Do You Copy? Five Tips for Writing Small Business Ad Copy That Sells

Many business owners are tempted to write their own copy, but don’t even know where to begin. While most people are better served hiring an advertising specialist to do this for them, there is a sizeable minority that could write their own advertising copy if they only knew the basic rules. If you think you are member of the latter group, here are five simple guidelines to follow for attractive, effective ad copy.

Know who you are reaching. Before you even pull out a piece of paper or flick the ‘on’ switch, you need to have your target customer in mind. What makes them happy? What makes them tick? Most important of all, what makes them buy? Write down everything you know about your target customer and really evaluate who you are trying to reach. You have to have a clear picture of who you are trying to reach.

Know what you are not writing. Many people waste their time trying to make everyone happy, ignoring the simple fact that you can’t please everyone. This is a sure recipe for advertising failure, and even business failure. Once you have determined your target audience, focus on them, even if it means completely forgetting everyone else. Think about their taste, their sense of humor, and what makes them want to buy a product or service like yours. If you are marketing to teenage girls, disregard what their grandparents might think.

Be catchy. Modern consumers are inundated with advertisements, so it will take a lot to get their attention and keep it even for a few seconds. This means you may have to be brutally honest, a little humorous, and as short and sweet as possible. Feel free to use off-color jokes or double entendre if that’s what your audience would appreciate. The most important aspect of your ad is how memorable it is. Without that, even the best message will be lost in the jumble of modern life.

Be honest. Don’t lie about your product or make claims you can’t back up solidly. Your customers will not shop somewhere with zero credibility, so protect yours like it’s the crown jewels. It just may be the secret to your small business’s success. Ensure you do not make the common advertising mistakes that most startups do.

Be speedy. The average ad space allows just enough room for a condensed message, so distill what you want to say into the few words that you are allotted. Don’t be fooled into thinking that ‘more is more’ in this area, either. Most consumers will lose interest in just a few seconds, so you might as well save your money by keeping your advertisements to the bare minimum. If you are catchy enough, that’s all you will need, anyway.

Writing ad copy is definitely a job for a seasoned professional, but if you follow these five guidelines you should be able to write an ad that draws in your audience. Just know your audience and get their attention, then tell your message as quickly as possible. There are few things more difficult than writing your own ad copy, but even fewer that can give your business such a sizeable boost.

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You’ve produced an editorial calendar, have your writing tools and research sources. But you have a massive to-do list, including blog posts to write, and for some reason the darn things refuse to write themselves. What if you could get them to do that? I have – many times. I can’t tell you why it happens, but here are some tips that might just help you get your creative flow on.

1. Consume content. Not only should you consume a lot of content, you should consume a variety from different channels/ platforms:
   1. Print.
   2. Radio.
   3. TV Channels + film.
   4. Internet (print, audio, video).

   Consumption of a variety of content is the primary reason that writing usually (but not always) comes easy to me. Just make sure you’re capable of squirreling away facts for later use.

2. Change your point of view. This can be a physical change or a conceptual change. Move to another room, or put yourself in the place of a potential reader.
3. Take a break. Overtasking your mind, without a break, is the quickest way to squash creativity and become mentally fatigued. Light physical activity gets your blood flowing, which guarantees your brain is getting enough oxygen – something that might be hampered by sitting for long periods. Just getting up and walking around can help.
4. Change modes. If writing what you need to write isn’t happening, write something else. Write reviews, check out writing tools, write some email.
5. Sleep on it. If all else fails, setting a project aside for a night often gives you clarity. If you’ve done all the research, prep and planning you can, letting your subconscious take over frees up the creative side. Given all the prep, I often wake up with articles already written in my head, and simply have to type them up fast before they fade from memory.
6. Try creative exercises. Jason Rekulak’s book Writer’s Block: 786 Ideas to Jump-Start Your Imagination(non-affiliate), is shaped like a block. And it’s packed full of good ideas. Try scribbling down answers to silly or fun questions, doodling or drawing. Write nonsense words that rhyme. Or not. Just don’t impose any limitations on yourself while you do this. You are not writing/ doodling for publication.
7. Eliminate guilt. Don’t think this will affect you? All I can say is believe me, it will. Guilt about something makes you focus on it the matter at hand, not your work. So you’re distracted and cannot think creatively.
8. Eliminate stress. Stress also blocks creativity. Take a micro-break by doing a bit of deep breathing, or turn on some familiar or creativity-inducing music that invigorates you and/or reminds you of good times.
9. Stop censoring yourself. Write what you want first, and what you need will come of it’s own accord. Not letting out what you want will produce writer’s block.
10. Emulate, then diverge. Successful fiction writers start by emulating the writers they enjoy. And over time, they develop their own style, by changing a few elements here and there. This advice applies to other types of writing, including blogging. But if you’re forcing yourself to develop a new style without knowing what it is, good luck finding creativity.
11. Utilize your cycles. Creativity is cyclical. As someone who’s been writing nearly 30 years, whether in my journal or professionally, I know this to be true. Utilize your peak times, forgive your lows. During the latter, you can do non-creative work such as research, administrative tasks, communications, commenting on other blogs or forums. Or you can brainstorm or map out ideas.

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While surfing through the blogosphere randomly, I came across a Problogger post pointing out a reader comment by Jason, about how he (Jason) maintains both a full-time job and keeps up his blogging momentum. Many new bloggers find they run out of steam and lose focus. It happens to more experienced bloggers, too.

Jason uses a point system with different amounts for different tasks. Then he ensures that reaches a daily minimum of 50 points.

If you can maintain such a disciplined habit, it seems like an ideal way to ensure you’re doing something everyday that’s related to blogging. Darren Rowse added a few items to the list. Here are a few more tasks to add to the point system. The numbers in brackets are a suggested point
value for each task.

1. [2] Site maintenance/ fixes.
2. [3] Theme tweaking.
3. [5] Ad placement research and application.
4. [5] Topic research.
5. [15] Key content (tutorials, resource lists) and linkbait articles.

What points you actually assign to these tasks above is up to, depending on how important you feel they are. This sort of method will not work for everyone, but it could help some bloggers.

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If you haven’t explored Technorati, the blog search engine, you might be surprised at what a great tool for bloggers that it is. This short list shows you there is more to Technorati than you might realize, and many of the features are useful to bloggers.

1. Find hot terms: top searches.
   Want to know what people are searching for on Technorati? Check the Top Searches list. If you search for the same terms a fair bit, use the Watchlist feature, which acts like an automated search aggregator.
2. Find hot terms: top tags.
   Technorati indexes blogs and assigns one or more tags for each blog post. The Top Tags tag cloud displays what tags are most common at the moment. This data can change at any time Technorati indexes new blog posts anywhere in the blogosphere. Note that Technorati tags might overlap blog platform categories but are not the same.
3. Find popular rich media.
   Want to know what videos, music, movies, games and other items are popular right now? Technorati scans blog posts – that it has indexed – for links to known “media” sites such as YouTube, IMDB and Amazon and builds a Popular list.
4. Blogosphere search.
   Search for blog posts mentioning a specific keyword/ phrase. The results are displayed starting from the freshest.
5. Find niche blogs.
   Search for blogs falling into a specifc niche category. This is a great tool for building up Top X Blogs lists for a certain category.
6. Track backlinks.
   Use their Cosmos feature to determine who is linking to you. Amongst other uses, this also helps you track blog carnivals you might have been accepted into.
7. Get traffic.
   Once Technorati indexes your blog, that could bring you traffic, especially if you are writing in a popular niche. It’s not guaranteed, but it could help.
8. Spread trends
   That’s “Where’s the Fire?”, not the other meaning. WTF is Technorati’s social voting feature. Submit a brief description of a topic to create some buzz about it. You can include relevant links, so a WTF might bring you traffic. Just don’t spam WTF.
9. Claim your blog(s).
   Let other Technorati users know that a blog is yours by claiming it. You can even put an avatar up if you like, and your bio.
10. Favorite some blogs.
    The Favorite feature simply aggregates the latest posts from any blogs you add to it. They can be your own or someone elses. Essentially, you can use it in lieu of an RSS reader.
11. Customize Technorati tools.
    Use the Technorati API to build custom applications, or use one of the many widgets or plugin tools.
12. Find popular blogs.
    See what sites have the greatest buzz going. Blogs listed in the Technorati Top 100 already get a lot of traffic, but being on the list is sort of self-perpetuating. Or at least it had been, and many bloggers complained that they didn’t stand a chance at cracking the list.

    Then Technorati started applying a sort of momentum measure for Authority. That is, Authority indicates the number of sites linking to your blog, but those links are no longer permanently recorded in Technorati. They’re only good for 180 days. So newer popular blogs now stand a chance of knocking off veteran bloggers.

Bonus Use: Web 2.0 logo mashup random slideshow.
Here’s how to have some real web 2.0 mashup fun. This is completely frivolous, but a bit of entertainment.

1. Sign up for a free Technorati API key.
2. Pick a term, any term.
3. Build a Yahoo! Pipe and use the URL Builder and Fetch Feed modules to retrieve search results for that term.
4. Sort results chronologically (most recent first).
5. Use the Term Extractor module to extract any keywords.
6. Use the Loop and Flickr modules to pull 1 or more images that have tags related to each extracted term.
7. Feed the output URL to a slideshow player such as SplashCast.

It’s quite possible I’ve forgotten something, since there’s a lot more to Technorati than just a blog search engine.

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Having run a few blog carnivals for a couple of months now, one thing I’ve noticed that’s fairly common is that if a new blogger produces a relatively longer piece of “key content”, it’s often unformatted. That is, it looks like one big mass of visually intimidating text. There are no bullet points, no headings or subheadings.

Reasons

Here are a few reasons to use the latter, plus a couple of tips on how. The reason for bullets should be evident in the list below.

1. Eases scanning.
   Makes it easier to scan an article:
   1. Adds white space, reducing text density and also eye fatigue.
   2. Defines information hierarchy, cueing the mind on how to absorb blocks of information.
2. Adds authority.
   Partitioning information with headings and subheadings can improve search engine ranking authority for a page. It’s not guaranteed, but if you are producing lengthy resource articles (aka “key content”), headings can help with rankings. (This depends on other factors, including search engine algorithms.)

3. Eases production.
   Starting with your headings and subheadings when writing a long article to make it easier to produce such key content. The reason is that you have easily definable sub-tasks to work on, not one massive task that seems endless.

What to try

Here are a few options for heading use.

1. HTML headings.
   Try HTML h2-h4 tags for maximum effect. (H1 in most blogging platforms is used for the title of your article.) You can even customize h5-h9 if you prefer, by tweaking the necessary CSS.

   Keep in mind that the smaller the “n” in the hn tag used, the more important it is. That is, your primary subheadings should use, say, h2. The next level of subheadings should then use h3. Follow the hierarchy, as you would with headings in a word processor app such as Microsoft Word.

2. Bolded headings.
   Try HTML bold/strong tags on a line by themselves, followed by a “br/” (line break) tag.

3. Other options.
   Try underlines (solid, dotted, dashed, hairline, colored), colored heading text, different fonts, boxes, colored backgrounds (of the heading text), etc.

Summary

Using headings and subheadings (and bullet lists with bold short phrases) make it easier on your readers’ eyes, easier to absorb information. That makes them more likely to return, since you’ve made the effort to not only make their reading experience convenient, but informative with your key content.

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Blogging carnivals can be a very effective way to promote your website and build links. They’re free, requiring only your time to find and submit URLs to appropriate carnivals, and writing good content to submit.

I’ve been running several carnivals for clients and it gets tedious at times to keep track of submissions. Because many blog carnival hosts prefer only one submission per person per week, it’s simple etiquette to track the URLs you’ve sent, when you did, etc.

If you are running a link building campaign, it’s also good to track which carnivals accepted your entries so that you can link back. (It’s also carnival etiquette, though unfortunately too many bloggers don’t bother linking back.)

Keeping track of at least your carnival submissions simply takes a bit of organization.

Basic strategy:

1. Create two spreadsheets for weekly use:
   1. Track the articles you’ve submitted and where.
      • Column 1: URL of the article submitted.
      • Col 2: Date of submission.
      • Col 3: Carnival name
      • Col 4: Status (accepted or not)
      • Col 5: If accepted, then the URL of the carnival edition.

      Update this spreadsheet whenever you (1) have a new quality article to promote, (2) have submitted an article to a carnival, or (3) have been accepted to a carnival.

   2. Track most recent submission to any carnival. There is obviously a bit of overlap, but this sheet also serves to be an easy reference to any carnivals you’ve previously submitted to.
      • Col 1: Carnival name.
      • Col 2: Carnival submission page URL.
      • Col 3: Homepage of carnival [optional].
      • Col 4: Next edition [optional]
      • Col 5: Last URL submitted.
      • Col 6: When submitted.

      What I do is after a submitted article has been published to a carnival, I clear out the info in Cols 5-6.

   Summary:

   • From spreadsheet 1, I can see which articles haven’t been promoted enough, whether due to lack of enough submissions, or because they were not accepted.
   • From spreadsheet 2, I remind myself to check if a carnival submitted to has published the article in question.
   • I use Google Spreadsheets because they’re easy to use and can be shared teammates and/or clients.
2. Each week, choose 2-3 articles to submit to 3-5 carnivals each. Keep in mind that your blogging niche may or may not have enough weekly carnivals. Do your best. Get creative in the next step.
3. For each article you intend to submit, make a short list of 3-5 keywords/ tags/ categories.
4. Using the first item in the keyword list for an article, search for appropriate carnivals at BlogCarnival.
5. Read over the carnival description, and if you’re article suits, submit it.
6. Repeat this with any of the keywords until you’ve submitted the same article to 3-5 different carnivals.
7. Repeat the process with each article you’re promoting that week. Remember to keep track in your spreadsheets.

Additional strategy:
Here are a few extra tips that I use.

1. If you’re having a hard time finding appropriate carnivals:
   1. Make a mindmap of the article titles to be promoted.
   2. Brainstorm keywords for each title..
   3. Now search for new carnivals for each keyword.
2. Were you accepted to any carnivals? Track accepted submissions in Technorati. Simply type in your blog’s full homepage URL in the Technorati search field to see what blogs have linked to you. (If a website links, Technorati will not pick it up.)
3. Automate the tracking process using the Technorati API and custom code. I use the API features in a custom Yahoo! Pipes pipe to first search for any “Cosmos” links to my blog, then filter the list further by only looking at entries with the word “Carnival”. Unfortunately, due to some glitch, this Pipe only works in debug mode. I’ll release it here when it functions properly.

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You’ve tackled the relatively small task of devising an editorial calendar for your blog, and know where to find research sources. Now you need a good tool to compose articles with. Well if you spend any significant part of the day without Internet access, the Zoho Writer application now works offline. Type up your documents offline, then synchronize with your account when you have Internet access. What could be easier?

Well, that’s the idea, anyway. For now, the offline version only allows reading of documents, not writing. They’re getting to read/write offline, but it’ll be about another month. You will also need to install a browser plugin that works with IE 6+ and Firefox 1.5+ (including Mac).

I use ZohoWriter every day, but mostly for the word count feature, not for actual composition of an article. It can, however, substitute as an free alternative to Microsoft Word. And it exports to HTML format.

For documents, I prefer to use OpenOffice. For blog posts, I use an older version of the PFF (Performancing for Firefox) extension, now called ScribeFire). This PFF/ ScribeFire is incredible because you have the option of running it (1) in a Firefox tab, (2) in the bottom pane of your Firefox window, or (3) in a separate window. If you’re careful, you can run two instances. Just don’t edit the same file in two places or you’ll be crying.

Note that ScribeFire 1.4.2, released in early August, supports Firefox 3. However, one blogger claimed that it does not seem to post to WordPress blogs. I have not tested it yet as I have no plans to swith from the old PFF version. So if you’re running an older version of ScribeFire or PFF, you might want to do a bit of research before switching to a new version.

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Before deciding on who should write for your business blog, you might still be wondering whether your business website should even have a blog. My general answer is yes. Companies with a business website can benefit from having a weblog for a multitude of reasons, including staying fresh in the search engines. Here are some other perspectives:

1. Customer Evangelists offer 7 reasons to business blog.
2. Rohit Bhargava points 5 lesssons he learned while building up his blog and getting a million impressions in a week. Also check out his article 5 ways to improve your blog.
3. David at xfep asks if blogging is a skill worth having.
4. Des at Business and Blogging suggests that it is worth having, since blogging is a transferable skill.
5. To drive home the importance, Mack says that blogging is a strategy for companies, not a fad.

At the very least, a blog for your business can help you establish some authority in your industry. You don’t have to update it every day, but some consistency of posting schedule helps.

If you’re not convinced, feel free to comment here. State your concerns, what you’re hoping to achieve.

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One of the problems with running a business online is the pressing need for fresh articles on your company website – else risk stagnation of search engine results. Writing was hardly a requirement of most business owners, even in the first decade of the Internet. Now, with blogs so popular and so many people saying a business website should have one, you are probably considering it. A good blog can be an ideal branding tool for your company. But who should write for your business blog, and what should you write about?

Maybe you’re too busy, and you may not have a PR department, let alone people with writing skills. What about a comments moderation policy, handling comments, or commenting elsewhere? Should all this be handled by executives, C-level management, non-management employees, or a hired blogger?

If you decide to have a blog, these are concerns you must deal with. Basically, it boils down to this. If you don’t have someone capable of writing regularly – even short summaries – at least 3 days per week, you should either hire someone capable or put the decision to blog on the backburner.

Recommended Reading

Here is some recommended reading:

1. Chris Garrett’s How to business blog without being unprofessional, which is aimed at bloggers who blog for businesses. It’ll give you the perspective of any blogger you might hire.
2. Also check out the Bloggers for Hire blog, run by Jim Turner and Tris Hussey, who run One By One Media. Jim and Tris communicate with a lot of business owners and help them find suitable bloggers. Particularly read Hiring bloggers gaining steam.
3. David Dalka’s Where are the C-level people? which points out that having a non-blogger manage blogs might not be in your business’ best interests.
4. Marshall Kirkpatrick’s Introducing good bloggers and companies to hire them, which is referenced by all the articles in #1-3 above. Marshall writes about how he is currently getting a lot of requests to help hook up bloggers and business owners, and how he’s helping.
5. Liz Strauss’ Successful Blog talks about blogging, developing conversations, and in a general sense is about business blogging.
6. Debbie Weil’s BlogWrite for CEOs offers advice for executives who blog. She’s also the author of The Corporate Blogging Book.

Summary

I know everyone above except David and Debbie, and I know that most of them can help you in some consulting capacity. Some of them are even available for blogging. You can also drop comments in this post, and I’ll do what I can to help you find a blogger, or can point you to resources. (Your email address will not appear in the comment unless you actually put it in the body of the comment.)

We’ll cover what topics your blog should cover in a subsequent article: What is Your Business Blog About. Don’t forget to check out our sister Design blog, which covers various aspects of developing websites and weblogs, including general blogging issues for any type of blog.

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You have a plan for building your website’s authority and have decided that you need linkbait. You’re either going to write it yourself or hire someone. But one piece of linkbait is not always as successful as another. Why? Well that’s what this article is about. Here are some common mistakes that you might commit in either writing or buying linkbait, which will reduce it’s value and effectiveness.

1. Not researching your niche.
   If you are planning a long-term linkbaiting campaign, you should know as much as you can about your niche. That allows you to think outside the box and write completely unexpected but successful linkbaits.
2. Using poor titles.
   If you follow Copyblogger at all, you know that the title of your articles can make or break their popularity. If you’re not good at titles, Lyndon at Cornwall SEO offers 200 killer headlines for your niche for a price that’s worth every cent. If you spend several hundred or thousands on the article, make sure there’s a good title to go with it. If you do it yourself, spend sufficient time doing so.
3. Not giving credit.
   If you “borrow” ideas that were clearly introduced on a given blog, you need to give credit by linking back. Don’t let poor research techniques hinder you.
4. Poor research process.
   If you plan to write linkbait long-term, use an efficient research and bookmarking process for storing URLs you plan to link to. Try whatever works for you, and don’t be afraid to change:
   1. Browser bookmarks.
   2. Social bookmarks.
   3. Text file.
   4. Mindmap.

   I use a combination of these, as my mood or requirements dictates.

5. Not deep-linking.
   Bloggers with no scruples or no understanding of copyright will republish your linkbait verbatim. So deep-link into your existing archived articles from within every linkbait. That way, you’ll at least get some backlinks.
6. Not linking back.
   Just writing a linkbait article is not sufficient. Link back to it from future articles on your blog. Vary the anchor text. Sometimes use the title of the bait; other times use relevant keywords/ keyphrases. This helps both your linkbait and your site gain some authority in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
7. Forgetting entertainment value.
   Provided your linkbait isn’t about a serious topic, you should consider writing to entertain readers. Injecting references to the pop culture of your region can be all that you need to achieve this.
8. Not using storytelling hooks.
   I learned a lot about writing and compelling readers when I spent three months writing nothing but short fiction and novellas. My best linkbaits (read highest Diggs and backlinks) were the ones where I applied storytelling hooks to compel readers through a massive list of items.
9. Ignoring content hooks.
   There are also different types of content hooks you can use, to make your linkbait more cohesive.
10. Forgetting your choices.
    Problogger lists twenty different types of linkbaiting techniques. You don’t always have to write lists.
11. Talking down to the reader.
    Never write as if you think people reading your articles (linkbait or otherwise) are stupid, or at least not as smart as you. Write for peers, always, in terms of tone and approach.
12. Rushing it.
    Trying to write a linkbait in a single sitting will drain you and you’ll grow to hate the work. Plan as many weeks ahead as you can. I was fortunate enough to have one client that assigned me three months of weekly work all at once. So I had lots of time to plan and accumulate references on a daily basis.
13. Poor formatting.
    Not all “linkbait” articles have to be lists, but all of them should be well-formatted for easy scanning. Use one or more of the following typography or visual elements to generate whitespace and break up text density:
    1. Sub-headings.
    2. Numbered lists. Use several, with sub headings, for longer lists.
    3. Bold text.
    4. Italicized text.
    5. Blockquotes.
    6. Images.
    7. Diagrams.
    8. Maps.
    9. Slideshows.
    10. Videos.
14. Link spamming.
    If you have a linkbait list of, say, 50 items, it’s probably fine to link out to 15-35 web pages elsewhere, plus 2-5 of your own archive pages, if appropriate. But if you start inserting lots of links to irrelevant sites that you (or your client) own, you’re asking for nasty Digg comments. Check out Smashing Magazine for other golden rules of linkbaiting.
15. Not doing SMM.
    Social media marketing, i.e., posting to a social news, voting or bookmarking site, is a necessary part of promoting linkbait. Some sites don’t like for you to submit your own articles, so respect that.
16. Not delivering the goods.
    Are you offering quality content? Are you getting angry comments that your linkbait sucks? Maybe it does. This could be due to several reasons:
    1. Promoted in the wrong category of a social media site.
    2. Having a really catchy linkbait title but not delivering what’s promised in the rest of the article.
    3. Having a really catchy title and description on a social media site but doing a poor job in the article.
    4. Poor or no references.
    5. Erroneous “facts”.
    6. Not spell-checking.
    7. Using poor grammar.
17. Not being first to submit.
    It’s a good idea to get someone you trust to submit the article to a social media site. That way, you can control the quality of the title and description. If someone you don’t know does it, they might do a poor job.
18. Not being first to comment.
    This isn’t absolutely necessary, unless you have a very controversial article. In that case, being the first to comment can set the tone for comments to follow. This is a tough issue to describe. You’ll have to judge for yourself.
19. Not hiring an SMM.
    If you plan to do a long-term linkbaiting campaign, you need someone with a lot of friends in their social media profile to do promote your linkbait. That increases the chances of success, if you have a good article. This goes back to #15 above, not doing SMM. Your hired SMM, even if only part-time, should be your primary story submitter. You should, however, change the submitter from time to time.
20. Not enough content balance.
    A blog full of only linkbait might get overwhelming for readers. Use a mix of regular articles and linkbait.
21. Publishing haphazardly.
    Linkbait articles are most effective when you’re publishing them at least once a week.
22. Forgetting to upgrade hosting.
    If you have a budgeting hosting, you’re just asking for trouble. Upgrade before you start publishing linkbait content, especially if you’ve gotten the hang of SMM traffic triggers.
23. Having thin skin.
    The more linkbait you publish and promote, the more likely you’ll get nasty, energy-draining comments, especially on Digg, and sometimes just from stray visitors who feel like making everyone else miserable. I’m not going to expound on the why of it, but if you have thick skin, you’ll get through to the value of social media traffic.

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Blasphemy, I hear some of you saying. Linkbait, if promoted properly on social media sites, brings lots of traffic and, if you’re lucky, lots of links from other bloggers.

But it’s a hit and miss situation that sometimes ends up with overloaded web servers, cancelled hosting accounts, and even lots of nasty comments on Digg, if the article sucks, is poorly categorized, or both. This can be emotionally and/or financially draining, if you’re doing this long-term. A site consisting only of linkbait might eventually turn readers away.

Now, I’m not saying don’t linkbait. As a hired linkbaiter myself, I’ve seen the value of quality linkbait. (And really good ones are not easy to write, despite the sudden explosion of linkbaiters out there.)

But Pandia presents a comprehensive alternate link building plan [via Sphinn] based on a few simple principles. There’s also a really clever set of terms to describe certain types of content and services, and their temporal behaviors.

Consider this premise that Pandia puts forth: Quality content, such as a tutorial, that pulls X visitors per day over a year might actually pull more traffic than an average linkbait promoted on Digg. That is, a page pulling even 10-20 visitors per day, every day, might be far more effective on a holistic level than a linkbait.

Why? Because those 3,000+ visitors over a year might actually be more targeted than a sudden influx of social media visitors. Do you think you can write lots of good content that steadily pulls in 10-20 visitors per day? I’ve had a few CSS tutorials pull in regular traffic, comments, and links for a good year now. A gallery of simple fractal images on one website pulls steady traffic, thanks to Google Image Search and a few links from high PR websites.

On the other hand, good linkbait promoted well can and does pull in massive amounts of primary and secondary backlinks that supplement traffic for a long-time. And the links come early on, which has an effect of pulling future traffic and backlinks in a manner very similar to compound interest. My own feeling is that you want to build a website that has a balance of textual and visual content types.

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If you’re just starting a new weblog, consider that not choosing effective blog categories can affect your search engine rankings. After two years of regular blogging, I’ve made a lot of mistakes re my categories for my oldest blogs. I’m now of the firm opinion that you have to think of each category archive page as a home page itself. You can build some of your site’s SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) authority through your category archives. Here are a few tips for creating worthwhile blog categories.

1. Be broad but descriptive.
   Categories should be broad rather than very specific, but should not be too general. Specificity will come from the keywords in your articles. Fragmenting category topics further means you’ll end up with too many categories at some point in your blog’s future. Picking good categories means knowing what your blog is really about.
2. Don’t be wordy.
   One or two words for a category name is best. You don’t want long sentences but you do want user-centric categories.
3. Minimize categories.
   Limit the number of categories, else you run the risk of having too few articles in each one. There’s no hard and fast rule, but I now try to limit a blog to no more than 15 – fewer if possible. Authority of category archives comes partly from the quantity of articles in each category.
4. Be conservative.
   Only create categories as you need them. If you strongly feel a new article needs a new category, then add a suitable category, keeping it broad enough to represent future articles. If you think that a category will only ever have one or two articles, then you need to rethink that category. Can it be incorporated with something else?
5. Build authority.
   Link to your category pages from within article text, on occasion, even with alternate anchor text. This can add SERPs authority to your category archives.
6. To multi-categorize or not.
   This is a controversial point. I always use 1-3 categories for every article I post in a blog, though there may be some justification in using one category per post.
7. Sub-categories are unnecessary.
   Some blog platforms allow you to create sub-categories under a parent category. This is unnecessary, and sometimes makes your navigation look awkward.
8. Use your blog platform.
   Tags are not categories. No need to use tagging from Technorati or other sites, unless your blog platform does not have categories. If it does not, you could use Technorati or del.icio.us tags (Blogger/ Blogpost-specific). Alternately, you could categorize manually.
9. Emphasize category volume.
   Most new visitors to a blog want to know what it’s about, and they often turn to the categories, hoping to get some idea of how many articles are in each. You can do this by displaying the number of posts and/or using a tag cloud.

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