Summary: Do you struggle when trying to come up with the perfect blog post headlines? These blog headline templates (originally published at Jentrepreneur.com) will set you in the right direction.

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The headline of a blog post is often the most important part of that blog post for a few reasons:

1. A catchy headline can entice people to click and read.

2. A good blog headline can incite discussion.

3. A clever blog headline is essential to using blog posts as linkbait; attracting natural links to your blog posts.

Yet many bloggers struggle to write compelling blog headlines. In an effort to simplify the process, I’ve put together a list of 11 easy to use blog headline templates (as well as showing them used in a few samples). Feel free to use them and alter them when crafting your own blog post headlines. (more…)

Summary: Are you the type of blogger who likes to “play it safe,” or do you jump into the fray when hot topics come up in your industry? This post, originally published at Jentrepreneur.com, explores why I love controversial blog posts, and think blogs would be sad little places without them.

Some bloggers shy away from controversy, while others fully embrace it. I tend to be one to embrace controversy, because I believe in blunt honesty and speaking my mind. Some people find that being vocal about their opinions on their blog can be difficult for them. Here are a few reasons some bloggers may choose to take the “safe route”:

1. They’re afraid that their readers won’t come back if they don’t like a more controversial blog post.

2. They’re afraid of nasty comments and flames being left on their blog.

3. They don’t want to be the center of attention if their controversial blog post ignites a viral debate.

4. They’re afraid of alienating fellow bloggers that they’ve built a network with.

5. They’re afraid of the potential of losing advertisers (especially if they monetize their blog with private ad sales).

I won’t say that those concerns aren’t legitimate. But if you want to be successful in blogging (just as if you want to be successful in any other kind of business), you have to be willing to take risks if you want to reap the greatest rewards. Controversial posts aren’t a bad thing, as long as you handle them as objectively as possible and as professionally as possible (and that doesn’t mean you have to be “nice”). Here are some of the benefits of writing controversial blog posts:

1. They can bring in a lot of traffic, including repeat traffic from new readers who share your opinions or like your style.

2. Controversial blog posts often work well as pieces of link bait. They have a natural viral quality about them… if people hate what you say, they’ll link to you when they bitch about you on their own blog; if they love what you say, they’ll link to you to show support against all the naysayers. I know “link bait” has become a dirty little word in some circles, but as long as your posts honestly reflect what you believe, it doesn’t matter what you call them – we’re not talking about sensationalist headlines, gossip, or BS posts solely for links here.

3. They give you an idea of which other bloggers in your niche or industry share your concerns, opinions, and values, and can serve as a springboard into a networking opportunity with like-minded folks. They also give you an idea of people with different values and opinions, letting you know who to talk to for a constructive argument to hear opposing points.

4. Even if people get utterly pissed off with what you have to say in a controversial blog post, as long as you’re careful from a legal standpoint, the animosity will usually blow over.

5. Controversial blog posts help you to build a reputation as an expert in the niche, if you can write both controversially and intelligently. They can even lead to job offers from clients who enjoy your style.

If you want to be truly comfortable as a blogger, it’s important that you be truly comfortable with yourself, and your opinions, first. Controversy doesn’t have to be edgy – it’s about sharing your thoughts on your side of an issue that interests your readers. Here’s how I look at it – if you have nothing to “say,” why on earth are you even blogging?

If you’re tired of promoting your business site or blog using the same old Internet marketing tactics everyone else is using, give these five Web promotion tactics a try.

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If you run a website or blog, you’ve probably heard of the typical list of marketing activities… submit your site to directories, submit your articles to article directories, submit your links to Digg, Del.icio.us, and other social media sites, target the right keyword phrases, comment on related sites and blogs, etc. However, there’s a lot more to Web promotion than simply doing what everyone else is doing, especially if you want to set your site apart from the competition.Here are five Web promotion / Internet marketing tactics that you probably haven’t tried (or perhaps haven’t tried very effectively): (more…)

Summary: When you start a new website or blog, should you write articles solely for search engines, or should readers be your number one concern? Find out how why your starting content strategy can make or break your website.

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A lot of webmasters really have a pretty lousy content strategy in place. Here’s an example (based on a question I recently saw asked on a webmaster forum):

Someone wanted to know whether it was better to write for bots (search engines) or human readers. Their purpose seemed obviously to lean towards making a solid content-rich site. Because SEO is always a hot topic (because frankly most people are either too lazy or too dense to look beyond it for quality traffic sources), you’ll find a lot of information like this around (paraphrased):

“Write for search engines first to get rankings and traffic, and then start writing for readers to keep them.”

I had a total “duh” moment when I read that, thinking I must be on a total idiot binge lately on the webmaster front.

Actually, that suggestion is beyond stupid as far as content strategies go. Let’s break it down into to your two most basic options:

1. If you want to build an authority website or blog in a niche, and have a site with long-term potential, you write for the readers.

2. If you’re building sites only thinking about the short term quick buck (driving search traffic to sites loaded with high paying keywords), then you write for the bots.

If someone had the goal of number one above, but started off with the model of number two (as the forum “geniuses” suggested), the site might very well find itself doomed to failure. Why?

Because if the starting content (which is ranked well and the reason viewers are getting to the site) is nothing but SEO’d-to-death content for those rankings, those visitors aren’t going to come back. The only way to get visitors coming back (necessary if you want to build an authority site of any level) is to always write unique and interesting content for your readers.

Starting off with the wrong content strategy can seriously screw up the reputation of your site or blog even before it really gets going. Don’t make that mistake. Know what your ultimate site goals are from the beginning and tailor your content strategy to the right audience.

Summary: Do you take your online business seriously, or are you setting yourself up for failure? Find out why you need to treat your online business as a real business venture and not a casual hobby (such as blogging for profit) if you want to reap the most rewards and keep it all legal.

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I know there are plenty of “serious” online ventures. At the same time I think there are infinitely more webpreneurs, webmasters, bloggers, etc. who are essentially running online businesses but not taking them seriously as such (and of course I’m only talking about the ones blatantly trying to make money here – a blogger on a personal journal-style blog doesn’t count). Why is this?

I think the biggest problem is that it’s extremely easy to set up an online business, and there’s little to no startup capital required for many of them. Therefore it really is possible for “anyone” to start an online business these days.

However, being easy doesn’t make it any less of a business, and there are a few benefits to taking your online business seriously from the start:

• Avoid legal and tax problems down the road
• The more serious to treat your project, the more likely you’ll stick with it in the long run (and more likely you’ll earn a significant income)
• Others can tell when you don’t take your work seriously, and it can hurt your credibility

Here are a few basic things you should consider doing to take your online business more seriously:

• Register it as a formal business if appropriate
• Keep thorough financial and administrative records
• Invest time and / or money into adequate marketing tactics
• Take the time to do market research on your audience and their behaviors before getting into your online business to begin with

What else do you think people can do to take their businesses more seriously, and what other benefits do you see in doing so?

Is Twitter marketing just another marketing fad, or is marketing via microblogs here to stay? Find out how people are marketing through services like Twitter, and what benefits or damages they may see because of it.

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Whether you’re a fan of microblogging platforms like Twitter or not (I’m not), you can’t deny that there is marketing potential there. There’s actually a lot of spamming potential there. I talked about this recently at NakedPR.com, and whether or not spam will lead to the death of Twitter. Today let’s take a look at types of Twitter marketing, and whether it’s just a fad or will likely be around for the long haul.

How it Works

One thing that makes it tough to evaluate any kind of social media marketing is that single tools (like Twitter) can be used in a lot of different ways for promotional purposes. Here are a few things people are already doing or talking about doing to leverage Twitter as a marketing tool:

• Simply adding links to your own products or sites to drive traffic.
• Adding a link to every site update you post (such as every new blog post) – again to build traffic (you’re not getting the Pagerank link juice, as the links are no-follow).
• Artificially inflating follower counts for more exposure (such as paying people to be followers, using bots, or exchanging friend status with others).
• Buying links in others’ tweets.

Fad or Fab?

FAD – Do I think Twitter or similar services will ever be marketing-free? Of course not. But if you’ve read past Fad or Fab features, you’ll know how I feel about marketing tactics that violate the terms or spirit of the tools or companies being used. It rarely proves to be a smart long-term marketing strategy (and that makes it a fad in my book).

Why? Because if your marketing tactics are going to be actively fought by the tool’s creators, your efforts may prove to be in vain in the long run. For example, all the time or money someone spends to artificially inflate their friend count is completely worthless once the service bans your account if you’re caught.

At the same time, being manipulative when using tools designed to foster a community atmosphere solely for your own benefit runs the risk of damaging your reputation (or that of your site or company). That would be counterproductive to good marketing, isn’t it?

As always, think about the ROI compared to other tactics. Chances are that you can do better. And if you can do better, Twitter marketing (or whatever you’re considering) just isn’t a “fab” option.

After you’ve chosen a niche for your new blog, the next steps in setting up a blog are choosing a blog name, domain name, and Web hosting company. Start by reading Choosing a Business Name and Domain Name for Your Online Business. (more…)

Summary: Learn how to find a niche for a new blog, from choosing general niche market ideas to doing keyword research and evaluating the competition in a potentially profitable niche market. This post is a part of the “Start a Blog in 7 Days” series, designed to help new bloggers launch their first blogs, from choosing a niche to launch marketing.

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When you want to set up a new blog, the first step is to find a niche (a topic) to blog about. How you choose a niche for your blog will depend on your blogging motivations: whether you’re blogging simply for pleasure, to promote something, to monetize the blog, etc.The information here and in the rest of the “Start a Blog in 7 Days” series is designed to help bloggers setting up blogs for their own use (not people setting up blogs solely for making money, where they don’t intend to actually blog themselves – such as setting up splogs or hiring other writers / bloggers to do all of the writing).

Blogging Goals

If your primary goal of launching a new blog is to promote a company, product, service, or person, then you already have your niche; what you’re promoting.

If your blogging goal is to manage a personal blog, then your niche topic is yourself and your life or business.

If your primary goal of blogging is to write about something you love, and you’re not concerned with making money, then you will simply choose something that you’re interested in enough to write about it regularly without running out of things to say (perhaps your favorite local sports team, a specific type of craft, a style of cooking, a hobby, etc.).

What poses a bigger problem for new bloggers, or experienced bloggers launching a new blog, is how to find a niche for a new blog where the goal is to treat it as a business (or at least supplemental income stream). Let’s talk about finding a profitable niche for blogging.

Factors When Finding a Profitable Niche for Blogging

• If you plan to use contextual ad networks (like Google Adsense), you’ll need to find a niche with a good selection of keyword phrases that are heavily searched for as well as ones that have a good bit of advertiser competition (advertisers will pay more for the clicks).
• No matter how you choose to monetize your new blog, traffic will play an integral role (the more traffic, the more potential clicks; the more traffic, the more private advertisers will pay, etc.). You have to find out if there’s truly a big enough need for information in niche to keep traffic coming. You’ll also need to evaluate the level of competition (if a niche market is over-saturated, it can be much more difficult to rank well in search engines and steal a decent-sized piece of the niche traffic pie).
• You should always choose a niche that you’re passionate about when launching a new blog, even if your primary goal is to make money blogging. Blogs aren’t like static content sites (if you’re using them in their true sense and not just using a blog platform to launch a content site). You don’t just put a few posts up and leave the site alone. Blogs are designed to be regularly updated, and if you’re not interested in the subject matter, you’ll find yourself discouraged (especially in the beginning when earnings can be quite low) and you’ll risk running out of blog post ideas fairly quickly.

What are you Passionate About?

The best place to start when learning how to find a niche for a blog is to sit down and write a list of everything you’re passionate about – your work or area of expertise, your hobbies, your favorite places, etc.

Go through that list several times narrowing it down to just a handful of topic ideas that you love, where you think you can come up with enough post ideas to get you at least through your first year (if you think it would be unlikely that you could post once per day, or close to it, without running out of ideas, delete a niche idea from your list).

Once you have a few ideas bouncing around in your head, it’s time to do some keyword research and to evaluate the competition to determine which idea would make for the most profitable niche that you could maintain an interest in blogging about.

Keyword Research and Market Research

I find that Google’s Adwords Sandbox tool is an excellent resource for keyword research (even if not highly specific) when finding and choosing a profitable blog niche. The process is simple:

• Enter one or more keywords or keyword phrases to check (if you’re interested in cooking for example, you might search for cooking, recipes, or more specific phrases such as low-fat cooking, low-carb cooking, holiday recipes, etc.).
• Google will return a list of related keyword phrases (including the ones you’ve entered) – meaning it’s a keyword suggestion tool as much as a keyword research tool for search and advertiser information.
• The Adwords Sandbox doesn’t give exact search numbers, but instead a bar showing search frequency, and another showing advertiser competition. The concept is simple: you should preferably want keywords ranking high in both areas.
• If it looks as though there are a good number of keyword phrases available in the niche you’re interested in, you may be onto something. Now do a Google search for some of those keyword phrases, and look at the number of results being returned (search in quotes for multiple word phrases to find exact matches).

In an ideal situation you’ll find a topic that you’re passionate about, which gets a lot of monthly searches, which has a good bit of advertiser competition (if you’re using contextual ads), and which doesn’t have an obscene amount of competition.

Is Your Niche Narrow Enough?

If you’re really interested in a niche, but you’re finding a lot of competition, you can always consider narrowing your niche. For example, if you were interested in writing about holiday recipes, you would find that Google returns one and a half million results for that search phrase. You can narrow it down more by choosing topics such as “Thanksgiving dinner recipes” (which has around 25,000 results), “easy holiday recipes” (with around 67,000 results), or better yet “vegetarian holiday recipes” (with just over 1000 results returned).

If you really still wanted to go with the more general niche for the blog, a good strategy would be to create categories or sections of your new blog to take advantage of more specific niches within your larger choice (like categories for the niche examples given above).

At the same time, if you find that there is almost no competition at all for a niche, it may be because there isn’t enough interest to make it profitable. In that case, see if there’s a way you can expand the niche to a larger topic encompassing the narrow niche you’d like to cover.

Before you start thinking about the technical side of blogging (where to host your blog, what blog platform to use, etc.) or your blog’s overall content strategy, make sure that you’re comfortable with your blog niche choice.

In this seven-part / seven-day series, I’ll be walking you through the steps of launching a new blog. This is set up in a seven day set for those who can’t devote a lot of time up front. Others will be able to complete all of these steps in a matter of hours (something I actually do myself periodically).

The seven day series on launching a new blog will generally target newer bloggers rather than more experienced and advanced bloggers. The topics will include things like:

• Choosing a niche
• Choosing a name / domain name
• Hosting options for the blog
• Coming up with a blogging / content strategy
• Preparing startup content
• Launch marketing and other blog promotion
• Encouraging reader interaction

Be sure to check back tomorrow for our first post in the series on niches and naming your blog.

EDIT: You can access the full list of posts in the “start a blog in 7 days” series here (as they’re published):

Day One: How to Find a Niche for a New Blog
Day Two: How to Choose a Name, Domain Name, and Web Hosting Company
Day Three: How to Create a Marketing Plan for Your New Blog
Day Four: Creating a Content Strategy for Your New Blog
Day Five: Creating Start-Up Content for Your New Blog

Many businesses, large and small, are setting up corporate blogs (or business blogs). Corporate blogging is still relatively new as a marketing, PR, and business communication tool. Is corporate blogging right for your business? Consider some of these benefits of corporate blogging when deciding to blog or not to blog “officially” through your company.

• Corporate blogs are a way to disseminate important and timely information to your visitors, customers, or other audiences about your company, before that information is sent out by someone else (and more directly than using a press release alone). This allows the company to appear more transparent with members of their market.
• Blogs offer benefits over other social mediums of connecting with a target audience due to the fact that editorial control (over posts and comment approvals) is in the hands of the company or their blogger.
• A corporate blog allows the company to be officially represented by an authority individual (CEO, other executive, etc.).
• Blogs are a natural networking tool, allowing a company and its owner to network with others in their industry (which can lead not only to connections, but also backlinks leading to targeted traffic and greater exposure).
• Blogs are usually updated fairly often, which search engines love. A well-optimized blog can help to draw in additional search engine traffic that might be interested in what the company has to offer.

Corporate blogging isn’t for all companies. Not all owners, CEOs, or executives are good bloggers naturally, and not every company will realize every benefit of business blogging. As with all things, know your market / audience, and tailor your efforts to them.