Distinct Or Extinct: 10 Tips for A Well-Branded Blog

You cant blog unless you already have a personal brand. I joke about this - but I really believe that you cant blog sustainably unless you find your voice, have an opinion, and have something valuable to say. Having a brand is like being in the groove - and when you are in a groove - things roll along.

Start with an attention getting title. If you dont capture an audience in the first sentence - you have lost them. The title is going to show up in a list of your blogs and that is all that will be visible. It has to stand out.

Make your first sentence powerful - if not controversial. I often cross post my blogs to writerspan.com in order to get more visibility and let them monetize it for me. WriterSpan.com takes its content and shoves the title and the first sentence or two out to 30,000 community websites. So the whole post isnt visible - but the first sentence is.

Make your Blog Readable. Nobody has the time nor inclination to read something that is so dense your brain hurts. So one technique is to judiciously use bolding. Making a keyword or concept bold draws the reader into the story. You probably already know that bullet lists are easy to read - so I wont mention it (ha).

Feel free to add some multimedia. Just text can be boring. If you have a image that you have rights to publish - add it to the page - it adds visual variety. Here is a picture of young jeffrey conteplating his future as a writer.

Help your blog get Google Mojo. We all know that google pays attention to blogs and catalogs them regularly. You must ensure that your blog is tagged sufficiently. Tags are one way content gets classified and found on the net. So I always at least tag my articles with the word "Brand". You can also sprinkle keywords here and there in your text to help getting found. Keyword analysis is both a science and an art but its worth knowing a little bit about it. If you use words in your title and your text that google users enter into the search field - then your article has a greater chance of rising to the top of the search engine results page (SERP). Another thing to pay attention to is the link (anchor) text. This is the underlined text as in this blog that opens another location. The best text is a keyword loaded phrase. So I might tell you that I am a forward thinking and charismatic software architect and social media evangelist to call attention to my domain or company. Having good keywords and well articulated link text is essential to be found.

Develop your Writing Style. I think style comes from practice. You cant belabor everything you write. So the key is to let out some of your personality in the writing. Let some of it flow. I learned a lot from reading Strunk and White's Elements of Style. One thing I learned was to mix up the length of my sentences and paragraphs. Small is good. It adds variety and keeps the reader engaged. There is a billion other tricks - I suggest that you try some out in your writing.

Blogs can be Short. Dont be afraid to write a short blog. I myself have little paragraph ideas. I have friends that write essays. But I think I have been more successful at getting something written and published with the small pieces.

Be Personal and Tell a Story. Don't fear revealing a bit about yourself in everything you write. Writing is not just expressing intellectual ideas - its about expressing your "full" idea - its thoughts AND emotions. Develop your ability to tell a story. Chip and Dan Heath remind us that stories are a key element to making things stick in other people's minds - which is an essential element to personal branding.

Always Promote Yourself. There is always a chance to promote yourself in your blog - beyond being read or being syndicated using RSS. I always add my tagline at the bottom of the page with a link to one of my web pages. Its a simple reminder to others of my brand but also accumulates inbound links to my target site.

Distinct Or Extinct