There are probably as many ways to tag a blog post as there are to blog in general, but the following is based on what works best for me and for my clients using Wordpress.

What are blog tags, and what are they good for?

Tags in blog posts are short labels that group posts together by single words or key phrases. Using tags consistently helps readers find related posts, assuming your blog theme actually displays your posts’ tags at the end of each post. Tagging blog posts can also boost your blog’s search engine optimization (SEO), depending on how you use tags.

Tags are often confused with categories. Although some bloggers use the two interchangeably, categories and tags have two distinct purposes. I like the way Michael Martine explained categories vs tags in a post last year:

“Categories only live in one place, but tags can repeat themselves and live in many places at once. Categories are like big buckets to divide the information itself, but tags are ways of labeling and identifying characteristics about the information.”

Why tag blog posts if you’re already using categories?

Tagging goes beyond organizing your post by category and allows you to break things down one step further for easier accessibility. Grant addressed blog tags vs categories a few months ago, so I won’t rehash too much. But a few benefits of tagging in addition to using categories can be:

• Better search engine optimization, especially if you use key phrases rather than single words.
• Easier navigation for people searching quickly for closely related posts.
• Less clutter to your category list, if you’re OCD like I am and would otherwise make every tag a category.

The categories on your blog are usually displayed in a sidebar or at the top of every page to help readers find the topics you regularly post about, whereas the tags on your blog might be displayed only on each post itself to break down the topic even further.

For example: I frequently post under the category of “social media for lawyers,” but I have created the tag “Twitter for lawyers” to organize and link posts within that category. In most cases, people who land on my blog and read one Twitter post will click through on that tag and read further posts on the subject. Very rarely does anyone click back through the Social Media category to look for related Twitter posts. I don’t post about Twitter often enough that I think it deserves its own category, so the tagging option serves me well in this case.

How to tag blog posts to benefit readers:

Think like a reader. If you were reading a blog post about using websites vs blogs for lawyer marketing and saw it tagged with something like “lawyers, marketing, websites, tips,” would you care about that? I wouldn’t. Assuming the category is “lawyer marketing,” a better use of tags would be “lawyer websites, lawyer blogs.” Depending on the specific content of the post, you could possibly break it down even further. But don’t go crazy; too many tags can be a turnoff.

One mistake I made when I was first trying to figure out tags was going overboard. I would tag the above post with something like “lawyer websites, lawyer blogs, legal websites, legal blogs, law websites, law blogs.” While this made me a lot more popular with the search engines, my readers were either confused/distracted or turned off by this. I learned the hard way that if you give one or two good solid options, folks will be more obliged to click through to read related posts. (Plus, there’s the added benefit of not looking like an SEO-crazy idiot. Oops.)

How to use blog tags for better SEO:

Think like a search engine. Because your tagged posts will show up in a page of their own, it’s helpful the name you give your tags can stand on its own. It’s even better if the tag name is something people might be searching for.

Going back to my “Twitter for lawyers” example: if I had simply used the tag “Twitter” for those posts, I wouldn’t get the traffic I get from people searching for “Twitter for lawyers.” I don’t get a HUGE amount of traffic, but some is better than the zero I would get if I only used the word “Twitter” as a tag.

Whatever tags you choose, don’t sacrifice readers for SEO.

Be consistent with your tags. Having one or two posts tagged with a single phrase is fine if you’ve only posted about the topic once. But if you frequently post about lawyer websites, you’ll be doing yourself, and your readers, a disservice by using “lawyers websites” one time and “legal websites” another time. The person landing on the “lawyer websites” tag won’t see your related post tagged “legal websites” unless he does a separate search. If your ultimate goal is to get hired, you want your readers to be able to easily find as many related posts as it takes to convince him that you know your stuff.

How are you using tags on your blog? Any tips to share? Questions about tagging?

Amy Derby is a law blog consultant and an affiliate member of Grant and Michael’s Blawging Lawyers program.

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What I struggled with the most was trying to decide if one of those activities was actually more important then the other. And I just could not come up with one over the other. In fact, as you know I have written about each of them quite often here at Blog For Profit.

• Retweet and spread the wealth
• Leaving Better Comments on the Blogs You Read
• Linking the Organic Way

And that is just a short list of the post we have done on the three topics.

The problem is not that one is more important then the other. The problem is we take the path of least resistance. It isn’t that we don’t want to do all three. It is that we are doing the one that is easy to do and which takes the least amount of time and effort on our part.

We tend to realize that if we want to add value to our twitter stream that we need to make it a point to retweet those tweets we feel our followers might benefit from. And like many, I tend to use twitter more as my RSS feeder now then I do a RSS feeder. And it is easy to click on a link, read a post and then what do we do. We tweet what we are reading to our followers cause we think they might get some value out of it. What is worse, we will tweet what we are reading without taking the little bit of time it would take to also leave a good comment on that post. A comment which might add value to the original post. And we also might add value to our own twitter followers as they take our tweet of what we are reading and visiting that blog post, seeing our comment there.

We take the easy road and only tweet it. And we skip the most important step in the process, we don’t comment. Again, I am not discounting the tweet and retweet. What I am doing is trying to make a point that we can not and should not take the lazy way out. We should do both.

Finally, we tweet all these darn links to our followers and what do we forget to do. We forget or don’t take the time to stop what we are doing and schedule some time in our busy days to do a post or two on some of the topics we are reading about. Instead, we just tweet what we are reading and we don’t do a post and put some organic links in it. We not only miss a great opportunity to write a good blog post and add to the overall conversation taking place. We also miss a great opportunity to link to one of these outstanding blog post in our own blogs. Not only giving some link love to the blogs we read. But failing to show Google and the other search engines we are linking out to some great post. And even worse, we are failing to give our readers links to other useful information on our blogs.

It is not that we think any one of the list, retweeting, commenting or linking is more important then the other. It simply means we have gotten lazy since the introduction of twitter in our daily activities. What we need to do is get back to what has worked in the past and what works now. We need to do all three and do them often.

I was going to ask you to leave a comment so we could keep the conversation going. But I won’t. Because I know all you are going to do is tweet or retweet the link. And I am just as guilty as the next guy with that little bit of laziness too.

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30 Days of Twitter Tips and Hints

Day 1 –– Open your own twitter account

Day 2 –– Use your real name as your twitter ID

Day 3 –– Don’t use the default avatar on twitter

Day 4 –– Watch your follower to following ratio

Day 5 –– Twitter is for business

Day 6 –– Give a good profile and provide a URL

Day 7 –– Don’t tweet just to post something

Day 8 –– Link your blog to your twitter profile

Day 9 –– Don’t follow everyone just because they follow you

Day 10 –– Retweet and spread the wealth

Day 11 –– Don’t ask me to click your junk

Day 12 –– Send your new blog post to twitter

Day 13 –– Using twitter as your RSS feeder

Day 14 –– Using Twitter Search to Follow a Search Term You Are Interested In

Day 15 –– How To Decide Who To Follow On Twitter

Day 16 –– Don’t Protect Your Updates

Day 17 –– Twitter as a Research and Development Tool

Day 18 –– You Have to Participate if You Want To Get Benefits From Twitter

Day 19 –– Twitter and what it means to RSS

Day 20 –– Need a Retweet? Ask for them

Day 21 –– Don’t Worry About Unfollows

Day 22 –– Using a Twitter Desktop Client to Organize your Twitter Experience

Day 23 –– Take a Poll on Twitter

Day 24 –– I Dare You To Ask Your Clients or Customers To Follow You On Twiter

Day 25 –– How to Get Followers and Make Friends on Twitter

Day 26 –– Using Hashtags with Twitter

Day 27 –– Twitter for Dummies: Buy the Book

Day 28 –– Do not Auto-Follow New Followers on Twitter

Day 29 –– There Are No Rules, But…

Day 30 –– Interact, engage and build…

Also don’t forget to subscribe to the Blog For Profit Newsletter. We include information in the newsletter we don’t feature here on the blog. And when you subscribe, you get a free copy of our eBook , Blogging Tips to Help You Blog.

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My law practice is in a specific area. I handle California probate, estate planning, wills, trusts and related litigation. I also handle California guardianships and conservatorships. My realm is the Southern California probate courts. Probate in California is a very lucrative market as attorney fees are set by statute based on the value of the estate at the inventory completed as to decedent’s date of death. Competition is rather fierce for getting probate clients.

The same can be said for estate planning. Estate planning in California is a must have due to how our courts handle matters where there is not a revocable trust, nominations for guardians or valid powers of attorney. Estate planning attorneys are almost a dime a dozen in California with most solo attorneys who handle a general practice will likely dabble in preparing “basic” trusts or a power of attorney for a client and larger firms having a token estate planner on staff to assist their clients. Plus attorney fees for estate planning range the gamut from a $300 “trust mill” package to a $10,000 or more high end “branded” product. For those attorneys who are passionate about their practice area and charging reasonable fees — it is hard to make yourself known without participating in social media.

I began blogging using Typepad in December 2005 and consistently posted for 2006. I knew then that blogging would pay off dividends in the long term. I was also passionate about sharing my knowledge and differentiating myself in my practice area. Blogging was my ticket for doing so. I just knew. Having blogged for as long as I have, I blog much less frequently now and tend to only blog when business is a little slower. I have noticed a significant uptick during the times I blog and the amount of new clients that contact me as a result.

When Twitter launched, I had a personal account for a few months and learned how to use it quickly. I soon deleted that account as Twitter used personally was overwhelming for me. Later in March 2009, I relaunched my approach on Twitter and kept it strictly business with some personal interaction in my tweets.

The day that Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson died was a banner day for attorneys especially wills and trusts attorneys. One tweeter called it an “EP attorney’s woodstock.” And after realizing the Twitter chatter on their deaths and the note about deaths occuring in 3’s, I put up a very basic post about how celebrities die like the rest of us and need an estate plan like the rest of us. The post was meant to remind every day clients and potential clients about the importance of an estate plan. Sure, I was also trying to capture additional readers and trying to boost my own stats by blogging about a national topic on the day that Michael and Farrah both died. The post took all of 8 minutes to log in, write up and post. I put the link on Facebook and tweeted it.

The following Monday I got an email from another attorney in Texas, Tamera Bennett, asking if she could record a call with me about the California probate process and what I thought about Michael Jackson’s death and matters in probate court. Tamera sent me a link to the probate papers already on file with the Los Angeles County probate court to review. I called her number the next morning for about a 15 minute question and answer that was taped. She wanted to know what papers were filed and why. She posted it on her blog as a podcast and tweeted its link. She also found me on Twitter before I had a chance to even tell her I had a Twitter account. I followed her immediately. And saw her tweeting the remainder of the afternoon about her podcast. Awesome.

Around 5pm that evening, my office got a call from a producer from the national Bev Smith radio talkshow asking if I would be available to join her live in 10 minutes on her radio broadcast to talk about the Michael Jackson probate filings. After I spoke to the producer, he said he heard my podcast earlier that day and loved my approach on the topic. I’m making a leap, but I believe the producer picked up Tamera’s podcast from a re-tweet.

I called Bev Smith back and was on live talk radio offering my commentary on the Michael Jackson probate, the California probate process and related analysis to all of the legal questions that Bev Smith asked on air. I was on air for over 40 minutes and was asked to stay through multiple commercial breaks. Clearly she thought I was a success. She mentioned my name very clearly and the name of our firm. It was unprecedent national publicity for me and our firm.

It all started with me embracing social media and realizing the opportunity that existed to get SEO from posting immediately on the Michael Jackson frenzy. I do not plan to post regularly about the Michael Jackson issue. That is not my goal. My goal is to have every day folks like me and you set up an estate plan. If you don’t believe me, then read my blog.

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While I would like to take full credit for that tweet, it is not possible. And I try to make it a point to do just what Scott says each and every day on twitter. If you will reply to those who are trying to engage you in conversations you will build your twitter community. If you will take the time to retweet the tweets you feel your followers will benefit from, you will build your twitter community. And if you interact and engage with your followers on twitter, you will continue to build your twitter community. If you follow this advice, the value you add to twitter will come back to you time and time again.

It really is that simple. And the benefits of using twitter this way will come back to you many times over. If you are looking for a way to measure the ROI of twitter, do those things discussed in this great tweet and you will see a huge ROI with your twitter experience.

Final Thoughts

I hope you have enjoyed this series and been able to get as much out of it as I have writing it. It has been fun following the tweets and retweets about this series over the last month or so. Your comments and tweets are greatly appreciated and I hope to have a surprise for those of you following this series very soon.

And if any of you have any final comments or suggestions of your own Twitter Tips and Hints, please leave your comments to this post. If enough of you leave your own tips and hints, there just might be an extra post or two.

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There are no rules, but you should set some goals

• What is it you really want to get out of or accomplish by using twitter? Do you want to use it for networking, marketing and/or business development. Or do you want to use it for a combination of all of those items. To be even broader thinking, do you want to use it for personal fun or business.
• What do you want to talk about on twitter? More specifically, do you want to concentrate on a particular narrow niche or topic. Or do you want to join in on a wide range of topics and conversations. For me, I like to use it to join in on many conversations.
• What value do you want to give those who are following you? What is it you want to give those who are following you. Do you want to be a source of information by taking advantage of all those things you can do on twitter. Provide links to items you are reading. Post your own new blog post to your twitter stream. Carry on conversations with those you follow and who follow you. Or do you want to retweet the tweets of those you are following. In my opinion, your best answer is all of that. You need to add value to your twitter stream and all of those activities would certainly do just that.
• Are you going to limit the number of people you follow and who follow you? This goal really fits well with the first one. And I think you need to decide on that one before you really can answer this question. For some, a few people in your twitter stream is enough and for some, their goal is to have 1000’s of followers. Both views work. It really depends on what you want to accomplish with twitter.

Like any good marketing plan, you need to set out some goals for yourself and determine how you are going to reach them. Twitter is no exception. I know there are other goals one should consider. So, leave your comments to this post so we can keep the conversation going.

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There is really no good reason to use the auto-follow feature on twitter or on some of the twitter applications. Especially on your personal or main business account. If you check your new followers at all, you are going to see there is a large number of spammers and crap on twitter. And you don’t want any of that in your main twitter stream.

When I get a new follower on twitter, I have it set to send me an email telling me about it. I always go check the new follower out. I look at all of those things we have talked about in previous post in this series, here and here. And I am not afraid to block new followers if they are spam or just plain crap. You will be amazed at some of the stuff you get in your new followers.

In order to back up my own position on this topic, I decided to run a new poll yesterday as indicated below. Once again I used twtpoll and it is a great tool. You need to try it if you haven’t.

Here is the question and the results of the poll.

It was interesting yesterday getting some of the comments on twitter about the poll and the ongoing results. One person was a bit surprised and pleased at the same time of the results. I was too. I was actually surprised that the number of those following me and taking the poll came out so strongly on the side of not auto-following. Surprised mainly because I know a lot of those in my twitter followers and those I follow are very busy running businesses and professional service firms. Even they indicated auto-follow is not the way to go.

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If you don’t want to buy that book, be watching for what I plan to do with this series very soon. You just might be surprised as I plan to do something a very select group of people have been after me to do. Yes, there will be a workbook or ebook of some kind coming soon.

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The latest to join the cry that blogging is dead or they are shutting their blogs down is Steve Rubel. I am not sure why we should care. Rubel makes the statement that he is evolving from blogging to “Lifestreaming.” Again, so what. And what does this have to do or what impact does this have on the smart business or professional service firm who is using, god forbid, a blog for marketing or promotion. It doesn’t have an impact at all.

As others have stated, “LifeStreaming is great but….” If you think about it, LifeStreaming sounds like what blogging first started out to be. Just a way for someone to keep an online journal of their thoughts or opinions. I also agree that blogging is not dead, they’re just fragmenting. Evolving perhaps might be a better word to use.

What is really ironic or maybe even stupid is the fact those who declare blogging dead or dying are the same ones who make this statement on their own blogs. They are not dead, they are evolving. Even for the business or service firm who are using blogs as a marketing tool, they are evolving. And part of that is being caused not only by the power of WordPress. But because of tools like social media. Twitter and Facebook are the first ones that come to mind.

However, these tools are not causing the demise of blogging. They are in fact enhancing blogs and making them even more popular and successful. I just don’t see those who use a blog to market and promote a business or professional firm moving to “LifeStreaming.” I do see their blogs evolving as they adopt and use social media tools with their blogs. I also see their blogs evolving as they take advantage of the power of WordPress. Take for example this blogsite of one of our clients, Stucco Italiano.

Twitter, FriendFeed and yes, even Posterous are not going to cause the death of blogging. They will enhance and/or evolve blogging.

I am certainly not suggesting blogging will not change and grow over time and become more then it is now. If I just look at how blogging has changed since I started over 4 years ago, I am amazed at what has happened. Those bloggers who are not willing to adopt the new ways of using blogs will be left behind. But there will always be blogs. Just as there will always be websites. After all isn’t a blog just a website that has evolved into something more.

Blogging is not dead just because someone with a little influence gets bored with their blog and decides to “LifeStream” with a different tool. So hold you head high and keep on blogging.

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Actually, hashtags can be a great tool and serve many useful purposes. Not the least of which is the fact hashtags are wonderful if you are following a particular conversation on twitter. We will discuss more on that later in this post.

Hashtags serve a number of functions

• They get a topic noticed by those on twitter
• Help get you noticed on twitter too if you are the one who is pushing the hashtag
• Hashtags are picked up by the search engines and do great there too
• They are a powerful community builder on twitter
• You can use them to promote and tease tweeters about an event or product

Some of the points mentioned are fairly self-explantory. I do want to touch on a couple of them in more detail below.

Promoting an event or product

This last weekend, Clay (the other G in G2WebMedia) and I attended WordCamp Dallas. The hashtag for this event was #wcdfw09. Not only could those attending the event get updates by following the hashtag. Those not there could do the same thing. The best way to do this is to use twitter search and type in the hashtag. As you can see from the image below, the search results were many.

If you promote your hashtag correctly on twitter, people can use twitter search like I did above to keep up on what is happening at an event or even on a product launch.

Here is how you can use your hashtag to promote your own even right in your tweets.

Simply put the hashtag in your tweet and it will show up in your stream and in the search results as indicated above. Using them is a great way to promote anything you are following or that you want people to notice and keep up on.

As you can see from the example for #wcdfw09, a community was built around the hashtag too. Those attending the event used it to keep up on what was going on. And we were able to keep up on the conversation centered around the event. Which, in and of itself is a great use and benefit of the hashtag.

Following a conversation

The best example of this is a twitter even and/or conversation which takes place weekely, #blogchat. This is an open conversation on twitter where @MacCollier invites those on twitter to engage in a conversation. If you are curious how this works and what a great tool it is, take a look at the transcript from this weeks #blogchat.

Picking a Hashtag

When you are first looking at picking a hashtag, you need to look at what you are wanting to talk about. The topic; is it an event or a product. It could even be an regular ongoing conversation taking place on twitter, like #blogchat mentioned above.

The main thing to remember is to try to make your hashtag fit the product or event and keep it short. The example above #milofest is a great example. This hashtag fits an event and is short and easy to remember. And that is key. Don’t make people think when they go to type in your hashtag.

You want your hashtag to communicate to those on twitter what it is you are talking about. Be consistent too. Once you decide on your hashtag, stick with it. Don’t change it or alter it in anyway. People are going to use tools like twitter search to follow hashtags. And if you change it, you are going to loose your intended audience.

Your Homework

If you see a hashtag being used on twitter, use the search function in your twitter client to follow it. Or use twitter search to do the same thing. You not only will get some great information. You may also find some new people on twitter you might want to follow.

And if you are promoting an event or a product, try using a hashtag to get it noticed on twitter. It really does work.

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The one claim I love is the one where some bozo on twitter says, “use this great twitter app to get 10,000 new followers in a week.” And when you look at their profile, they have less then 500 followers themselves. D’oh!!

Collecting all these followers like some claim is not the way to do it. But there are some things you can do to get followers on twitter. And these methods are a lot better then using some lame application.

How do you get followers on Twitter?

• Follows others on twitter But not just everyone. Use some of the search tools, like twitter search to find conversations taking place on twitter in a particular niche you are interested in. See who on twitter is talking about it and see what the conversations are. Take a look at some of the people talking about it and you can see if you want to see if you may want to follow them. Follow them and chances are they will follow you back.
• Be active on twitter and participate in the conversations If you use it they will come. It is true. If you are on twitter and you are not using it, no one is going to follow you back. Some people ask me if there is a magic number of how many times you should post on twitter. Short answer is no. However, if I were to give a client advice on how many times, I would say you should post on twitter at least 3 or 4 times a day. It takes very little effort. And what this does is to give people who are checking you out see that you are active on twitter and that you actually post on twitter and get involved in the conversations going on there.
• Promote others on twitter Make it a point to retweet and promote others on twitter. Even if they don’t follow you, promote them if you are interested in what they are talking about on twitter. Promote them if you think what they are talking about may be useful to those following you. And I would also promote them on twitter if you are reading their blogs. Post on twitter that you are reading a post on their blogs.
• Promote your twitter presence everywhere you are online Don’t just promote your twitter presence on twitter. You should have your twitter ID in your email signature. You should have a way for others to follow you on twitter on your blog. Don’t hide the fact you are on twitter. Make it very clear you want people to follow you on twitter.
• Don’t protect your freaking updates on twitter You are not that important. And if you protect your updates, you are not going to get very many followers. Enough said. Simply don’t protect your updates. Period!
• Promote your twitter presence offline too Do you have a business card? Put your twitter ID on your business card. Basically, if you use any other marketing material, you can put your twitter ID on it.

This list is not exhaustive. I know there are other ways to get followers on twitter. Leave your comments here with your own ways of getting followers. Let’s keep the conversation going.

Also don’t forget to subscribe to the Blog For Profit Newsletter. We include information in the newsletter we don’t feature here on the blog. And when you subscribe, you get a free copy of our eBook , Blogging Tips to Help You Blog.

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Alone In An Empty Room?

What if you threw a party and no one came?

That’s what a lot of professionals feel like when they start blogging. They post, and post, and post, but no one knows about their niche blog and no one ever finds it. It’s like standing in the middle of an empty room, music playing, drink in hand… but no one’s there.

If people aren’t coming to your party, why not bring your party to where the people are?

Bring Your Party to the People

I’ve had my own personal blog for almost ten years now. It doesn’t get a ton of traffic, and I never really had any reason to look for huge traffic to a personal site. But last month, I decided to run an experiment… what would happen if I submitted guest posts for publication on some other popular blogs?

After doing a little research, I wrote a handful of posts to submit to a handful of highly-respected blogs I had in mind. I was able to get three posts (plus this one) published:

• Five Terrible Reasons You Failed To Incorporate Your Online Business
• How Listening to a Waiter can Jack your Profits up 33%
• How Facebook is Gunning for Google (And Killing SEO)

As you look at each one, notice the About the Author section - each post has a link back to one or more web sites I want to draw traffic to. So, did my strategy work?

Hell, yes!

Look at these graphs. The first, for my personal site, shows a spike when my Problogger post went live. That’s a ten-fold increase in traffic. The second shows the spike to the Florida Foreclosure Fraud weblog when the Copyblogger post went live. That spike is MORE than ten times the normal traffic the site gets. As a bonus, this isn’t some lame “blogroll” style traffic, it’s the good stuff - organic linking.

Traffic via Problogger.net

Traffic via Copyblogger.com

I don’t have a graph for my post on davidrisley.com because that post linked to a part of the site that I don’t track. (Make sure you provide a pre-formatted “About the Author” section every time you guest post!)

As you can see, I not only brought the party to where the people were, I was able to bring some of those people back home with me after the party was over. The experiment was a complete success.

How To Be a Good Guest

There are two elements to having an outstanding guest post experience:

• Write a great article.
• Find a great host.

Not necessarily in that order. Let’s look at it from two different angles.

1. Find a site first, and write an article for that site. What makes a great host for your guest post? Ideally, you’ll want to find a site that has good visibility (traffic) on its own. You’ll want a site that has a history of accepting guest posts or seems likely to accept a guest post submission specifically from you. You’ll also want to find a site, if possible, where you have a relationship with the site’s owner.

If you’re not already a member of that community, you may want to do some advance work by contributing substantive, useful comments to the site some days and even weeks beforehand.

Once you have found a likely host site, write your article specifically aimed for publication there. You’ll want to pick a topic that matches the site you’ve picked, ideally a topic you know something about and have a passion for. Your topic should be something that hasn’t already been covered by the host site, unless you can find an interesting new angle. Once you’ve got your article written, contact the author of the site and see if they’re interested.

2. Write your article first, then find a site to place it. It’s often easier to write your article first - especially if you’re already got a burning topic you want to write about - and then find a site that’s a good match for your article. Why? Because you’ve got one, two, maybe even a handful, of good ideas for guest posts, but there are millions of potential sites that might be able to host your article. You just have to find them. This allows you to write to your passion, and then find a partner to bring that passion to the public.

Once you’ve written your article, find some highly visible sites that are likely candidates. Submit your article exclusively to your first choice. If you don’t get accepted, work your way down the list. All the previous caveats apply: make sure your post is well-written, is a good fit with the tone and style of your desired host site, and fills a need that site has for content. Offer something of value.

What Makes a Great Guest Post?

If you write a crappy post, the odds of anyone accepting it are low. But if you write a compelling article about an interesting topic, your odds of getting your guest post accepted increase dramatically. How to write a compelling article is beyond the scope of this post. But if you want a great guest post, the most important thing to keep in mind is making your article a good fit with your desired host site. Fit in with the style, tone, and viewpoint of the site. Pick a topic that’s relevant to that site’s readers. Make sure the article is not a throw-away - you want to submit some of your best writing. Do those things, and your chances of landing a successful guest post will skyrocket.

What To Do With All Your New Readers

When your guest post goes live, and you suddenly find your house flooded with partygoers, what do you do with all of them? Ideally, keep them entertained and keep them coming back for more. The most important question for you to consider: where will the traffic land?

Make sure the link you put in your author bio goes to a page of your choosing. It’s the first thing that all your new readers will see, so make it good. Here’s an example: this post was at the top of my blog when my Problogger guest post went live. It welcomed new readers, and offered suggestions for other parts of the site they might like. Alternatively, you might write a compelling article that you post on your own site, and make that the first thing your new readers see. Or you might send them to an older, but still awesome, post you wrote a while ago. Try different things and see what works. If you do it right, you’ll have yourself a ton of new fans.

Other Benefits of Guest Posting

Besides short-term traffic bumps, there are some other fantastic benefits to writing a guest post. Links back from a well-trafficked site will provide a long-term boost in your own site’s visibility in search results. (SEO, baby!) Landing a guest post on a well-respected site can increase your own reputation. (One of my friends emailed me : You guest posted on COPYBLOGGER???? Holy crud, I am so freaking impressed it’s not even funny. ) Finally, guest posting can help you develop long-term relationships with authors of other sites, leading to further guest post or partnering opportunities.

Other Resources on Guest Posting

Here are some other excellent resources on guest posting:

• Copyblogger’s Guest Post Guidelines
• Problogger’s 11 Guest Posting Mistakes to Avoid
• David Risley’s Guest Post Checklist

Guest posting, done well, not only will bring you new traffic, new readers, and new boosts to your reputation… it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.

About the Author

Michael Alex Wasylik is a Florida lawyer who first started blogging in 1999. He currently writes for the Florida Foreclosure Fraud weblog and his personal site, perpetualbeta.com.

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The most common excuse I hear from these businesses or professional service firms is that they don’t want these clients and/or customers to read what they post on twitter. And I am sure you don’t want these same clients and/or customers observing you act like a complete jerk or idiot at a cocktail party either.

Use Twitter as a Business and Marketing Tool

First of all, if you are a business or professional firm, you should be using twitter as a business tool. You should be curtailing your conversations on twitter the same way you would be conducting yourself when you are in your office or business. Simply put, behave yourself.

Go to where your customers and/or clients are

The internet has completely changed the way we do business and interact with our clients or customers. The internet has not only made the world, our country, and states smaller. It has made our own towns and cities smaller. Your clients or customers are using the internet to find products and services. They are wanting to use the internet to communicate with you and find out about you. They are using the internet as a means to build a relationship not only with friends and family, but with businesses and other professionals in their lives.

If this is where your potential and current clients and customers are going, shouldn’t you be there too. Don’t use the excuse you don’t want your customers or clients to know what you are tweeting on twitter as a reason to stay off of twitter.

Get over your bad self

You should be inviting everyone to follow you on twitter. Put you twitter ID in your email signature. Put your twitter ID on your blog too. Give your potential and current clients or customers every opportunity to find you and follow you. Give them every chance to get to know you and to see that you are a great source of information which provides them with the answers to their questions or problems. Give them every opportunity to find out you are not afraid to carry on a conversation with them where they are at, the internet.

Still not convinced?

Even if you don’t put yourself out there and follow clients or customers on twitter. And even if you don’t encourage them to follow you. If they Google your name, your tweets are going to show up in a Google search. Why not be proactive and follow and encourage your clients to follow you.

Disagree? Leave your comments to this post and let’s keep this conversation going. Oh and BTW, you can follow me on twitter at @GrantGriffiths.

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Recently, I took the research and question and answer technique a step further on twitter. By using a great new tool called twtpoll, I posted a twitter poll to twitter and asked for some input. It was wonderful and I received a large number of responses to the poll. However, what was even better, I got some results that really helped with making a decision.

The ability to do a quick poll on twitter is just one more example of the power it has. For a business, doing a twtpoll would be a great method for getting some instant input on a new idea, product or service. Give it a try.

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What I love about TweetDeck is the way you can organize the people you follow into groups and then into columns. Below is a screenshot of my entire desktop with TweetDeck on it. I am using a 22″ flat panel display while I am in the office for twitter and TweetDeck.

Organizing the people you follow on twitter

With TweetDeck, I have two main columns/groups for organizing those I follow. I have a Group A-List and a Group Hot List. There is no way I could keep up with all of the people I follow without doing this. And lets be honest, I don’t try to follow the conversations taking place between over 4000 people on twitter. This does not mean I don’t interact with a lot of them however.

These two groups are people who I don’t want to miss what they say on twitter. And I also don’t want to miss it when they post a new blog post. Remember, I use twitter as one of my main RSS feeds and I put those I follow and who I want to read their blog post in one of these groups.

As you can see from the screenshot, on the right hand side are columns I use for DM’s from other accounts I have. That way I get the DM’s people might send me from a couple of other accounts I use. I also use a column for a search of different terms I want to keep track of.

Some of the functions of TweetDeck

TweetDeck has some handy features that make life even easier on twitter.

First of all you can do things with “Users” and “Tweets.” Once you click on “Tweet” you get the drop down below.

This is a quick to do all those activities with a Tweet. The one feature that is just pretty darn handy is the “Email Tweet” function.

And when you click on User, you get this drop down.

Here you can follow, add to a group, blog and unfollow. This feature can save you a lot of time when you are checking twitter.

Final thoughts

There are other twitter desktop clients you can use. And I have tried most, if not all of them. I have found TweetDeck to work best for me. But keep in mind, what works for one person, may not work for another. That is why there are as many twitter clients as there are.

Leave you comments to this post and let us know what twitter desktop client you are using. Let’s keep the conversation going.

Also don’t forget to subscribe to the Blog For Profit Newsletter. We include information in the newsletter we don’t feature here on the blog. And when you subscribe, you get a free copy of our eBook , Blogging Tips to Help You Blog.

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The problem is too many people on twitter are way to concerned by the numbers and their follower numbers to be specific.

Don’t pay attention to unfollows

I don’t even know when someone unfollows me and I don’t keep track. To be honest, I don’t give a care. There are many reasons people unfollow or don’t follow you at all. The thing to remember is this. Focus on being you and providing value to your followers and the right people will stay with you.

Don’t be so hung up on your follower numbers that you miss the biggest advantage and benefit of twitter. Twitter gives you the chance to build a community of like minded people. It also gives you the chance to listen in on conversations between some of the big influencers in your niche. So, who cares if someone unfollows you? You shouldn’t.

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If you have done it the right way and built your own community of good followers and friends on twitter, ask. Seriously it is that easy. Send out a DM to a couple of your friends on twitter and ask them if they would be willing to retweet (RT) your new blog post or your tweet.

Keep one major thing in mind on this. Make sure you pay it forward and retweet your friends when you can. And when asked, retweet for them too.

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Twitter — social media — trusted recommendation of a link — carries more weight than just an RSS feed.

A link on twitter comes with validation. Someone whose opinion you respect says, “read this.” It’s like a referral when practicing law. Someone’s pre-sold the information. @Victor Medina of Jersey Estate Planning

What Victor said in that statement is not only a key reasons I use twitter as one of my RSS feeders. It is also what can make twitter such a great way to build a community. And why twitter can have just an impact on your marketing and your business development.

If you take the time to build a community and not just build a list of numbers, you will see results like this with your twitter use. Gathering numbers on twitter does not yield this. Building a community does.

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When I say, if you are going to be on twitter, be on twitter. If you don’t use it and you don’t participate, don’t expect much from twitter.

The above tweet really sums this all up in less then 140 characters. Keep in mind twitter is a great tool. If you leave it in the tool box, it is going to get rusty and be of no use to you when you might really need it.

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