In [...]]]> In response to a number of inquiries about How to boost your Search position on Google, here are the three
Top Tips For Marketing Via Your Blog which we cover on our Low Cost Marketing Using WordPress one day seminar.

• Chose a Compelling Title
• Keep It Simple and To The Point
• Tell Your Readers What They Want To Know

In order to boost your search engine rating on Google, Yahoo! and Bing, and make the most of your marketing effort, make sure that your blog posts take account of the advice they give about SEO. SEO is an acronym for “Search Engine Optimization”, and describes the techniques of improving the visibility of a web site or a web page in search engines via the natural or un-paid search results.

In the context of marketing your business, using your WordPress Blog to tell people about your goods and services is a great idea, so you want the most people to see it. This is the way to make Blogging help your business for very little cost, and so get the word out to as many people as possible. A good Blogger grabs the attention of their readers, and holds it long enough to establish an emotional connection, so that they will want to return.

Compelling Title
First of all chose a Compelling Title to grab the reader’s interest and attract them to visit your site. This may be repeated in the content, which will help the search engine spiders correctly rank your site. On Google, the PageRank will determine how close to the top of the search results your site or page appears in the list returned to the user. Make sure your title is relevant to your content and brings visitors who want to know more about your subject.

Keep Content Simple
Once your visitor has arrived, you have only a few seconds to give them enough information so that they can chose that they want to read on. Keep your content simple and to the point to hold their attention, and if possible provide a bullet pointed list near the start to aid comprehension. This will allow them to confirm that they are on the right site for their needs without wasting time reading the detail. It is better to have someone decide that they do not want your content and leave quickly, than have them read to the bottom and leave disappointed.

Give Them What They Want
Finally, tell your readers what they want to know, rather than what you want them to know. That means you have to write to satisfy your readers’ need for information, rather than for your need to tell people about your new Widget making process! Tell them what they will find immediately useful, so that they will feel grateful and want to visit you another time. A happy reader is more likely to buy from you than a resentful one who has had to wade through all your marketing copy to find the nuggets.

A word of caution about taking the optimization too far: some SEO experts will claim to get you to the top of Google using secret techniques known only to a few, for which you will pay a premium. As Google will tell you, deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site.

So in summary

• Chose a Compelling Title to grab the reader’s interest
• Keep your content simple and to the point to hold their attention
• Tell your readers what they want to know, so they will visit you another time

To maximize the potential of your visitors, without spending a lot of money on marketing, apply the three tips listed above and you will satisfy your readers’ needs, help them to feel good enough to want to come again, while aiding the search engines put you it the correct place in the rankings. That has got to be a good deal,and a win for everybody.

Other Resources:

• Google Webmasters Site owners Help
• Google SEO Starter Guide (PDF)
• Click here to find out more about our one day seminar Low Cost Marketing Using WordPress.

It uses a Theme in a directory called Coalitiondocdg, which may be a custom solution, with Contact Form 7 plugin by Takayuki Miyoshi to capture your feedback. It also uses Recent Posts with Excerpts plugin by Stephanie [...]]]> The featured WordPress blog this week is actually a UK government site called The Spending Challenge.

It uses a Theme in a directory called Coalitiondocdg, which may be a custom solution, with Contact Form 7 plugin by Takayuki Miyoshi to capture your feedback. It also uses Recent Posts with Excerpts plugin by Stephanie Leary, which lists your most recent posts with excerpts, optionally limited to a category.

According to the home page, The Spending Challenge is your chance to shape the way the UK government works, and help us get more for less as we try to bring down the deficit. It seems to be open initially to people who work in the public sector, but after 8th July the process will be opened up to the wider public. It is easy to make a suggestion via the site, and the email address is optional, so there is a level of anonymity.

For what it is worth, my suggestion was to allow (or even ecourage) organisations to save money by using open source web applications like Apache, MySQL and WordPress on the national infrastructure to provide a low-cost generic platform for non-critical applications.

To visit the site and see an example of WordPress in action in government click here to visit The Spending Challenge.

If you are interested in adding either of the plugins to your WordPress site, see the links below:

• Recent Posts with Excerpts
• Contact Form 7

You can download the plugins from the links above, or alternatively, if you are in the Install Plugins section of your site Dashboard, search for Recent Posts with Excerpts or Contact Form 7, and the when you have found the right one, click on Install Now.

If you are interested in those plugins, you may also be interested in the Contact Form 7 Widget by Stephanie Wells which allows you to use Contact Form 7 Forms in your sidebars.

It is a bit like the instruction I was given all those years ago when as a newbie [...]]]> Our post last Thursday has sparked some debate around the office about how long a blog post should be. I mean honestly, a blog post should be as long as it needs to be, and no more!

It is a bit like the instruction I was given all those years ago when as a newbie mechanic I asked how far should I tighten a bolt. My mentor, a wily old veteran who had probably been around at the retreat from Dunkirk (or is that Dunquerke?), nodded sagely and then told me (with a straight face) to tighten it until it snapped, and then back off a bit…

As a rule, I always finish a blog post off and then leave it for a few hours before going back to edit down a bit. Usually it just needs to have a few superfluous words removed, and the odd repetition corrected. That is really the same thing, as my old mentor would have advised; write until it is just too long, and then back off a bit!
A quick random sample of a few blogs gives a sample (admittedly unscientific!) of post length as a general guide. The following are average word count per post:

• Techco Support average 368
• Bruce Thompson Coaching average 438
• Guardian Technology Blogs average 665

However if you average up posts from one of the more prolific bloggers, the word count can be a lot higher. Penelope Trunk of Brazen Careerist averages about 1500 words a post, with some as high as 1856.

Now if you think about it, the length of you article reflects the content. For a helpdesk how-to, you really only need to know the problem and solution, so a low word count is appropriate. For a coaching article, more wordage is required, because there is likely some scene setting, to give people the vision, sounds and feelings that they might experience. If you are a worldly wise uber-blogger like Penelope Trunk you probably have a lot more to say.

The advice we give to trainee bloggers who ask the question “How long should a blog post be?” is simple and gradual:

• Aim for 200-300 word to start with
• When confident aim for 400-800 words on a specific topic
• Once you are a veteran blogger, make your post as long as it needs to be!

To check out the blogs we have sampled here, click on the links below to take your own word count:

• TechCo Support
• Bruce Thompson Coaching
• Guardian Technology Blogs
• Penelope Trunk Brazen Careerist

The Institution is Britain’s leading professional organisation for people who work in the development, installation and testing [...]]]> The Institution of Analysts and Programmers has embraced the Web 2.0 concept and changed the format of it’s website to the popular blog format. The site is using WordPress, with the Atahualpa WP Theme by BytesForAll.

The Institution is Britain’s leading professional organisation for people who work in the development, installation and testing of business systems and computer software. A number of PRINCE 2 Practitioners are members of the IAP, and a few hold prominant positions in the organisation.

If you want to see what the new WordPress powerd IAP website looks like click here to visit The Institution of Analysts and Programmers

This week we are visiting a blog which is a wonderful place to draw inspiration if you are a writer or blogger, and highly entertaining for everyone, even if they are neither. It is titled Brazen Careerist, by Penelope Trunk, with the [...]]]> Featured WordPress blog: Brazen Careerist – Advice at the intersection of Work and Life

This week we are visiting a blog which is a wonderful place to draw inspiration if you are a writer or blogger, and highly entertaining for everyone, even if they are neither. It is titled Brazen Careerist, by Penelope Trunk, with the subtitle Advice at the intersection of Work and Life. It contains such gems as “if you want to be an idea person, you should sit down and write an idea first thing in the morning”.

Penelope Trunk is the founder of 3 internet companies, most recently Brazen Careerist, a social network to help young people manage their careers. As an entrepreneur she got a column in a national magazine and started giving advice in places like Time magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and the London Times. Her career advice now appears in more than 200 newspapers.

As she points out in Penelope’s Guide to Blogging, a blog is a great way to figure out what you want to do with yourself because writing regularly is a path to self-discovery. For that blinding insight alone she deserves a visit, but believe me, the rest of the site is filled with the same sort of wisdom which bloggers, job seekers, and Internet savvy in general should be immersed in every day.

Another point she has made in her blog is that personal responsibility is the most important trait of a successful career. This is one right out of our business coaching manual and a sentiment we have been able to identify with in other ventures such as life coaching and presentation skills training.

Would be bloggers would befit from reading Penelope’s post entitled What makes a blog successful? This contains some interesting views about why you should blog; we might even make it required reading on our Getting Started With WordPress training!

To read more from this entertaining blogger, click here to visit Brazen Careerist

First of all, log on to the wp-admin pages using the account details you used when setting up. [...]]]> A common question which is often asked of our support staff is “After Installing WordPress how do you customize it?” So it is about time for More WordPress Configuration Tips, to take you to the next step.

First of all, log on to the wp-admin pages using the account details you used when setting up. In order to make the site your own after installation, we suggest that you customize WordPress by completing the following steps:

In the WordPress General Settings (Settings, then General)

• Set up your Blog Title and Tagline, if not already to your liking
• Set the Date Format by clicking on one of the existing examples, or setting a Custom format; we normally use a custom j F Y to show the date in UK format 30 November 2009
• Click on Save Changes

In the WordPress Writing Settings (Settings, then Writing)

• Change the size of the Writing window if required
• Check WordPress should correct invalidly nested XHTML automatically
• Add any further Update Services to which you wish to subscribe (For more about this, see Update Services on the Codex.)
• Click on Save Changes

In the WordPress Discussion Settings (Settings, then Discussion)

• Check Users must be registered and logged in to comment in Other comment settings
• If You are particularly keen on keeping a tight rein on comments, check An administrator must always approve the comment Before a comment appears.
• Click on Save Changes

Once you are ready for your Blog to see the world (or is it the world to see your Blog?), in the WordPress Privacy Settings (Settings, then Privacy)

• click on I would like my blog to be visible to everyone,
• Click on Save Changes

In the next installment, we will show you how to install your new WordPress theme, in order to change the Appearance of your WordPress Blog rather than the default theme.