Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

One Blog Fits All, or One Blog Per Audience?

The Blog Squad just got an email from a client who wonders if her blog, which is about her book directed specifically to women, should evolve now for her second book, which is directed to both men and women.

What do you think about the concept of targeting each blog to a specific audience? For this client, the two books have the same topic, only one is for women and the other for both men and women.

Obviously, that means a lot of overlap in content. So she may be thinking from her perspective, how to save time and energy by having one blog. But she's also wondering which makes the best sense from a marketing point of view.

We always say one blog per audience, but there aren't any rules, only what works best. I always put myself in the reader's shoes. And if I read a blog and like it, and subscribe and come back and buy the book, it's because it speaks directly to me and my issues.

So I say, create two blogs, one for each book, one for each audience. I would even go so far as to suggest that the audience of men might enjoy a blog that is specific to them and their issues. But that might mean 3 blogs...

Your suggestions and thoughts are welcome, what do you think?

7 Stages of Blog Love

Anticipating a little post-vacation blues, I asked creative blog writer Anne-Marie Nichols at The Write Spot to guest blog for us this week. I love her sense of humor, and wonder if these stages are anything like what you've gone through with your own blogs? Sort of cycles, doesn't it?

In response to Nora Ephron's The Six Stages of E-Mail

Stage One: Infatuation
Blogs, how cool! My coworker turned me on to Perez Hilton, and now I spend hours reading blogs at work when my boss isn't looking. Reading Seth Godin's Blog at work is o.k. since it's about marketing and business, right?

I'm exhausted today because I was up until 3 a.m. getting caught up at Dooce, the Huffington Post, and Daily Kos. Who knew there was all this great writing and information out there?

I love blogs!

In response to Nora Ephron's The Six Stages of E-Mail

Stage One: Infatuation
Blogs, how cool! My coworker turned me on to Perez Hilton, and now I spend hours reading blogs at work when my boss isn't looking. Reading Seth Godin's Blog at work is o.k. since it's about marketing and business, right?

I'm exhausted today because I was up until 3 a.m. getting caught up at Dooce, the Huffington Post, and Daily Kos. Who knew there was all this great writing and information out there?

I love blogs!

Blog Design Basics...Notes from BlogWorld Expo

I was alerted to a post by Edith Yeung, who attended our Blog Design panel at Blog World Expo.  Edith wrote up her detailed and complimentary notes about the panel, 50 Habits of a Highly Effective Blogger.

I also have finally formatted the handout that Rich Brooks, John T. Unger and I put together for the panel and you can get it here now. Right click on the link below and save to your computer.

Download the Blog Design Tips

BlogRush Doesn't Deliver for Me

I have removed BlogRush from my blogs. It just wasn't working for me. I had tons of syndication credits but no one was clicking through to my blog posts.

Either I have the most boring blogs, which is possible, or the blogs that are syndicating my content don't have the widget in a prominent place so readers don't see the headlines.

In any case, for the return, it isn't worth the space in my blog sidebars. I know others have had a much better experience and I'm glad for that. Some traffic tactics work better than others and it's all dependent on your blog and your audience.

Care to share your BlogRush experience with readers? Use the comments link.

Marketing Your Blog to Get Known

We frequently get emails from clients and others, asking how to get their blog known, how to market their business blog to get more visibility.  What many people don't want to hear or just can't believe, is that posting frequently (at least 3 times per week) is THE BEST way to attract traffic and new readers. Period.

Search engines love fresh content and the more frequently you post, the more frequently the search engines will index your content and the better chance your posts have of showing up in organic search results.

But many bloggers want some kind of plan or a magic bullet (no such thing) to get their blog known, and there are other things you can do drive traffic. And all together, you may get some more traffic as long as you spend the time implementing the tactics that best supports YOUR blog's purpose.

First, let me direct you to our categories on Blog Marketing and Driving Traffic to Your Blog.  There are over 100 posts dealing just with this topic.  Study the posts.  Things change and evolve so we post on this topic often. Bear in mind though that not every tactic is right for every blog.

In March 2005, we published an article called 16 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Blog. Every single item on the list still stands. Let me add a few more tactics that are not on the list...

The Blog Squad Interviewed at BlogWorld Expo

The tables were turned on The Blog Squad when we were interviewed at BlogWorld Expo by Jim Kukral.

Video shot on a Flip Video Camera.

More Blogger interviews >>>

TypePad adds more new comment features

According to the Everything TypePad blog, more new features are being added to the Comments function.  But nearly a month later, I still haven't seen the last set up upgrades rolled out to my account. And I've been a customer for over 3 years.

When am I going to get to automatically close comments on older posts? And when can I set up comment pagination? When am I going to be able to set up comment feeds for posts and pages? Seems like it's taking an awfully long time to roll out these upgrades.

I'm not complaining too much. I love TypePad and being a long time customer and evangelist for the platform, I really want add these functions now.  Getting comment feeds is something I have wanted a long, long time.

If you have these featured enabled on your TypePad blog, how are they working for you? Do tell.

BlogWorld Expo: John Gaudio

It's amazing how many blog consultants there are! I guess it makes sense to run into them all at a blogging convention.  We met John Gaudio of A Better Blogsite and got this perspective on BlogWorld and blogging.

Video shot with a Flip video camera.

BlogWorld Expo: Anne-Marie Nichols

On Friday afternoon of BlogWorld, we ran into Anne-Marie Nichols of The Write Spot. Anne-Marie is a freelance writer and professional blogger.

Video shot with a Flip video camera.

BlogWorld Expo - Deborah Micek of Blogi360.com

Deborah Micek, aka Coach Deb, runs blogi360.com. It was a pleasure to meet Deb, first at the BlogWorld opening night party at the Hard Rock, and then again at the Expo the next day. Deb is a business blogger and blog consultant and has some great advice for you...

Video shot with a Flip video camera.