Looking for blog recommendations

I actually teach a blogging class at the National Press Club and I use my blog (rrthoughts.com) as an example. The best advice is to start linking and networking with blogs you enjoy reading and see if you can get some cross-linking going.

As for search engines, my best advice is to keep headlines short and to the point as well as use the subject in the headline that will best fit the post.

I'm happy to talk further about this if you want.

Rob

Personal Branding Blog
www.personalbrandingblog.com

Problogger
www.problogger.net

Conversation Agent
www.conversationagent.com

Marketing Pilgrim
www.marketingpilgrim.com

As a blogger (www.silverbrowonfood.com) I feel like I should be ashamed to say that the non-food blogs I read the most are MSM blogs especially those on the BBC, Financial Times, The Times and Daily Telegraph.

All of them are good at regularly updating their content and making it relevant and complementary to what is in the papers/on tv or radio.

The one thing that annoys me on any blog, whether MSM or not, is when authors fail to understand blogs are about a conversation - and often not everyone agrees in conversations. People shy away from discussion - especially as it gets heated. A problem I've noticed especially on food blogs, where some assume it is a cozy world where everyone is just *super friendly* and comments will never get any more analytical than "hmmmmmmmmm"

It takes quite a bit of effort to get a conversation going. You need two hundred fifty regular readers in order to have twenty five people willing to post - and by the time they self-select for the topics they are interested in, you might get the five people necessary for a conversation.

Or not. Not everybody reads every blog, every day, and people are reluctant to post comments to an old blog post.

So it is VERY important to post regularly. If you post 365 days a year, you get people in the habit of checking out your blog every day. If you post 52 times a year, people will tend to forget to stop by. If you post five times this week, then miss three weeks before you post again, you lose ALL your regular readers.

The best blogs are written by people who post about subjects they are passionate about, especially if the posts are somewhat controversial. Write a post about testing in the schools, or how to make the best BBQ sauce, and everybody and his brother will want to post a comment, because they all have opinions.

Write a post about your cruise to Antarctica, illustrate it with really killer photographs you took, and you might find that you get a lot of readers sending their friends to take a look, because they envy you - but they aren't as likely to comment, because they feel they have nothing to say.

You'll notice, of course, that you got several people to reply to your post here....

I recently sold the business where I had my old blog, so I've started anew, at canthook.com

I violate several rules - for instance, there are a variety of topics, although many of the posts are either reviews (both book reviews and product reviews) or else comments on current events. That makes it harder to build a regular audience.

On the other hand, I tend to use a lot of graphics. Masses of gray are really hard to read, and I think the graphics not only make it easier to read, but they might draw in people interested in the subject, which isn't always apparent in the first paragraph.

If you don't use plentiful graphics, make sure your first paragraph "hooks" the reader, and split up what you write into short paragraphs.

I am a PR pro (yes, I have an angle) and wold like to see if it's possible to include a blog or two about how the Commercial Real Estate industry is one of the slowest market segments to embrace energy efficiency and sustainable practices in existing buildings. Although sustainability programs such as LEED have gained traction in new construction, this is a fraction of the total square footage of the total commercial building stock in the U.S. This is due to some unique circumstances present in existing commercial real estate that have created significant financial barriers to the adoption of sustainability.

Keeping all this in mind, one of my clients has figured out a way to not only retrofit commercial buildings to make them VERY energy efficient...this company can do it with no upfront cost to the buildig owner.

THIS IS NOT BEING DONE BY ANY OTHER ORGANIZATION IN THE COUNTRY.

They got some street cred with some articles from The Washington Times, Entrepreneur and Commercial Property News (links are noted below).

> The Washington Times: http://washingtontimes.com/article/20080313/BUSINESS/406244190/1006

> Entrepreneur: http://www.mundaymorning.com/images/clientnews/EntrepreneurMarch%202008.jpg

> Commercial Property News: http://www.cpnonline.com/cpn/content_display/business-specialties/technology/e3i86d84cb514d0b96978bf7338de1c9497

Let me know if you're interested in pursuing this and if there is ANYTHYING I can do to help.

Thanks!
Narciso

Hi

I speak and write about blogging amd RSS feeds for Search Engine Strategies. We teach bloggers the basics of search and linking and coach them once they begin blogging.

Good examples:

Skin MD Natural for use of RSS feeds for SEO purposes. They went form nowhere to page one on a few search terms due to adding content into feeds. some companies are sitl wary of the loose nature of blogging and so they prefer to do feeds.

Theh GM blog FastLane is a good example of a company that 'gets' the conversation. So is Sun Microsystems.

One aspect blogging really helps with in Search ranking is that it creates a cloud of content that gives you good search visibility on a slew of long tail terms.

Sally Falkow
Proactive http://falkow.blogsite.com

How about this one from Catherine P. Taylor for an awesome advertising blog - she does a Monday morning roundup that is chock-full of must reads:

http://adverganza.blogspot.com/2008/05/adverganzas-monday-morning-picks-050508.html

Tom O'Brien
http://humanvoice.wordpress.com

Our corporate blogs are Compended based on about 20 of our employees blogging.

The entire goal is SEO.

http://blogging.compendiumblog.com/blog/blogging-best-practices