After such a great response from my blog post about optimizing your Active Rain profile, I decided to write this follow up post about how to optimize your Active Rain Blog.
Your Blog Title
It’s amazing how many people on Active Rain simply title their blog as “Bob’s Blog” or “Sue’s Blog.” The problem with this is that this is not very descriptive for Search Engines or Web Visitors. Instead, try to incorporate a keyword into your blog title. After all, this text will appear at the top of every post that you write. But don’t just take the simple way out and use the exact keyword as your name (If you don’t have a keyword in your Active Rain name, stop and read this first.) Instead, you should alter it slightly so it doesn’t look spammy. For example, My Active Rain name is “Brad Carroll – Real Estate Web Designer”. My Blog title is Real Estate Website Design Blog. Notice how I am using slightly different phrases. Matt Cutts of Google even discusses this in his latest talk.
So how do you change your blog title? It’s actually quite simple. Just click on the “My Home” link and then click on My Settings. Simply make the change and then click “update.” While you are in there, make sure you have a keyword rich description that accurately describes your blog.
Give Yourself Some Link Love
Active Rain gives you the ability to create a Blogroll in the sidebar of your blog. Simply click the “add/remove” link to manage the links in your blogroll. Be sure to capitalize on this by linking back to your website or other blog. Make sure you use descriptive keywords to help your website’s Search Engine Optimization.
Get More Comments and Views
When it comes to blogs, the name of the game is exposure. The great thing is that Active Rain gives you a sure fire way to have your blog post seen by thousands of people. The secret isn’t really a secret at all. It’s groups. You are allowed to submit your blog post to five different groups. Yet every day I see so many great posts lost in cyberspace because they were not submitted to any groups. For example, a few weeks ago I stumbled across a great post about SEO. As a moderator for the Blogging and SEO group, I am always keeping an eye out for helpful posts about SEO. I knew this was going to be an instant feature. But they didn’t submit the post to any groups! This person missed out on a great opportunity to get lots of exposure because they failed to tie their post to any groups. And because it wasn’t in a group, I was unable to easily find that post to link it here.
Find the Biggest Audience
Another common mistake is not submitting your posts to the most popular groups. If you want your post to be seen by the biggest audience, submit your post to the biggest groups. Don’t waste your time submitting to groups that only have a handful of subscribers. As I am writing this post, I already know that I will be submitting this to Blogging and SEO, Art of Marketing You, Online Marketing, Rain Making and AR Newbies. Do you think it’s coincidence that these are all some of the most subscribed groups on Active Rain? Of course not. I want the biggest audience! Now, with that said, be sure that your post is actually relevant to the group.
Nothing Beats Good Content
In the end, it’s not the title or the group that makes a good blog post. It’s the content. But good content combined with maximum exposure is a great formula for success!
If you found this information helpful, please consider subscribing to my blog
Until Then,
Brad Carroll
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Brad,
More great advice! I must admit it doesn't matter what group you post to - I'm subscribed to your blog. Your good content has built a lot of readership for you very quickly!