Strategies For Effective Online Networking

EVERYTHING ELSE YOU CAN DO TO CREATE A TOP CLASS BLOG
Listed above are just some of the main things you can do to create a quality blog offering. However, there are also other things that can be done to create a blog that will impress both the public and recruiters alike, and we will explore these here


Include the following blog pages
Having the correct configuration of pages on your blog site is very important. Many blog sites usually contain multiple pages within them, with the main blog content being displayed on the opening page. While it is up to you what pages you want to include on it, you should do your best to ensure your blog contains the following pages:

Blog “About Me” Page

Blog Archive Page

Blog Contact Us Page

Blog Home Page

Blog RSS feed

Doing so will ensure your blog has the optimal functionality for its users, and will also help your site with search engine optimization

Links, links and more links
Containing lots of links on your blogging site or website is normally always a good idea

Try to include most of your internal site links near the top of your blog post

Make sure you include links on your blog postings that relate to posts contained in your blog archives (this is a great way to get readers more involved in your content)

Don’t include external links to other sites until near the end of your blog posts if you can help it

Don’t neglect your blog footer either. In addition to containing important information on things such as advertisements, copyrights, terms and conditions and privacy policies, this is also another great area for placing internal and external links

Make good use of social media
With so many people on social media nowadays, it makes an excellent place to start when promoting your blog. To make the most of this you need to use your media accounts regularly and seek out people and groups who are interested in things that are relevant to the topics you post on your blog. Remember to use social media icons as much as possible, and when you post on social media make sure you include a URL to your blog if the topic is relevant.  Almost as important as doing this is to make sure your readers are able to share these easily with their friends and other social media users. You can make it easy for them by including share buttons on your social media pages. Sites like AddThis and ShareThis will help you do this; although remember that some social media sites may not allow certain types of sharing so be aware of this and also check your privacy settings as this can also lead to sharing being inhibited on some sites if the settings aren’t public.
Another important thing you should do is link your blog content to any social media profiles you have (so long as the blog content is appropriate for that site) – you can do this by automating your cross-profile referencing, but you will need online scheduling software to do this…TweekDeck, Tweetbot, Twitterrific, Seesmic, Stacker, Oktopost are just a few of the online offerings that will enable you to do this…



Utilise search engine optimization
The proper use of links and keywords will help you greatly with search engine optimization. Search engine optimization involves the use of both internal and external links in your webpage or blog, the text contained in those links (anchor text), and keywords contained in the main body of the text and titles of your blog or website (keyword optimization). These are all factors that help make your site appear higher on search engine rankings when people search for topics related to your site

Use keywords as much as you can at the beginning of your blog page and in the titles of your blog postings

There is no clear or definitive way to guarantee your web listing will appear higher over other entries. Search engines like the giant google only give vague indications of how they prioritise their web listings – and remember that the criteria they use can always change without notification

There are certain things you can do however to try and influence your ranking (what we refer to as search engine optimization). Using keywords as much as you can at the beginning of your blog page and in the titles of your blog postings will help. In order to help you identify what keywords are relevant to your blog; use applications like google trends and google insights for search, they will help you understand what searches and phrases your audience base are using, the ones that are most commonly used are the words you should single out as keywords. At times you may have to extrapolate individual words from the data given on google trends and insight as this tends to focus more on searched phrases rather than individual words. However, once you have identified what you believe are the main keywords, try to work these in as much as you can into the titles of your opening pages and into the titles and opening sentences of your blog postings without compromising on the standard of your work

Linking also forms an important part of search engine optimization. And for the purposes of our goal here, the best way to do this is to keep our optimization simple.  We should focus on the anchor text in the link (the anchor text is the clickable part of words in your hyperlink). What we want to do is to make this text in our hyperlink as relevant as possible to the name and topic of the external webpage or internal page/ blog article you are linking it to. So for instance, if you are linking this to an external website called Business Plus – instead of having a hyperlink that says click here, you should instead try to include the word business or the word Plus, or both, in this hyperlink.
Example: if you’re interested you can find more information here for Business Plus     

The same is true for internal links in your blog as well, match the words in these internal hyperlinks to words in your blog titles. For example, if you have a post in your blog named, ‘How to grow a lettuce from start to finish in 5 weeks’, if referencing this post in another one of your postings, you will want a hyperlink that contains some or all of the words in this initial blog posting (ideally the hyperlink would simply contain the full title)
Example: if you’re interested about how to grow more from home, you can find out more in last month’s blog ‘How to grow a lettuce from start to finish in 5 weeks‘

Remember, although there is a lot of information and technical jargon available online, it is difficult to know specifically how your web listing is prioritised and will vary from search engine to search engine. With all the others of millions of web listings you are potentially competing with each time a topic pertaining to your blog is searched – the advice is straightforward. Keep it simple. Follow these basic steps as they may help get your site/ blog ranked higher on web listings, but don’t overdo it – unless you’re a multi-million dollar company or have a huge web following there’s really no need – the difference such search engine optimization is likely to make to your individual blog or site is minimal

Search engine optimization can be a time intensive endeavour and can begin to detract from the quality of your blog if you try to fit certain words and phrases into too many places. For the purposes of our goal here, which is to build a respected and professional online presence, we don’t need to do an extensive amount of optimization, as our time can be better spent in other areas of our job search

Keep the content interesting and relevant
Being able to keep your content fresh and relevant is also essential to successfully maintaining a good blog following. In order to do this, there are a few things you should do:

Keep a file with any ideas you have related to topics pertaining to your blog, as there are sure to be times when it will come in useful

You can ask your readers what sort of things they’d like to see on your blog – a good place to do this would be in the blogs comments section. You can also check out other blog sites that cover the same types of topics as yours to see what they’re doing

Checking google analytics and google trends is another great way to get ideas and see what may or may not be working for you. Try and do this on a regular basis and not just when inspiration is low

If you find your blog postings are starting to become a bit stagnant, for your next one try talking with or interviewing someone who is highly knowledgeable in the subject matter your blog covers. Or if you prefer, you can invite them onto your blog to do a posting as a guest blogger instead

Holding contests is another sure way to invoke interest at times when it might be waning. Not only a good way to obtain loyalty from your readers, but also a sure way to impress employers, recruiters and anyone else who visits your blog site. Holding contests makes your blog look credible and professional to everyone who sees it

USE BEST PRACTICES
As the creator of a blog or website there are certain basic practices you can utilise to ensure that both yourself and those who visit your site get the most from it:

Publish a privacy policy – Customer privacy is an important consideration nowadays. Give people that added piece of mind that yours is a legitimate entity, and also gain the added benefit deriving from the professional feel it will give your blog or website

Ask permission – For anything outside of what can be deemed as ‘fair use’ of a copyrighted work, which equates to re-quoting around 5% of a given body of work, and allows a person to comment upon, critique, or parody a copyrighted material.
It is always important that you seek permission from the owner if you wish to reproduce anything more out with this criterion if it is covered by copyright law

Disclose paid endorsements – If you’re fortunate enough to be in a position where you’ve been asked to provide an endorsement for someone, it’s always in your best interests on a legal level, as well as to maintain trust with your client base, that you disclose it was a paid endorsement on the posting where that endorsement was made

Cite your sources – When you quote factual information on blog postings it makes a difference to your readers if they are able to check up on this information themselves by visiting the source. In a time where masses of information are written and published by many different people and organisations, and not all of it correct or factually accurate – it means a lot to your readers when you cite your sources to important bits of information on your blog postings so they can validate these things for themselves

Correct mistakes in your postings – This is an important practice if you are the owner of a blog or the author of an online posting. If you make a posting and then later find out information in it is factually inaccurate or incorrect, deal with it with integrity. Revisit the posting and correct the mistake rather than leaving the post how it is or deleting it altogether. (If you can’t revisit it, then leave another post linking back to your previous posting).  Your readers will respect you more and will have a much more fulfilling experience on your blog site if you do this, rather than simply leaving or deleting an inaccurate blog post that you’ve spent the time and effort creating in the first place

Promote your blog – Build an email list; in order to do this, you will need people to give their consent and sign up to receive marketing from you. You can also use talk forums both on the world wide web as well as on social media to raise awareness for your blog

Considering offering prizes/contests – If your blog is successful and has a lot of followers you can consider offering prizes and contests to your readers; this will further promote your blog and establish it as a respectable online authority in its field 

Consider monetizing your blog *

Make use of Ad-Supported Blog Syndication* 

Make use of Licensed Blog Syndication* 

As a blogger, you may also be entitled to deduct internet-related expenses*