One of the first questions that people ask when they are setting up a blog for their website is, “Where do I get content?” The answer is often right in front of their faces, in the form of their existing press releases, brochures, and other printed materials. Mequoda.com has published an excellent style article for turning this printed content into a blog post or page. I am going to elaborate on some of their points:

Titling, categorization and tagging rules for online publishing with Wordpress blogs

When publishers pull apart their archived content and start putting it up on their blog, they have a variety of style options to choose from when posting.

We recommend taking a little extra time to optimize your old articles (whether they are evergreen or not) in order to make that content as valuable to your blog (and audience) as possible.

The following style guide for unleashing your print archives into a blog is specific to Wordpress in terms of folksonomy, but can be applied to any type of blogging platform.

Rule #1: Include at least one primary or secondary keyword phrase in your blog titles and subhead.

Why? Because blog titles are so specific, you might choose to use a secondary keyword in your title (like “repurposed content” in the case of this article) and a primary in your subhead (like “online publishing”). If you want to get ranked on a keyword in search engines (and you do), this is your prime real estate to display them.

Keywords are very important, and the search engines parse your posts looking for the most important words in the text. It is important to highlight them. Which leads to:

Rule #2: Make sure your blog is set up to define your title and subhead in H tags.

Why? H1, H2 and H3 are highly regarded by Google as defining what a page is “about”.

In your “writing page” in WordPress there is a button in the menu bar titled “Paragraph”. In the drop-down menu you will see Heading 2 and Heading 3. I recommend that you use Heading 2 no more than once per page, and Heading 3 for your sub-headings. Edit your CSS to make these headings “pop”.

NOTE: Never use H1 in your content! That tag is reserved for the title of the page and you will be penalized by the search engines.

Examples:

This is H2/Heading 2

This is H3/Heading 3

Rule #4: Assign posts to a single category.

Why? From testing, it’s become abundantly clear that assigning single categories to articles boosts ranking on the category title. Hopefully your categories (or topics) are named as keywords that you want to be ranked on. This can also avoid duplicate content.

You should also keep in mind that your blog should have a few, very focused categories. If you write about cars, for example,you might use categories like Sedan, Coupe, Convertible, then use Tags for more specific topics like Corvette, BMW, and so on.

This is really great information for people that are looking to optimize their online content, and for more information like this, including audio and video with step-by-step instructions and real-life examples, see Writing for the Web, Inside and Out, by myself and Brad Shorr.

Editors Note: This is a guest post from Robert Tuchman, whose book, Young Guns, I reviewed a while back. Robert Tuchman is the founder of Tuchman Sports Enterprises, a company he started out of his one-bedroom apartment in Manhattan at the age of 25.

Do you ever find yourself thinking about something that could work in today’s market? An idea that is unique and unlike anything else out there in the big world of business today? If you are a savvy entrepreneur and ready to tackle the business world like I once was, here are four solid things to remember when applying your first plan:

1. Your business is going to be built on a great idea
2. That great idea is going to connect you to a market
3. You will create a plan based on what you learn, on an ongoing basis, about that market
4. You will adjust that plan over time.

The last item is particularly important. Good businesses don’t stand still; they don’t rely on a single idea. Good businesses adapt to the situations that emerge in the market. Good businesses keep moving forward; they become a nonstop source of ideas, not a graveyard for a single idea that once made sense. If you stick to your first big plan, and execute it with precision and enthusiasm it may take you to places that you may never have foreseen. Remember that if you love something so much, and have a great knowledge on your idea, making it work for you and your business will come that much easier.

Now that you have your plan, with your target audience in mind and you niche clear, you next develop a game plan for your business. This plan does not have to be as elaborate as a business school project, but it should outline what you want your company to do and how you want it to look. Jot down your best ideas on a single sheet of paper this is
exactly how I drew up my first business plan. You must be able to visualize your company growing in the way that your one-page game plan suggests. Think positive, and have long-term goals.

Thanks, Robert.
You can order this book via my Amazon affiliate link:

I started reading Hugh McLeod’s blog Gaping Void about three years ago, and was amazed (and a little bit shocked) at his ideas, candor, and language. Now he has turned a long essay on creativity into a book that you should read.
Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity is an awesome resource. Here are the first ten keys:

1. Ignore everybody.

2. The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours.

3. Put the hours in.

4. If your biz plan depends on you sud­denly being “dis­co­ve­red” by some big shot, your plan will pro­bably fail.

5. You are res­pon­si­ble for your own expe­rience.

6. Ever­yone is born crea­tive; ever­yone is given a box of cra­yons in kin­der­gar­ten.

7. Keep your day job.

8. Com­pa­nies that squelch crea­ti­vity can no lon­ger com­pete with com­pa­nies that cham­pion crea­ti­vity.

9. Every­body has their own pri­vate Mount Eve­rest they were put on this earth to climb.

10. The more talen­ted some­body is, the less they need the props.

Number 6 is one of my favorites: Ever­yone is born crea­tive; ever­yone is given a box of cra­yons in kin­der­gar­ten.
“So you’ve got the itch to do something” is how this chapter starts, and I think that we all feel this sometimes. McLeod describes all sorts of situations and ideas that may occur to you to create something, but you are afraid that is isn’t “good enough”, or no one will want to publish it, or any number of reasons not to do it.

So what is his amazing and powerful advice? Do it. Make it. Put your heart and soul into making something amazing that will blow the minds of people that see it. “If you make something special and powerful and honest and true, you will succeed.” If you have even the tiniest bit of creative spark in yourself, you will know that his is true. It might be buried way down deep, but you know it.

Read this book.

Then get started on that amazing thing. I am working on mine and I feel awesome. In fact, after reading this, and an opportunity came for me to take another day job (see #7 above), I took it. Because now the time that I spend on my “creative stuff” feels so much more valuable, more meaningful. And the small idea that I had for a Productivity E-book is turning into something special and powerful and honest and true. And it is going to be much cooler than the original plan called for. Stay tuned.

(I get something like $0.50 if you buy it through this link)

10 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read

These are the 10 books that [David Cancel] believe every entrepreneur should read:

1. The Entrepreneur’s Guide to Business Law
2. Bootstrapping Your Business
3. Purple Cow
4. The Art of the Start
5. The Innovator’s Dilemma
6. The E-Myth Revisited
7. Permission Marketing
8. Growing a Business
9. The Cluetrain Manifesto
10. Bottom-up Marketing

This is a very good list, and I would add Trust Agents, Tribes, and Here Comes Everybody.

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