Writing effective blog entries and other discoveries this week

I stumbled on a great piece about writing effectively for blogs this week when I was working on helping my husband and a client learn to write content that positions their blogs for the ultimate, quick indexing.

Basically, this is what it boiled down to for them. (I wrote up a tips and tricks sheet based on this for my clients):

• Base the blog entry on one or two keywords. This will help Google and other indexers know what your writing is about and make it available to those who use those keywords for search terms.
• If you can afford to, use a service with a monthly fee as a blog platform. I advise customers to use Typepad. (I have worked to set up many custom blog designs on this platform and find it's easy to use for even the most hesitant computer users.) These sites index well and use "excerpts" and "keywords" fields to optimize search engine submission. There is even an option in the set-up that allows for automatic submission to Google and Technorati.
• Use linked text wisely. That is, be sure that your words are linked, rather than using commands like "click here" to contain your links. Linked text and bold text are highlighted terms (keywords in your blog) that let the "bots" behind search engines.
  
• Use alt tags for images. When you place an image in your blog, be sure to include an alt tag. That's the text that appears when a user hovers over a photo or image online and another place that search engines use to detect keywords for blog entries.

It takes a little adjustment to write in a style that focuses on a keyword-based blog entry, but once you get the hang of it, it's like second nature.