Here’s the short list:
1. Pick a topic for your blog. Makes sense! You want visitors to know right away what they should expect when they start reading your blog. If one day it’s a personal commentary, then the next day it’s a how-to video blog it can get a little confusing. Keep it clear, and keep readers.

2. Encourage comments. This is how you show that you care. If you’re willing to listen to other’s opinion about your blog posts, then you’re open and honest. Keep it closed, and it seems like you just want a monologue – not a conversation. Don’t worry about negative comments – you can handle them. If you have issues with SPAM (like we all do) on your blog, use Akismet or math plugin to screen them.

3. Make it easy to subscribe. Feedburner - it’s a life saver.

4. About Page. For those that haven’t been following you all along, they’ll want to know about you, your interests, why you blog.

5. Be visual. Feel free to use graphs, charts, photos, videos and more – this visual simulation will help your visitors be more engaged.

6. Keep it short. People like to read online, but they like to read in short paragraphs, bullet points, and lists. Use them.

7. Subheadings for longer posts. Help break-up long posts into bite-sized, readable chunks.

8. Link. Use pingbacks (which allows your post to show-up on another blog), link to articles within your blog. Links help your readers to go deeper into the content and to explain a point without having to explain each time. Links are great for search engine optimization, too.

9. Headlines are descriptive. Let your readers know exactly why they should read your post up-front. If you’re vague then they’ll vaguely remember to read your blog. This is really important when people subscribe through RSS: some RSS readers will only show the title of the post, so if your title is descriptive, they can decide quickly whither or not to keep reading.

10. Archive by topic. It’s important to use Categories in your blog. It helps organize the blog for readers so that if they want to read more about a subject, they can easily click the coordinating category and read all your posts related to that topic. Date archives don’t help the reader.

To read the other 10, click HERE.

My favorite, though, is the last one:
20. Blog often. Technorati has a graph that shows that the most popular bloggers blog twice a day, the least popular posts a dozen times a month. If your readers like you, they want more from you – everyday! As a small business owner, I know it’s hard to blog on a regular basis – but knowing that if you blog often, your can get more readers – which translates into more business – perhaps you’ll change you’re mind! I know I did!

1. Already successful and ready to retire: perhaps you are a coach that left a company and then started your coaching business, which related to what you were doing before. You already have the right connections and have more than enough business right from the get-go, and when the business runs out you plan to retire.
2. Coaching is a Hobby: perhaps you are a coach that isn’t looking to have a business, but just wants to be called ‘a coach’. I don’t recommend this as it hurts the coaching industry as a whole, and thus I would recommend not having an online presence. For more on coach credentials, code of ethics for coaches, or coach training, please visit the International Coach Federation website.
3. You don’t think you need one: perhaps you think it’s a waste of time, energy or money. If this is true, you probably will never read this post anyway because you don’t go on the web.

If, however, you’re new to coaching and you’re just launching your company – it might be best to spend your time connecting with individuals, companies and other potential clients than to spend several weeks trying to put a website together. I recommend, however, at least setting-up a little WordPress.com site that at least explains what you do as a coach, some basic contact information and a blog. This will help you to build credibility to your prospects, and start building a presence on the web.

This past Friday I walked our class through the marketing and optimization of a WordPress blog. This included:

- Pingbacks and Trackbacks
- Finding keywords and keyphrases
- Utilizing Social Media Marketing, including Ping.fm and BudURL.com
- Using YouTube to drive traffic to your blog
- Directories – such as Technorati and others

I also gave each of our participants a free editorial calender for their blog to help us organize our thoughts while publishing our blog on a regular basis. But, remember, it’s fun to blog (and eat cookies)!

1. Understanding what a blog is: an informative, opinionated, ‘human’ look at a company/business or person. As a coach, this will be the way that your potential clients will get to know the ‘real’ you – not just the one you show for your sales copy. Why do we want to show this human side of a life or business coach? Well, what is the first rule of sales: we buy from people that we know, like and trust – and a blog allows us to build that!

2. Blog styles: we discussed Blogger, Typepad, WordPress.com and WordPress.org

3. Get involved: before you start your blog, however, you should read and participate in some that are interesting to you, or are in your industry. Make sure to choose ones that are active and popular. In order to find a few blogs that you like, search Technorati. Oh – and the answer between Authority and Ranking is that they’re basically the same: to build authority or ranking within Technorati you need to build links from other blogs to yours. Be aware that links will ‘clear out’ from Technorati if they’re older than 6 months.

4. Have a plan and get started! Your blog should be part of your over-all marketing plan – so before you get started with designing or adding content to your blog, it’s a good idea to have a clear idea of where it’s going.

This week, we’ll be reviewing how to update your blog – design wise and adding multi-media. If you would like to learn how-to customize your WordPress.com website / blog, click here to be sure to sign-up for our May 1st class!

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So, you’ve thought-up your niche that will go well with your blog that relates back to your life or business coaching services, and you’ve started a blog. Perhaps you’ve even added some posts with interesting, keyword rich content, and now you’re ready to let your visitors subscribe to your blog using RSS Feeds! Not only that, but you want to know who is visiting your life or business blog. This kind of information and functionality will help you know when it’s best to add new content, and how your efforts Internet Marketing efforts are producing. This video will teach Blogger account users how to use www.feedburner.com to add RSS Feeds, Stat Counter code, and Email Subscription code.

FREE for C&GR Virtual University Members

So, once your blog is up, how do you get people to it?

Good question! In this class you learn:

• How to add affiliate links to earn advertising income.
• How to add the ability to track visitors and subscribers.
• How to promote your blog so that you get known.

Don’t worry about ‘Geek Speak’
We use language you can understand and offer simple, easy to follow instructions.

To be ready for the class:
You need a Blogger Account. You can get one for free at blogger.com.

What You Get:

• Enrollment in the 60 minute teleclass.
• MP3 recording of the teleclass, that is yours to keep.
• Written notes (delivered electronically).

Date: Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Time: 1:00pm – 2:00pm Eastern Standard Time (New York) To Register, click HERE!

If you’re a life or business coach and you really want to become active in the Internet Marketing world, then you need a blog. A blog (like the one you’re reading now) can help you with search engine optimization, provide a personal touch to your company, and it’s flexible: add video, audio, articles, photos, press releases, and so much more! This video will explain how to get started – simply creating your first blog through www.blogger.com. Why www.blogger.com – well, I think it’s easier to use than WordPress or Typepad or any other blogging software that I’ve found so far – and if your a coach that doesn’t feel too tech savy – than Blogger is for you. So, get out their coaches – and start marketing your business with a blog!

Rachel has FREE teleclasses. Be sure to sign-up by clicking HERE to be notified of when they are.