I found this story of Stephan Spencer’s (CNET’s resident blogger) daughter quite interesting. Her successful launch (albeit humble in relation to some major blogs/websites) of her Neopet site could definitely be a benchmark for how a small business should go about planning their site/blog. Here is a bit on how she got started:
In early 2006, when Chloe was 15, she decided to devote a blog to Neopets, a virtual pets site popular with kids the world over. After performing some keyword research through WordTracker and Google Suggest for her blog's title and section headings, she discovered that "neopets cheats" was a hugely popular search term to target for her blog. So she settled on the name: the "Ultimate Neopets Cheats Site." She then used the free WordPress.com service to start the blog. Chloe's site was able to ride on the coattails of WordPress.com's trust and authority in the eyes of Google, thus sidestepping the "Google Sandbox" and jumping to page 1 in Google for the term "neopet cheats" within two weeks of launch.
Pretty good for a 15 year old! Here are a couple of key learnings—
- Define your niche, market, and “product” well
- Do start off by checking out tools such as Wordtracker or Google Suggest and see which keywords are being used the most as it relates to your business/industry. Pick one that you find works best for you and integrate (if possible) into your url or blog name
- Create a site that answers the needs of your market – strong content and navigation being at the top of the list.
- As your visibility grows so should your site. Be flexible with changes that you may need to implement in order to continue being relevant to your market.
Finally, it may be good to tell yourself – “If a 15 year old can do it, so can I.”
More tips that may get you started on the right foot--
Successful Blog Tips
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