As I said in the comments, my short answer is… sure. (Thought-provoking and eloquent, I know.)

Plenty of my short posts come up on the first page of search results for their keywords, and I bet you’ve stumbled on short posts from the big blogs such as Gizmodo or (one I come across a lot doing searches in my home improvement niche) Trendir. Many shopping or gadget blogs specialize in posting frequently and, er, shortly.

Sometimes posts on the popular blogs will be lengthened significantly by user comments, but in the case of Trendir, the site keeps comments turned off, so it certainly appears that short can work just fine.

So, why do many experts suggest longer pages?

My thought is that it can’t hurt, and it can help.

The more times a keyword phrase appears on a page (in the natural flow of sentences, not stuffed in there left and right until the page doesn’t make sense), the more weight the search engines may give your post in deciding where it should rank.

We don’t necessarily need to be thinking SEO with every blog post, though, and if writing short entries makes it easier for you to put out content on a regular basis, that may turn out to make your site more popular in the long run.

SEO and blogging

Unlike with article sites, a lot of bloggers don’t worry about SEO much on individual posts. This is either because a) they don’t care about/know about SEO or b) they prefer to build their sites organically and let the traffic gods judge their sites as they will.

I’m somewhere in the middle when it comes to blogging. I started out with SEO-based article sites and moved to blogging later, so SEO is usually in the back of my mind.

On my home improvement blog, I’ll usually try to put a likely keyword phrase in the title and sprinkle it throughout the post, if only out of habit. However if I’m promoting an affiliate product, where I’m actually hoping to make sales down the road, I’ll actually look up a keyword phrase to target (I stick to less searched and less competitive phrases for individual blog posts, since I rarely go on link-building campaigns for single posts), but for day-to-day writing, I’m often just putting things out there because they might interest folks and to keep the fresh content flowing.

I’ve found that a lot of time the posts like that (not specifically written with SEO in mind) sometimes do well and bring in quite a bit of traffic for a phrase I didn’t intentionally target, while the ones I worked harder at aren’t always winners.

In the blogosphere, what really helps is when an author of one of the big popular blogs happens to like something you wrote about and links to it just because. You can’t always predict what will win the natural links, and those are often the difference between popularity and obscurity for a specific blog post (whether you worried about SEO or not!).

Post from: Writing for Your Wealth

Are Short Blog Posts Okay for SEO? (Reader Questions Series)

When I look across the several blogs I maintain, I find that the only one I update daily (and have done consistently for more than three years) revolves around short posts. They’re usually in the neighborhood of 150-200 words and focus on one product or one tip or a short series of ideas related to one specific concept.

You’ve probably seen quite a few blogs like this (just think of all the gadget blogs such as Gizmodo and Engadget for starters).

Perhaps the biggest benefit (and what motivated me to write this entry) is that it takes less time to write short posts. There’s usually less research involved, less actual writing, less proofreading, and less all around procrastinating. It’s easy to convince yourself to sit down and knock out a post that takes 10 or 15 minutes to write; finding an hour or more of time can be busy, especially when you’re also working a day job and–we hope–having a life.

There are some other benefits to the short-post style as well:

• More pages of content to attract search engines — If you’re writing the long monster posts (as I’m often guilty of on this site!), it can take a year to get 50 or 75 pages of content out there. Even if you post every weekday (let’s at least take the weekends and holidays off, shall we?), you’re only looking at 250 pages or so in a year. This may seem like a lot, but compare this to a site such as Gizmodo that publishes thousands of posts a year. Now we don’t need to be that prolific (especially since our blogs usually aren’t the work of multiple authors), but remember that every page of content you write is another doorway through which people can find and enter your site.
• Every post is a chance to get noticed — Other bloggers spend a lot of time monitoring their feed readers, watching for news on certain keywords. Professional bloggers, in particular, (those who have committing to posting X times a day for someone) are always looking for story ideas. If they spot your post and use it to launch a post of their own, chances are they’re give you credit for the story with a link to your site. Those freebie links are the best kind!
• Internet readers often have short attention spans — Numerous studies have shown that folks read differently on the Internet. They treat websites more like newspapers than novels. You might even be the same way. You zip through pages, only reading the stories that interest you, and even then you often skim. Maybe you’re reading from work (with a boss who might wander by at any time), or maybe you’re watching the kids, or maybe you’re multitasking and working on some of your own projects at the same time. Anyway you roll it, short posts can be attractive to busy web surfers.

Now, lest this entry itself get too much longer, I’ll end by admitting that the short-post style may not be a fit for every blog. Still there are enough benefits that it may be worth tinkering with on occasion.

Instead of publishing a 2,000-word list of the Top 10 Movies Comic Book Fans Must Rent Right Now, try breaking it across 10 posts and a few days. You might just find the task less daunting!

Post from: Writing for Your Wealth

Cashing in & Staying Motivated with Short Blog Posts

Share this post with others:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
]]> http://www.writingforyourwealth.com/blogging-for-bucks/cashing-in-staying-motivated-with-short-blog-posts/feed/ 6 http://www.writingforyourwealth.com/blogging-for-bucks/increase-your-blogging-income-with-product-reviews/ http://www.writingforyourwealth.com/blogging-for-bucks/increase-your-blogging-income-with-product-reviews/#comments Tue, 10 Feb 2009 23:03:21 +0000 Lindsay http://www.writingforyourwealth.com/?p=576 What’s your blog about? Writing? Gardening? Internet marketing? Dog training? Underwater basket weaving?

Chances are that if you’re blogging on a niche (and let’s hope you are if you want to make money), there are products related to your niche that you could write about (yes, even basket-weaving).

You’ve probably already tried some of those products yourself. After all, you wouldn’t start a blog on the joys of home brewing unless you’d actually brewed something, right? At the very least, you’ve surely read some books related to your niche (and, yes, it’s okay to make money reviewing books you didn’t actually buy–libraries are our friends, especially when we’re still in the willing-but-not-yet-wealthy blogger category).

These products you’ve tried, have you reviewed them yet for your readers? And have you inserted affiliate links so you can make money?

If you answered, “no,” “uhm,” or “I meant to…” to those questions, then there’s money missing from your bank account, even as we speak. It’s time to take action to increase your earnings. It’s time to get reviewing.

How to make money reviewing products on your blog

Why reviews?

Before I go into the nuts and bolts of how to make money with reviews, let’s talk briefly about why reviews work so well.

In short, reviews sell products.

Reviews attract the right kind of visitors from the search engines (people who are already thinking of buying a product and are looking for more information on it), and they also offer social proof. People see that someone else has tried out this product, and they assume it must be better than this product over here that nobody has written a review about. (That may or may not be true, but that’s how we gregarious human creatures tend to think.)

Writing reviews for products with affiliate programs

Okay, reviews sell, but how do you make money writing them?

This is where affiliate programs come in. Here’s what you do:

1. Find an affiliate program in your niche — Products in just about every niche are for sale somewhere online. Look around and you’re bound to find a merchant who offers an affiliate deal.
2. Sign up — Once you sign up for the program, you’ll be able to create links with your personal tracking ID embedded in them.
3. Write the review — Write a blog post reviewing the product. You don’t have to hype up the product. People are more likely to buy something after reading an honest review that points out the pros and cons (we’re suspicious of products that sound too good be true).
4. Insert the affiliate link in the review — Text links usually convert best, so insert a text affiliate link right into the content of the review. Feel free to use it a couple of times over the course of the review. You don’t want someone to forget to click after all.
5. Get a link or two to your review post — If your blog is already popular, you’ll probably make money just from posting the review, but for newer blogs (or if you just want to help things along), it’s useful to get a few outside links to the specific review page.
6. Sit back and wait to get paid — No explanation needed!

Finding affiliate programs

Okay, you’ve got those golden steps printed out and stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. But how do you find the right kind of affiliate programs?

The most obvious way is to go to merchants you already know and like and check their site for links that say “affiliates” or “affiliate program” or the like. They’re usually down at the bottom. A lot of bigger companies offer affiliate programs, and even mom and pop stores often do.

If you’re reviewing books, you can sign up for the Amazon affiliate program (other booksellers have affiliate programs too so choose your favorite). Amazon is nice because they have a lot of non-book products as well. But if you’re blogging about products in a certain niche, you may get a better deal (higher commission) signing up for a niche-specific affiliate program.

For example, on my home & garden blog, I occasionally promote lawn and garden products from the Gardeners’ Supply Store. They have an affiliate program you can sign up for through LinkShare. I actually just ordered some raised garden bed kits from them, and you better believe I will review those products when I get them.

When products pay for themselves

The best deal is when you review something you would have bought anyway and your commissions end up paying for the product. It may take me a while to pay for those raised garden bed kits since the Gardeners’ store doesn’t offer terribly high commissions (with shops that sell physical products, it’s rare to get paid more than 10%), but I’m sure that if I work at getting a couple links to that review, the beds will be paid for within a couple years.

If you happen to find online courses or digitally delivered information products in your niche, commissions can be much higher.

When I reviewed Yaro Starak’s Blog Mastermind program for this site, someone asked why I–someone who already makes a nice living from her blogs and websites–would bother taking a $500 blogging-for-beginners course.

For one thing, I was familiar with Yaro’s blog and knew he had a lot more business acumen than I do (I am much more of a writer than an entrepreneur), so I was sure I’d learn something from the course. But the real kicker was that Yaro offers a 50% affiliate commission for his program. If two people purchase the course after reading my review (and clicking the links), then I’ve made my money back. Anything after that is gravy.

It definitely pays to do reviews for products in your niche, especially for products you would have bought anyway. It’s always great getting something for free, and if you can make some extra money, it’s even better!

Post from: Writing for Your Wealth

Increase Your Blogging Income with Product Reviews

Share this post with others:
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
]]> http://www.writingforyourwealth.com/blogging-for-bucks/increase-your-blogging-income-with-product-reviews/feed/ 16