Google Analytics is a free tool that has a ton of functionality, data points, and graphs.  It will show you how many people visit your blog, where they come from, what keywords they search one, how long they stay, and even what pages or posts make them leave.  Learn from the data and improve your blogging to improve your traffic and activity.

Give Yourself a Break – Blogging success does not happen overnight.  You need to find your blogging mojo, get yourself in a rhythm, and learn what works and what doesn’t work.  Don’t expect to see 1,000 hits a day in the first month.  Be patient and be thorough and you will succeed.

Will Mary Succeed at Blogging?

I’m about 99% confident my friend will do just fine.  Mary is smart, has an MBA, and is quick witted.  She is also determined.  I’ve known her for well over ten years and I know this – if Mary sets her mind to something she will succeed.  And darn it she better.  Mary has a living girlfriend’s guide to blogging in me and I won’t let her fail.

We All Make Mistakes

Very few clients have Scott’s thirst for knowledge.  They don’t understand it, or care, or have the time to listen to me ramble about SEO and website design.  Their confident my team will manage go-live and do so properly.  And we do, because we have a project plan that we walk through and I check off as the project progesses.  But not every web design firm or SEO consultant uses a checklist or project plan.  They miss things and these “things” become opportunities for their client’s competition because it is the little things that win in SEO and website design.

Three weeks ago I was researching competitors of a prospect and I discovered one of their local competitors had every page on their website blocked to search engines.  Only the home page was in Google’s index and the company was paying heavily for pay per click campaigns.  The company didn’t know their web designer or in-house webmaster left the noindex tag on all their pages.  It was everything I could do to stop myself from calling the firm to let them know.

The point I am trying to make here is that many consultants and marketing firms miss things.  We’re human and we make mistakes.  Not like a doctor leaving a medical device in a patient type of mistake, but pretty big mistakes nonetheless.  If you’re the client or the DIY web designer, you need to protect yourself.  You need to have some education and you should do a quick run through of your website before and after go-live.  And of course, well before you pay that final invoice.

Go-Live Checklist for Web Design Projects

1. Test Your Website Against All Browsers – Just when you think everything is perfect, in walks someone using IE (Internet Explorer).  Older versions of IE have produced many of grey hairs for me over the last few years.  Things tend to break in IE, so double checking the new website in it right before go-live is critical.  While not as buggy as IE, other browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Safari should also be reviewed.  They are more robust, but older versions can also be problematic. My beloved iPhone and iPad are newer arrivals and they too should be checked.
2. Add a Favicon – A favicon is about branding.  It adds a little image to the tab or window of the user’s browser and it is saved with the bookmark in a favorites list. While this isn’t a critical element, it does provide a nice polished look to your website and I have many clients who get big smiles when they see their logo pop up as a favicon.
3. Create an HTML Sitemap for Visitors – Much to my disappointment; sitemaps are ignored by many developers.  I still create one and while I don’t put it proudly in the main navigation, I do try to make it available in the footer.  Most people don’t use sitemaps, but for those of us who are impatient (that would be me) they’re important.
4. Create an XML Sitemap for Search Engines – A sitemap.xml file should be created and placed in your root directory.  This simple little file allows major search engines to easily index your website.  In WordPress, generating this sitemap is as easy as adding a plugin and clicking the generate button.  WordPress will automatically update this file with every new page or post addition or content change.  It is a simple way of reaching out to search engines and letting them know you have fresh content available for their review.  While this is simple, it is many times forgotten.
5. Prepare a Redirect File – The redirect file is the bane of my existence.  It simply tells search engines and users that an old page or post is no longer available and it redirects them to the current page or post.  It is important for usability and SEO.  So why do I hate it so much?  It is time consuming and it is one of the last things we do before go-live.  Not only do we create the redirect file for the client, we generally have to audit their existing pages and provide a cross reference between old and new.  My clients don’t know what pages they have, so I end up becoming an internet detective in my efforts to locate a complete list.  Once you have the list of old and new matched up, you simply add the directory to the .htaccess file.  Or in my case, you use a WordPress plugin like Redirection.  I love the Redirection plugin because I can upload all the links right from a CSV file.
6. Create and Review a Robot.txt File – The robot.txt file blocks spiders or instructs the search engines to ignore certain file folders on your server.  For most clients this generally means keeping spiders out of the WordPress core and theme files.  For others it may identify a protected directory of white papers or files that are restricted.  Simple, yet important for protecting your website and your high value web assets.
7. Double Check Your Submission Forms Are Working – The simple checking of submission forms may seem like a no brainer, but you’d be surprised at the amount of problems that can result from a simple contact form.  Email and forms can work differently from server to server, so you absolutely need to recheck forms after a website is moved from a development server to a live server.  One woman told me her company had broken forms for an entire year after they launched their website because no one remembered to check them.  When inquiry forms are your lead source, this is disastrous.
8. Double Check Your Meta Titles and Descriptions – Yes I know I just blogged about this in my last post (Web Design Ain’t Over Until the SEO Sings) and we’ve really already done this twice, but it I still double-check high value pages after go-live.  I use the toolbar from SEOmoz to view the meta title and description outside of WordPress just to make sure I didn’t miss anything.  And sometimes, the meta title or description that sounded great a week ago sounds incredibly stupid at launch.  So I go back and edit it just to make sure my pages are well represented in the SERPs.  This is where my OCD personality is highly visible and beneficial.
9. Double Check Your Index Settings – Didn’t I do that with my Robot.txt file above?  Well yes and no.  The robot.txt file looks at folders and is server based.  CMS packages like WordPress allow you to block search engines at a site or page and post level.  While we are in development, we have a site wide block of search engines so our clients do not run into issues with duplicate content.  Our go-live plan includes removing this setting.  That being said, not everyone has such as policy and I’ve noticed new websites blocking search engines more times than I have time to discuss in a blog post.
10. Check Your RSS Feed and Sign Up for FeedBurner – An RSS feed is a techie term for a page that lists your most recent blog posts.  You can use this feed to automatically populate other websites or profiles on the internet.  It is a must have for link building efforts.  Feedburner is a service that allows visitors to subscribe to your RSS feed via email.  It is offered by Google, it is 100% free, and it makes a great tool for building engagement.  Some people even show off the number of RSS subscribers they have as if it is a badge of honor.
11. Add Google Analytics – I virtually force Google Analytics on every client.  I set it up even if they don’t care, because I think some day they will care and I want them to have data available.  Google Analytics is a free application that tracks visits to your website and the corresponding activity.  It can tell you where people came from, what keyword they used, how long they stay, and when they left.  Good website design and SEO requires analytics.  Since GA is free and powerful, it makes a great tool.
12. Submit Your New Sitemap.xml File to Google, Yahoo, and Bing – Use Google Webmaster Tools, Bing Webmaster Tools, and Yahoo Site Explorer.  Doing so will not only allow for very rapid indexing of the new website, it will provide very valuable tools down the road.  I use Google Webmaster Tools every week and find it a critical tool for evaluating website and SEO success.
13. Review Speed and Performance – After your website is live on your server, you need to review performance.  You’ll be able to verify speed immediately from viewing the website live on the internet and you’ll receive performance reports from Google via Webmaster Tools.  Remember that speed alters search results and conversion rates, so make sure your website performance is up to par.  If you’re live and you’re living with poor performance, don’t be fooled into thinking it is temporary.  Some hosting companies are just horrible, so get out as quick as you can.

DIY Designers Take Note

Winning (not the Charlie Sheen kind) isn’t easy.   Most people are not like my pal Scott and their minds do just magically sponge up SEO knowledge.

Each week I receive calls from a lot of DIY website owners.  Virtually every time my heart goes out to them, because they’re really trying.  But trying and succeeding are two different things.  Website design and SEO is hard work.  Competing on the internet is difficult and there are reasons why most websites get virtually no traffic.

If you are considered the average Joe and you’ve undertaken at DIY website project, take a moment and reread the above list.  If you’ve reviewed my thirteen items and you only “get” about five of them, you’re setting yourself up for failure.  Take the time to research them further and postpone your website launch until you’ve made sure you’ve thoroughly covered your to do list.  If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the list, then seek out a professional.  The few hundred dollars you spend for the last minute help will be well worth it in the end.

Whether you’re the DIY website designer, a marketing manager, or a small business owner – double check your website and efforts at go-live and make sure you and/or your website design firm have everything in working order.

On Saturday morning I was drinking my coffee, surfing the web, and reading blog posts. Yes I am an SEO (aka nerd) and this is what we do on a Saturday morning. As I explored the web I happen to run across a blog post on Bing’s Webmaster Center blog. I’ll be honest, I don’t even know how I got there but I did and I was happy I did. I started reading a blog post from Duane Forrester. Then I found another and another and I was impressed. I was impressed with Duane and with Bing. It was good content, transparent, and written in a way the average person could digest. All things I love and appreciate.

I’ve been blogging for a very long time. I like blogs and I recognize good blogs when I see them. Google’s blog posts are one of the reasons why I’ve been such a Google fan. I like to know the rules and what is expected of me as an SEO consultant.

Duane’s posts are good and while they are not currently receiving the retweets and likes they should, if he keeps blogging at Webmaster Center, they will in due time.

Recent Bing Webmaster Center blog posts I found of interest were:

• You love links. We love links. Build for the right reasons.
• How To Build Quality Content
• Keyword research: a wise investment of time
• The Power of Local – why small, local businesses matter so much
• Social and Search: A Small Business Primer

All four are things I blog about and care about. I try to get others to read and care about them too. They are elements of good white hat SEO and the big part of what makes the internet awesome.

But why have the SEOs and internet marketers not been tweeting, liking, and sharing this content? I think they are like me and we’ve kind of gotten lazy. We’re getting much to reliant on Google, Danny Sullivan, and Matt McGee. All sources I love, but we need to broaden our horizons a little more and our horizons need to include a little more Bing.

While I am publically apologizing to Bing, I do think Bing still has a huge uphill battle. Bing is still recovering from the MSN flop and still trying to position itself as a true competitor to Google. But it can and I think it will. Competition is good and I welcome it.

Now I just need to get my fellow SEO consultants to pay a little more attention to the underdog.  Goliath (I mean Google), as much as I love it, needs the competition.  In the end, that competition will be good for SEOs, search quality, and the ultimate users.

Search volume inched up from June to July, but this change didn’t benefit everyone. Both Yahoo and Bing lost paid referral traffic in July, while Google rose slightly.

After all the fanfare and money Microsoft threw on Bing’s arrival, the search engine gossip and hall chatter only lasted for a short time. The newness factor appears to be disappearing. This Internet marketer projected this, as I felt Bing was a complete bust. And while I do like Yahoo better than Bing, I still cannot see how either company is going to catch rival Google.

I would like to say the pay-per-click numbers are clear on who will be the ultimate search engine winner, but I cannot do so with the increased in AOL’s paid search usage. While AOL’s organic search stayed constant, its paid search rose almost 5%. I cannot begin to image who these advertisers might be, although my gut would tell me they are new affiliate marketers who are simply going for the lowest PPC costs.

Regardless of my personal opinion, I wonder what will happen as we move closer to the Christmas holiday season and an improved economy. Americans have been locked down on spending for quit some time and I believe we are going to see some explosive search volumes and online shopping in just a few short months. This however, is a whole other conversation!

Source: Image and search volume provided by Compete.

Google regularly amasses between 70-80% of search volume, which leaves little marketing and advertising dollars for those “other” search engines to vie for and actually obtain. Those who know Microsoft, know Microsoft has the funds and marketing knowledge to bring fast and furious attention to Bing. But does Bing have the strength to continue the current excitement? This Internet marketer says no, no way, and even no way Jose. There isn’t much meat to Bing and I fail to believe there is enough to keep visitors excited and to keep them coming back.

When Microsoft’s marketing campaign runs its course and the hype dies down, Bing will be no more than a memory and a lot of money spent by Microsoft. Google will still dominate the search engine market and Internet marketers like myself will still look to Google to set the stage for future search engine development and Internet marketing best practices.