blogging, search engine optimization

The importance of blog titles – domain name / URL

As I continue to experiment with the different themes available through WordPress, I will touch upon another important element of creating a blog: the titles.

There are three parts to naming a blog: the URL of the blog, the name or title of the blog, and the heading used for each specific blog posting. All of them have SEO (search engine optimization) ramifications, so in that sense, they are all important.

The URL used for your blog is where you have the least amount of control. It will probably come down to availability. “Good names” are being grabbed left and right. Whenever a new Internet company surpasses the “tipping point” to become commonplace (facebook, twitter, etc), the usernames become somewhat valuable. By valuable, I’m not implying they have a dollar amount associated with them. No, instead it means that they having a branding, “platform,” SEO equity.  And if you’re not quick or savvy enough to secure the usernames you want for these successful internet properties, you can rest assured that your competitors are.

Let’s look back at history. The first internet “user names” were domain names, and in the 90’s, it became known as the Internet Landrush to register as many “good” domain names as you could. Nowadays, getting a “good” domain name is next to impossible – they’re all taken. But, look! When MySpace launched, the opportunity presented itself again. You could register a good “username” on MySpace. And again with FaceBook. And now with Twitter and Ning.

So, if you have a brand you’re trying to build, or a particular search-term you’re trying to leverage, be sure you attempt registration for those words/phrases with all the major Internet Properties. And yes, you should still try to register your own name as a domain name, too; it might still be available.  And register your kids’ names, too. Who knows what the Internet will “be” 20-30 years from now?  In not-so-hypothetical world, your kid having his/her own domain name could possibly mean the difference between being hired or not.

So, in terms of blogging, the URL for your blog will be largely determined by the availability (either the domain name, or the registration username on the blogging platform of your choice). But if your preferred name is available, ask yourself of its value. In my case, I used “brentsampson” with WordPress to secure that username, and I already had “brentsampson.com” registered as a domain name a while ago. I simply connected them with a DNS forward, which WordPress makes relatively easy. It’s $10 a year. In fact, up until 2010, I had an alternate website set up for “brentsampson.com” but it wasn’t one I devoted any time to, so it therefore lacked any motivating factors for anyone to visit, other than the fact that it was listed on the back of one of my books. It’s my hope this blog is different. Who knows? That’s one of the fun parts of the internet — anyone can put anything up that they want. It’s up to readers to determine their value. In fact, that’s one of the core philosophies of self-publishing, too, but that’s a topic for a different day.

Also topics for different days are the 2nd and 3rd titling opportunities for your blog…

blogging, branding, self publishing

Writers and entrepreneurs

Why, you might ask, am I spending so much time writing about choosing a theme for the blog? Isn’t this blog supposed to be about entrepreneurs, CEOs, writing, self-publishing? You know, interesting things? Yes, and it is…

Here’s one reason for the details: When I have less time to devote to the minutiae, I often advise a self-published writer or a CEO to simply “create your platform.”

And when they ask “How?” I answer “Start a blog.”

That’s short and to the point. WordPress even makes it easy. But for many people, that advice is not very helpful in its generality. Just because something is easy for one person doesn’t mean it is easy for other people and it certainly doesn’t mean they will do it “right.”   And that’s a good thing, because if everyone else knew what you knew and could do what you can do, you wouldn’t have anything of value to offer or sell.  The trick is taking your knowledge, infusing it with necessity, and then packaging it, and offering it to others, either for “free” as in the case of a blog, or for some amount of money as in the case of your book, product, service, or company.

When starting a blog and creating a platform, doing it “right” means taking into consideration all of the things I’ve been pontificating about for the past few posts, like branding, SEO, and here’s another one — consistent content. Blogging is like the antithesis of writing a book, which is perhaps one of the things that has always bothered me about blogging — blogs are not supposed to be succinct. If your blog is too succinct, you run out of things to say, and then your blog only lasts 5 months, like my last one did in 2005.

Although I should mention that any blog effort you make could always have a positive effect. Early in 2009 I received a call from a reporter from the New York Times who was writing an article about Kirkus Discoveries, and saw one of my blog postings about that very topic. He referred to it 4 years after I had written it, so the first few minutes of our phone conversation were interesting because, to him, I had just written it because he had just read it. Yet, for me, that posting was 4 years old in my mind. I barely remembered what he was talking about. Nevertheless, it led to an interview with the New York Times. Can’t beat that with a stick…

And that’s just one of many reasons why entrepreneurs and writers should have a blog. In fact, by and large, I’ll probably use the word “entrepreneur” and “writer” somewhat interchangeably. All self-publishing writers are, in essence, entrepreneurs. And, even though all entrepreneurs may not consider themselves authors, they should consider themselves writers. So even though I’m devoting a large portion of the beginning of this blog about inane details revolving around the selection of a blog theme, the AUDIENCE of this blog is entrepreneurs, self-publishing writers, CEOs, CMOs and other marketers (both b-2-b and b-2-c), people involved in any kind of start-up, and anyone else who would find value in improving their sales platform.

Platform. Is that a term I’ve used on this blog yet? It’s going to be a recurring topic. The cornerstone of nearly every speech and presentation I make involves creating and maintaining ones “platform” – the foundation upon which you build your career, whether you are a writer, a doctor, a speaker, or an entrepreneur. You need a platform and it needs to be branded.

And that takes us full-circle back to choosing a theme for this blog. I think I “spoke” too early with my last posting, because for some reason I though the “thinner” column of the “Contempt” theme was on the left-hand side, when in reality, it appears on the right-hand side. So far, it’s still the best theme (after Blix) that I’ve seen on WordPress, so I’ll add a few more widgets to the column and see how it holds up…

self publishing

Adding books to the blog

I’ve made a commitment to myself to invest approximately 1 hour a day to social networking enterprises–involving myself more in social networking is on my New Year’s Resolutions list– although I admit I already haven’t been doing a very good job of maintaining that average when there are so many other things that require my attention.

I try to prioritize my time based upon accomplishing goals that benefit the greatest number of our authors (or future authors) as possible, and by that benchmark, it is difficult to justify spending much time on this blog.  How does THIS blog help an Outskirts Press author?  It probably doesn’t, or at least it doesn’t as much as offering the Espresso Book Machine editions, which we just announced today. 

Getting that option set-up for our authors took a lot of my time, but it benefits a lot of our authors (current and future authors), so in my mind, that is time well-spent.   So, in the dark recesses of my mind, all I can hope is that our authors find some kernels of marketing insights from this blog and can apply concepts I introduce here to their writing, publishing, and marketing efforts in the name of making them more successful.    I am a writer first, and a CEO second, so my commitment is always to our current and future authors.  I’ll talk more about that soon.

Anyway, back to the story: adding books to the blog.  By the time I’m writing this posting, I had already added “Self Publishing Simplified” and “Sell Your Book on Amazon” to my blog, but today I added one of my remaining books, “Adventures in Publishing.”  It’s a cute little children’s book about how to publish a children’s book, with full-color illustrations and rhyming verse.  It’s meant to serve as an example of what is possible at Outskirts Press while also helping potential children’s book authors with the “how to” steps required to actually get their story illustrated and published.

I have another book, “Publishing Gems” which I may or may not add.  Honestly, I’m not as proud of it as I am of the other three… it was my first non-fiction book and my main goal with writing and publishing it was to simply “get it out there into the world” as quickly as possible.  Our self-publishing services certainly help people accomplish that goal.  And by taking that baby step, I was able to take a breath, step back, and work on something of a higher caliber, like “Sell Your Book on Amazon.”    Does that make “Publishing Gems” a poor book?  Maybe — but perhaps its goal wasn’t to be “good.” Maybe its goal was to help me overcome something within myself to allow me to focus on “Sell Your Book on Amazon.”  So does that make “Publishing Gems” a successful book because it accomplished its goal? Absolutely.

Different authors have different goals, and only the author knows what those goals are.  Readers who project their own goals, or qualifications for success, onto the book and then announce them “successes” or “failures” are not giving enough credit to the author.  Self publishing companies like Outskirts Press help authors realize a wide variety of goals, because as a writer myself, I realize that writers write for a variety of reasons.

blogging, pay per click, search engine optimization

More on branding, SEO, and blogging

Well the Sapphire theme didn’t look so hot either, so for today’s post I’m trying a theme called “Contempt.” Contempt? Really, WordPress? That’s like naming a movie “Gigli” and hoping it makes any money. Titles are very important, and I’m not talking about employee titles like “President/CEO” which, to me, always sounds so huffy-puffy. No, I’m talking about titles as in names of products, titles of books, etc. This will be an on-going topic of this blog.

But today we’re still talking about branding because I’m still in the process of branding this blog appropriately. I haven’t yet settled upon a theme. It occurred to me to simply use the theme we’re using for Self Publishing News, which is “Blix” if I remember correctly. But part of successful branding is being DIFFERENT from everyone else. Being unique. Self Publishing News already takes too much of my time, and I only contribute to it about 3 times a month, but I have to be AWARE of it, and that takes allocation of my own brain’s resources. So, if I’m going to allocate time to THIS blog, too, which I am anticipating will take much more time than Self Publishing News, I owe it to my blog for it to have its own identity. So it can’t share the same theme as Self Publishing News, which is too bad, because that theme “Blix” is a pretty good one.

So, back to “Contempt.” What makes a good blog theme? There are one-column themes, like the Sapphire (bad). There are two column themes like “Contempt” and “Blix” (good) and there are three column themes like… I don’t know even what. When scrolling through the themes offered by WordPress, I even saw one 4-column theme. No!

In my opinion, two-column themes are the best. They allow for the most aesthetic viewing, with the largest column devoted to the content, and the smaller column devoted to the widgets along the side. Then the consideration becomes, which side should the “smaller” column be on? The left side or the right side? Well, this consideration revolves around SEO, which will be a common topic of this blog. At Outskirts Press we’ve always been somewhat cognizant of SEO, and in 2010 we are really accelerating those efforts because, frankly, we’ve hit something of a glass ceiling with the ROI on PPC.

How’s that for an acronym filled paragraph? Here’s a quick key:
SEO: Search Engine Optimization
ROI – Return on Investment
PPC – Pay Per Click (online advertising)

I’m already breaking one of the cardinal rules of marketing and social networking, and that is this: Don’t use jargon. But at least I’m following another rule: If you DO use jargon, at least translate it.

Back to the story: Search Engine Optimization. Search spiders read website and blog content from left to right, and there is a calculation in the algorithm that gives more value to terms that appear “higher” on the page during the spider’s search. Therefore, content that the spider “sees” on the left-side of the page will weigh more favorably to SEO than content the spider sees on the right-side of the page.

Problem solved! The Self Publishing News blog has the smaller column on the right-hand side and the larger content column on the left-hand side (for the reasons outlined above). So whatever theme I end up choosing for this blog should have the thin/wide columns reversed to give me an opportunity to conduct some A/B testing.

Am I shooting myself in the foot by moving the content-column to the right side, given the procedure with which search spiders read blogs? I don’t think so. Because my previous blogging experience has shown me that the “tagging” and “content clouds” that can be added as widgets in the thinner colum will organically/dynamically “grow” with the blog — putting the thinner column on the left-hand side might actually be BETTER. I guess we’ll see when this blog and the Self Publishing News blogs begin their “race” up the pages of Google.

branding

Picking a Blog Theme

The typical topics of this blog won’t be so mundane as “picking a blog theme.” Or, I don’t know, maybe they will.  But “branding” is one of the topics I’ll be discussing, and when it comes to branding one’s blog, there are some concepts to take into consideration. 

When I first started blogging in 2005, I chose blogger.com as my platform because, frankly, I didn’t know of any other platforms. I found using blogger.com difficult. I had to sign-in each time, the U.I. (user interface) was clumsy, etc.   Coming up with relevant content is hard enough — the publishing portion should be easy!  Hey, that’s the philosophy behind our company. What do you know?

Nevertheless, I gave blogger.com the old college try, but eventually, other responsibilities won out over my blog, partly because using blogger was so hard, and my blogger.com blog became yet another statistic in the growing slush pile of blogs that begin with the best of intentions and then fade out slowly over time. In my case, 5 months. 

Writing consistently and relevantly is hard work!  It’s possible this blog will suffer the same fate, but I’m doing some things differently.  Like, first and foremost, I’m using WordPress instead of Blogger.   We have a number of blogs for Outskirts Press, including SelfPublishingNews.com and when I first set-up that one, I choose a theme for the blog that I was hesitant about right from the beginning. The header was too large and the way in which the blog subjects were presented was too clunky. 

The custom header had already been created for that specific header-size, so I didn’t change the theme, even though I should have.  Fast forward a year or so, and I ultimately decided to change the theme for Self Publishing News anyway — at the same time that I registered “selfpublishingnews.com” in our on-going SEO tactics.  Up until then, the blog was outskirtspress.wordpress.com – which still works. Just like the current address when I’m writing THIS blog is brentsampson.wordpress.com but will be forwarded via DNS to brentsampson.com by the time this posting goes live.

Ah yes, that reminds me of one of the biggest advantages of wordpress over blogger.  WordPress allows you to write blogs and schedule them for post in the future.  Blogger doesn’t (or didn’t in 2005 when I was using them). 

Anyway, back to the story – We kind of “re-launched” the blog as Self Publishing News and I changed the header at that time.   But we had already branded the blog the “old” way, so even though the blog looked better, and it was a better UI for the reader, readers who were used to the “old” look were probably confused by the new one.  Perhaps they thought they were in the wrong place.  It’s easy to find yourself on the wrong blog on the internet, and since many blogs end up saying the same things anyway, you could easily find yourself wasting an hour on a blog you don’t even want to be on. 

Adding insult to injury, the new theme had a narrower “main” column for the content, which means that many of the graphics we created for the old theme are now too wide for the new one, which is only problematic for readers visiting the posting archives, or for those stumbling upon previous blog postings due to successful search engine results (which, let’s face it, is one of the main purposes of a business blog anyway).

Long story, short:  branding a blog correctly right off the bat is kind of important.  So… I’m trying to settle on a blog theme for this one.  I will probably create a custom header for it eventually, but I don’t have time to do that immediately, although I’ve learned my lesson with Self Publishing News and realize I’ll need to do it soon.  Fortunately, with the ability to schedule posts ahead of time, I’m writing many of these blog postings all at once, still in 2009, with the expectation that by the time 2010 rolls around, all these little details will be completed. 

With yesterday’s initial blog posting I chose a theme I don’t even remember the name of… and then when I saw it, I knew that it wasn’t the one for this blog.  With  today’s blog I’m trying a theme called “Sapphire”  — perhaps it is fate, choosing a theme named after one of our self publishing packages.

start-up

President/CEO of Outskirts Press launches new blog

What better day to launch a new endeavor than on New Year’s Day, when New Year’s Resolutions are top of mind?  One of my personal New Year’s Resolutions in 2010 is to get more involved in “social media” and find the time to participate more actively on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, etc.

The great thing about holidays is that you don’t have to provide much blog content, other than to say “Happy New Year!”   Check and see: “Happy New Year” is the most prevalent subject header for blogs and tweets today, because it’s a fast and easy “tweet” or blog posting.  Well, I won’t look a gift-horse in the mouth, so “Happy New Year!”