WeBlog Conference – Morning Session

We’re discussing SEO recommendations based on Website Grader. Most bloggers here do not have their meta tags set up, and many of us are also missing ALT tags for our images. Apparently 10 of my images are missing ALT tags on my home page here. Hmm. And I have too many images on my site, according to my report. My meta description is 9 characters too long. (Anyone want to suggest a new one for me?)

My Website Grader score is 98. That’s pretty good. My Twitter Grader score is 99.41. Woot!

I’m also not listed on the Yahoo directory. Apparently, this is an issue, according to Website Grader. I’ve tried submitting to the directory before. Guess I’m supposed to try again. Except that I see now that there’s an annual fee to be a part of the Yahoo directory. I’m not overly concerned with this. Do people really use the directory, anyway?

My domain is aged well, and it doesn’t expire for more than a year. This is a good thing.

This is a lot of basic SEO. A surprising number of people use “click here” as anchor text when making their links. (Don’t do that, people!)

The reading level required for my blog, apparently, is secondary/high school. We should be aiming for primary/fifth grade level so everyone can get it.

HARO has gift bag sponsors? Apparently you need an Alexa score of 500,000 or better. You can’t ask for review items, but you can say you’re doing an editorial piece on the reporter side – and it’s basically the same deal, in journalist-speak. My Alexa rank is close, but not quite there. You can enter ProfNet as a journalist, too. Remember to thank everyone who contacts you back, because you don’t want to burn your PR bridges even if you can’t use the item being offered at the time. Oh, and you don’t need to tell anyone your stats if they don’t ask. Our very own blogging Don’t Ask Don’t Tell rule.

Guest posting is a good way to get links back to your site. (Anyone want to guest post on Cutest Kid Ever? I have some openings.)

We should be putting together a media kit. A media kit can be a brochure to bring to local companies, or it can be a PDF to send via email. Media kits are different for everyone, but you need to tell people what your site is about, what you do, your target audience and demographics, etc. Stats shouldn’t go in the media kit because they change constantly. You can put “stats available by request.” You need to include your guidelines, refund policy, etc. Use a professional voice; refer to your site in the third person. Include: Just because you send me something, it doesn’t guarantee you get a review. Life happens. Cover yourself.

PR people search for the term “PR OK.” Add it if you’re cool with PR people contacting you.

If you have guest posters on your site, you need to make rules for your guest posters about word count, acceptable number of links, who owns the post, resource box, etc.

We have a PR rep (Laura) on Jyl’s speakerphone. Her #1 tip for bloggers was to be personable. PR reps want us to talk to them like we’re people, work something really personal into your reviews and posts. Then she wanted to know if we like getting one email with a list of multiple products available for review, and we said yes. We’d rather get one email with 15 products listed than 15 different emails. (We’re learning from each other! Woot!)

You can search for companies on LinkedIn for Public Relations and Media Relations contacts. There’s a savvy way to find contact emails. (I’m not posting it here. Sorry.)

Have you heard of O’Dwyer’s Public Relations News? Wow. You can find rankings of PR companies by specialty or location. Build great relationships with your PR contacts.

Use Twitter to your advantage when you want to work with companies. Always @ the companies you’re tweeting about. Let them notice you noticing them.

Kelli uses Windows Live Writer to compose her blog posts, because it generates tags for her. I may have to check this out to see what it  looks like. Just for the image posting. OMG, pretty!

My “one thing” that works for me is that I use SocialOomph to schedule my promotional tweets. That way, I get my giveaway tweets, etc. out there so I can set it and forget it… then I can just tweet like a person after they’re all set up. Because I like to chat when I tweet, and I don’t like the promotional part. I get the work out of the way all at once, and then I can relax.

Nicole talked to us about the Book Review Ning she started out with that has gotten her foot in the door.

Lindsay told us about OnlineSweepstakes.com for promoting her giveaways. I’ll have to check that out.

Jyl said her strength is building relationships with companies and PR firms, talking to them like human beings, not like something unapproachable.

Christy said that the thing that was most successful for her was instilling a sense of ownership in her readers. She always thanks her readers for helping make her so successful. She values each person who comes to her site.

Gina also uses Online Sweepstakes and Sweepstakes Advantage to promote her giveaways.

CJ does a lot of research, going to other people’s blogs and leaving comments. Finding those CommentLuv blogs can be very helpful.

Shanakah is working on scheduling more posts because she’s getting overwhelmed with Twitter, blogging, and keeping up with family.

And now it’s time for a break! See ya later!

Christina Gleason (976 Posts)

That’s me: Christina Gleason. I’m a writer, editor, and disability advocate. I'm a multiply disabled autistic lady doing my best in this world built for abled people. I’m a geek for grammar, fantasy, and casual gaming. I hate vegetables. I cannot reliably speak, so I’ll happily conduct business over email or messaging instead.