Writing a Blog Post

I’ve been blogging for about 8 years, now.  In the bloggosphere, that’s a long, long, long time.  Over the years, I’ve developed a pattern of steps that I follow when I make a blog post.  I don’t always follow it, and sometimes the lines between some of the steps get blurry.  But I always realize that the more closely I follow this pattern, the better my results.

•  Idea

I have a google doc that I keep for my blog ideas.  When I’m out on the web, and I read something that hits me I add it to that list.  If someone tweets or blogs something cool, that merits more than just a comment or a retweet, I post that to my list.  The document is broken into three separate lists, one for each blog I write.  It’s set up with a shortcut on my desktop, and I also can access it from my smart phone.  No matter where I am or what I’m doing, if I think “I’m so blogging this...” I can preserve that thought for later.

Then, when the time comes for me to actually write the blog, I open up that document, and I’ve got a lot of things I can write about.  I just pick one and go.

Sometimes I’ll go out actively looking for ideas.  I’ll check Yahoo’s main page or Google Trends to see what search terms are hot, and see if any of them could be related to my topic.  I’ll go to BBC.com or CNN.com and search for a few of my go-to keywords to see if there are any current news stories I can resource.

• Research

Sometimes getting an idea is its own research.  By that, I mean that while I’m out doing my normal “keeping-up-on-things” reading, I find a great topic that makes me want to write.  Other times, I get an idea from some other situation, and I’ll have to do a bit of research and reading to get some background.  Sometimes, I’ll just have to do a little fact-checking.  In any case, it’s good to base your writing on some facts.  Or opinions...

• Thoughts

Often, my first bit of writing is just actually jotting down some notes.  When preparing this post, for example, I wrote out all of these bullet points.  I just get a few thoughts down, maybe in a sentence, or maybe in a list.  That’s enough to get me started.

• First Draft

Now, I’m ready to write.  I’ll start filling in sentences and paragraphs around those ideas that I listed out in the previous step.  Or, I’ll flesh out those skeletal bits that I jotted down, either from my research or from my first thoughts.

It’s important to me, while I’m in this first draft, to not block myself.  So, I don’t usually pay too much attention to logic, sensibility, punctuation, rules.  I just write. 

Yes, my first drafts are a mess.  You got a problem with that?  I don’t.

• First Edit: Flow & Logic

The reason I don’t have a problem with messy first drafts is that I know that I’m going to clean them up long before the public sees them.  My first edit is where I look the posting over and clean up the logic and the flow.  Top to bottom, does it make sense?  Some posts, I organize chronologically, like I often do when writing a recipe at Mark’s Black Pot.  Other posts may be organized in a more “inverted pyramid” format.  Sometimes, in a more personal blog post, it’s OK to ramble.

• Second Edit: Proofread

Now, it’s starting to make sense.  It’s time to clean up by the rules.  Check for punctuation errors, spelling errors, clumsy sentences, redundancies...  There are a lot of grammar nazis out there, and I’d rather not give them the fodder.

• Third Edit: Keywords & SEO

The next edit is possibly the most important.  I go through the article and tweak sentences to include more keywords.  More of my main keywords, more long-tail keywords, and more keywords to draw people to my affiliate links.  More, more, more!

Another thing to add at this stage is links.  Establishing internal links to other relevant topics that you’ve blogged about before will draw clicks to those entries, as well as boost search engine value as well.  Make sure that you’re including keywords in your link text, and not just saying “click here”.  Links to external websites will also help to establish you as a credible, connected source of information.  You can also contact the people you’ve linked to, and they’ll sometimes mention you as well, spreading the link love!

• Rest, and Re-read

This is a strategy that I’ve just recently discovered, but I haven’t done as much as I need to.  Once a blog entry is written, it’s a good idea to let it rest before posting it.  This does a few good things for you.

First, you’ll re-read it a few hours later with fresh eyes, and possibly catch writing errors and problems that you missed before.  It might not be as clear as you’d originally thought, or there’s a spelling error you didn’t see.

Second, if it’s a very personal or emotional blog post, you can stop yourself from saying things that get too many people mad at you.  While courting controversy is sometimes one way to gain traffic and readers, it can also undermine your credibility if you handle it wrong.

• Posting

Now it’s time to go public!  Copy and paste your article into your blog host and click the publish button, right?

Almost.  There are a few more things I do here.

The first is to find some pictures to include.  Even though I don’t always do this, especially in a conceptual blog like this one, it’s amazing how much a good graphic will dress up an article.

I’ll also, at the bottom, interlink it with my other blogs.  Yes, I do that, even though they’re not always (or even often) relevant.

Also, I’ll find some relevant affiliate products (usually books at Amazon.com) and include those in my blog.  And don’t forget to tag the post.

• Promoting

The final step is to go out and tell the world that it’s there.  I post a spot up on facebook and twitter, with a clever, leading and enticing phrase to draw people there.  I’ll also put it up on a pinging service, like pingoat.com, or ping-o-matic.com, to notify blogging aggregating sites as well as search engines that I have new content.

This is a pretty exhaustive list of steps, and some even might consider it exhausting.  But to do them all each time will end with better written posts, that rank higher, are better connected, and eventually make you more money.






Mark is currently in the curriculum Department of an internet and SEO training company.

Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

How to Use Google Queries to Find Backlink-Friendly Sites

A while ago, I was out cruisin' the blogosphere's main drag, and found another helpful post. This one talked about how to establish quality backlinks.  Much of the posting talked about some pretty typical ideas, like writing and posting good articles, and posting blog comments, etc...  These strategies are pretty well-known.  However, one thing about this article that most other postings have ignored is just how to find the best sites to place your links. 

The genius of this article is in using very specific Google searches to find these sites.  Some of these search strategies kinda fall in the realm of "Power Searching" on Google because they involve more than just typing in words and hoping to get good hits.  We'll talk about these as we get through them.

Directories, Lists, and Vertical Portals

It's important to get your site listed in Directories, especially topic-specific ones (especially vertical portals).  But how do you find them?  Well, it turns out that there are some common factors that these pages all seem to have, and you can use that in your searches to get straight to them.

First pick one of your keyword phrases.  The first part of the search will be that phrase included in quotations (yes, you'll use the quotations in the Google search bar).  Like this:

"outdoor cooking"

This will tell google to search for sites that contain an exact match for the words "outdoor cooking".  If a site has the word "outdoor" and "cooking" but they're apart, in different sentences, for example, then the site won't come up in the results list.

Then, after a space, type a plus sign (+), like this:

“outdoor cooking” +

This tells Google that you want to include something else in the search criteria.

After another space, type: “add url” (and include the quotations), like this:

“outdoor cooking” + “add url”

Google will return only web pages that include both the exact phrase, "outdoor cooking" AND the exact phrase "add url", but they don't have to be right next to each other in the page.  See, most directories, lists, and vertical portals include the phrase, "add url".  But we don't want EVERY directory and portal, just the ones about outdoor cooking, so we include that, as well, in the search.

Here are some other searches that will bring up directories, lists, and portals (use your own keyword phrases in place of the words "Keyword phrase" and remember to include the quotation marks):


“Keyword phrase” + “add site”
“Keyword phrase” +  “add website”

Another trick involves Squidoo.com and their system of establishing lists.  Go to Google and do this search:

“add+to+this+list”+”keyword phrase”+site:squidoo.com

This search query will pull up a list of Squidoo.com pages (many with good pageranks) that allow you to add your site to their list, and, in many cases, even choose your own link text.

Using these searches can save you a lot of time in the most labor intensive part of your linking campaigns, that is: finding the kinds of sites you want to use. 

Mark is currently in the curriculum Department of an internet and SEO training company. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

This Years Hottest Ranking Factors

-Or-

Not Exactly the Billboard Charts


Every two years, SEOMoz.com polls some of the top search engine optimization practitioners and gurus and asks them, "What can you do to get ranked?"  They come back with all of the various factors that they have found to be most and least impactful on search engine ranking.  That data is all compiled and sorted, and presented to you at their site, as a guide to overall value in search engine optimization.

Now, this is absolutely incredibly vital information!  This tells us what to put our best efforts into, what to merely pay attention to, and what we can pretty much ignore altogether.

Keep in mind that these are the opinions of those professionals that are out on the field playing the game, but not pronouncements from those that are making the rules.  Google, Bing, and Yahoo don't come out and reveal their ranking algorithms.  They give guidelines, and leave it up to the rest of us to figure out what the details are.

Still, when a lot of really smart people with a lot of experience put their heads together and give their opinions, I'm gonna recommend that we all shut up and listen!

I looked over the various factors in several categories, and I noticed that many of them overlapped.  For quick simplicity, I merged the categories, and created a list of the most critical overall ranking factors.

• External link popularity - The best links to boost your ranking are:
• Inbound links
• From diverse domains (many other unique websites)
• From websites with authority in your area
• From other relevant websites
• Using keywords in the text they use to link to you.
• Keyword use anywhere in the title tag - Many of the responses added that having a keyword match as the first word of a title tag was also very significant.
• Having a valuable website - This is determined based on a lot of factors, including:
• Unique, substantial content on the page
• A high Google Page Rank
• A high "TrustRank"
• Keyword use in the URL - Especially in the root domain name (eg. "keyword.com").
• Having internal links (from other pages in your site) that contain keywords.
• Having a steady growth in your inbound links, rather than a sudden influx of many links.
• How recently the page was created or updated.
• Keyword use anywhere in the H1 headline tag.
• Keyword use in internal link text on the page.

There are some surprises.  For example, for many years, people have talked about the possibility of the "Age Rank", that is, Google giving preference to domains that have existed longer.  That didn't appear in the list this time.  In fact, it appears that some preference is being given to the freshest content.

Also, some gurus have long dismissed the Google Page Rank as a factor, but it's still in the list, so many others still believe it has value.

Social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter didn't appear to have that strong of an impact on search engine ranking.  However, most gurus seem to think their value is in more direct promotions and immediate clicks, rather than any search engine boost.

The META tags are pretty much ignored, however, the META description is still often used as the descriptive snippet in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).  So, having a good strong and attractive description can still help convince browsers to click on your link, instead of one that even ranks a step or two higher.

I'd encourage you to study the survey in detail, and begin to understand each unique element that combines to give your website the best possible chance for success!


Mark is currently in the curriculum Department of an internet and SEO training company. Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.