Some blogging tidbits

With my new blog in design phase I've been doing a lot more thinking about how I can make my next blog a successful one, and by success I mean more than 50 visitors a day. I'm not all about the stats or the ad revenue but I do want to reach as large an audience as possible for those rare occasions I have something to say.

If you're always on the lookout for some new tips and tricks for your blog then here are a few posts I found super nifty. I plan to reread them and apply them when I'm finally ready to unveil my new site. If you have any other helpful posts/advice/sites you think are perfect for the beginning or even experienced blogger, do share!

Easy SEO Tips to Optimize Your Blog
A very short and simple post from MomDot with some easy tips. This is probably a really good one for beginning bloggers but even more experienced bloggers may have forgotten the importance of a good blog post title.

Get Friendly With Google: Five Easy SEO Tips
BlogCoach is one of my most favorite blogs of all time and their "Grow Your Blog" series is a must-read for any level blogger. This post features five easy tips for helping with your blog's SEO.

Media Kit Template for Mom Bloggers
Sometimes it's nice not to start from scratch when it comes to creating press materials. This is a handy little media kit tweaked for mom bloggers. You can download it from Scribd, and because it's a Word document, you can do your own tweaking! You know often it's really and truly all about your media kit.


What's Technorati and How Does It Help Me as a Blogger?
This post from a mom blogger I met while participating in MomDot's "America's Next Top Blogger" does a really great job explaining Technorati and how it relates to your blog. I'm still a little fuzzy on this one and so I appreciate a post written so even I can understand it! (While reading this one check out Life Starring the Kids & Me's other fun posts!)

Did I miss a recent helpful post on blogging? If so feel free to link to it in the comments below! --Emily

5 Minutes for SEO

I admit it, I haven't set aside the time to really think about SEO for georgie tees or freshly baked. Perhaps it's because I already have so much on my plate and the thought of SEO is so overwhelming that I conveniently block out any and all thoughts of search engine optimization. Life is really good this way (i.e. ignorance is bliss but my search rankings aren't).

But thanks to "SEO Demystified: Breaking it Down Into the Basics," a guest post by Holly Klaassen on 5 Minutes for Mom, I have a new perspective on SEO and renewed energy to jump into optimizing my sites for those all-important search engines!

In Holly's post she breaks down SEO into some very basic points, making the process and application something even I could do--and without a lot of time spent on the more technical (aka overwhelmingly confusing and brain-busting) aspects:

[SEO] can seem especially daunting if you decide to just jump in and start reading some of the most popular SEO blogs (most of which assume at least an intermediate level of SEO knowledge). The reason this is unfortunate is that really, the basics of SEO are just that – basic.

"SEO Demystified" covers the foundations of SEO, technical components, keywords and links in a post that is as clear as it is concise. I'm tempted to throw out all the SEO-related sites that are collecting dust in my Firefox bookmarks folder after reading Holly's post and instead check out her e-book, 50 SEO Secrets for Mom Entrepreneurs. After her SEO guest post on 5 Minutes for Mom, I am one of Holly's newest and biggest fans! And as Holly says at the end of her post, "Go, do some SEO!" --Emily