Q: What are your recommended WordPress settings?
A: There is a lot that can be said, and many differing opinions – not to mention levels of complexity. The most important aspects will be your title tags and permalink structure. Michael Gray has written extensively on
WordPress configuration, including these articles on
Permalinks and
Internal Linking.
Q: Is it important to link from the blog back to your website?
A: It’s essential. Blogs are great for attracting traffic and links, but you need to link to pages of your “money site” to direct that traffic and link juice to where the conversions happen.
Q: Is it a good idea to moderate comments (require approval before displaying)?
A: I strongly advise against moderating comments unless you are able to closely monitor your site. It’s hard for a conversation to develop in the comments on your post if there is a long delay for approval. WordPress has the Akismet plugin that does a very good job of filtering out obvious spam.
Q: How long does it take to get decent traffic on a newly started blog?
A: That depends on the popularity of what you write, and how well you promote your quality articles to other bloggers and communities (Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter). If your article is mentioned by someone with a large following you can get a big spike in traffic quickly. If you continue to produce quality articles you can retain some of that audience.
Q: Do businesses have more than 1 blog going at once?
A: Yes, some do. Often this will be done to represent different aspects of the business (communication from the executive(s), product channels, etc). Obviously, this requires a lot more investment in time and resources.
Q: Why are readers spending 10 minutes on my website but never moving to my blog?
A: Readers come to your site for different reasons. Shoppers might not be interested in your blog, as it doesn’t mesh with their goals for visiting the site. Readership of your blog will grow as your publish and promote quality material.
Q: How do you set up a sidebar ad?
A: The methodology is different for each blogging platform. If you’re using code from a 3rd party, then you’ll just want to paste the code into whatever area your blogging software offers for sidebar content or widgets.
Q: How long should blog posts be?
A: There is a lot of speculation about the ideal length for blog posts. Most people will tell you 200-300 words, in 3-5 short paragraphs. Bullet points and images help to make the content digestible and visually appealing. It’s important to find your own voice, though. Don’t be too loyal to a formula. Some very successful bloggers have found their niche with lengthy articles, others with 2-3 lines similar to Twitter content. The guidelines are a good place to start until you find out what works for you and what resonates with your audience.
