It’s Day 22 of the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog, and we’re rapidly approaching the end of the series. To date, we’ve discussed building a foundation for your wedding blog, writing quality content, and tips on optimizing your blog. So what’s left? Your Readers.

Building an audience and improving your readership is key. You’re writing your wedding blog with the expectation that others will read it. So today’s task is focused on the readers. Who’s your audience, and who is reading your blog?

Day 22 Task – Identify your Readers

Know your readers. Why are they visiting your blog? What topics interest them most? What keywords are searched to direct them to your wedding blog? This is where your analytics come in from Day 2 and Day 3. Take a look at your visitor statistics and alerts. Brainstorm on topics in your wedding niche that connect with the terms and keywords your readers are using. 

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Involving guest bloggers to contribute to your wedding blog, is a great way to establish your blog as a trusted and respected resource. Inviting an expert blogger will help to increase traffic to your site. Also, the expert’s readers now become aware of your wedding blog as a new resource, and vice versa. Guest bloggers can address topics, or answers questions, that you as a wedding blogger may not be familiar with. Planning to take a vacation, or taking time away from the blog, is a great time to add a guest blogger to fill in the gaps. 

Day 21 Task – Invite a Guest Blogger to your Wedding Blog

Reach out to a respected expert in your wedding niche, and invite them to contribute a blog post in their specific area of expertise. Don’t feel you must limit yourself to bloggers, choose an expert from any arena that you feel can contribute or inspire your readers. Be sure to communicate that the post may be edited if needed. You don’t want to run the risk of insulting your expert. Request a few post ideas to choose from to ensure you receive a quality post.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Commenting on other blogs is another important element in improving your own blog. Leaving comments on blogs helps to build your blogging reputation and establish your blog as a respected resource. There is such a thing called “Blog Comment Etiquette”. Be wise when choosing a strategy to add comments. You don’t want your comments to be viewed as SPAM, and automatically removed from other blogs. Some blogs have what is called a “NoFollow” tag, which tells search engines not to follow any links in the blog comments. Though the search engines may not recognize the link, other readers my follow the link. So leaving comments will also help to improve your search engine ranking, and build traffic for your wedding blog.

Day 20 Task – Create a Strategy for Leaving Blog Comments

Some experts recommend leaving blog comments twice a day or at least three times a day. It’s up to you to decide on a strategy for leaving blog comments, and remember not to over do it.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Yesterday, we discussed using tags for your wedding blog posts. Today we will discuss tagging the photos in your wedding blog posts. By using ALT tags (alternative tags) you can improve the quality of your content for better search engine ranking. An ALT Tag allows you to give your photos a text description or keyword. For example, if you have a photo of a “tiffany blue” tablescape, you will want to add an ALT tag to the photo with that description. The more specific, the better your chances of high ranking in search engine results. 

Day 19 Task – Add ALT Tags to your Wedding Blog Photos

In today’s task, you should take some time to review your past posts and add ALT tags to the photos in your posts. Remember to be very specific in describing the photos you are tagging.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

I was recently on the recieving end of what amounts to questions of the originality of our recent posts in the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog. As with most area of my life I decided to approach this as a teaching moment. So, let’s explore some of the issues of blogging in the “sea of sameness”.

When building your wedding blog it is important to cite any references (typically through links and trackbacks). At times this may prove difficult, especially when your idea is the manifestation of an amalgamation of several ideas threaded together. But non the less, do your best to give credit when credit is due.  

I’d like to thank my Twitter friends for raising this crucial topic to my attention.  I commit painstaking and brain numbing hours trying to make sure I produce original and valuable information for the wedding world and any similarities with others is a mere coincidence. Please be on the lookout for upcoming iMatrimony blog posts on other measures of protecting your brand in the era of social media.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Are you using tags on your wedding blog?

Tags are like labels. Your tags should not reflect the blog post entirely, but elements of the content in the blog post. Much like to titles to describe the aisles at the grocery store. Tagging, although not structured like Catergories, allows you to keep your content organized. It also helps readers to find your content faster. 

Day 18 Task – Add Tags to your Wedding Blog Posts

If you aren’t in the habit of tagging already, now is the time to begin. Start generating tags that describe the content in your wedding blog. Keep in mind the categories of your wedding blog, and don’t repeat them as tags.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

What is Permalink you ask? Well according to the almight Wikipedia ”A permalink, or permanent link, is a URL that points to a specific blog or forum entry after it has passed from the front page to the archives. Because a permalink remains unchanged indefinitely, it is less susceptible to link rot.” This simply means that each of your blog posts are given a permanent URL.

• For example, the default link for this post would be http://www.imatrimonyblog.com/?p=123. 
• The permalink for this post is http://www.imatrimonyblog.com/2009/day-17-using-permalinks-on-your-wedding-blog. 

Why should you use permalinks on your wedding blog? Creating custom permalinks helps to make your blog more search engine friendly. You can include keywords in your wedding blog categories, post titles, and post permalinks to improve your page rankings among search engines.

Day #17 - Install Permalinks Structure on your Wedding Blog

In today’s task, you will Install Permalinks Structure on your Wedding Blog. On most blogging platforms, this change be easily done by altering your settings. For other formats, the permalink structure is automatic.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Welcome back to the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog series. We have made it to the halfway point, but have so much more to come. I hope this information has been extremely helpful, and will set a foundation for growing your successful wedding blog.

Link Love is extremely important for your wedding blog. Link building is one of the most popular ways to improve your search engine results. Here are a few ways to you can build link love for your wedding blog.

1. Create posts that are “linkworthy”. Others will link to your posts, which increases your traffic.
2. Write posts that link to other useful and relevant wedding bloggers in your niche.
3. Be sure to use trackbacks. Trackbacks are a way to notify another blog that you have linked to them.
4. Submit your posts to blog directories. (i.e. Digg, De.icio.us, Technorati)

Day #16 Task – Link, Link, Link

Take the four steps above and start linking. Simple as that!!

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Woohoo! We’ve made it to Day 15. We are halfway through the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog series. Many thanks to those of you who visit daily and have subscribed to the series. 

Today we are going to take a good look at your wedding blog with a critical eye. It is very important to make sure every link on your wedding blog is functional, and all information is correct and up-to-date. Doing so promotes your “blogging credibility” and helps your readers to view you as a reliable source. Dead-Links.com is a great free site, that looks for broken links and gives a report of its findings. 

Day 15 Task – Proof Read Your Wedding Blog

Take time out today to ensure your wedding blog is pristine. Confirm links within your blog posts are still valid, as well as links to other blogs. If any information listed on your wedding blog has changed, be sure to correct it.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

On Day 14 of the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog series, we are reviewing our last blog post type, The “Best of” Post.  “Best Of” Posts are extremely popular, and attract a lot of traffic. Many “Best Of” Posts are often published as List Posts, yet it could take on any blog post type we have previously discussed in this series. Researching content to write a “Best Of” Post can be terribly time consuming. You must give the topic or items their due diligence before presenting the information to your readers.

Day 14 Task – Prepare a “Best Of” Post

If you haven’t already written a “Best Of” Post on your wedding blog. Prepare a “Best Of” Post on your Wedding Niche. Again, this type of post requires research, and can be time consuming, so I don’t expect it can be written today. Schedule time to prepare the post, do your research, and set a deadline to publish your “Best Of” Post on your Weekly Post Schedule, created on Day 7.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.