How can generate more targeted traffic to your blog? What techniques will help you write more compelling posts? Which "rules" should every blogger know and follow?

Find the answers to these questions and others here in WebMarketCentral's final list of the best posts on business blogging from the last year.

15 Rules for Business Bloggers by Conversation Marketing

The brilliant and often very funny Ian Lurie offers up his list of "rules" for writing a successful business blog, such as "Take the B.S. test. Can you come up with three things to write that won't include one shred of marketing B.S. about your organization? If you can't, give it up" and "Learn grammar. You're representing your business. You'd better be able to write a complete sentence." (Yeah, seems obvious, but you'd be amazed...)


Rockstar blogger Darren Rowse provides an excellent set of tips on getting links from other bloggers, among them: being relevant, presenting an angle, and supplying helpful resources. A couple of other noteworthy posts from Darren's blog: in AppLoop - Make Your Blog into an iPhone App, he explains how to turn any RSS feed into an iPhone app (which you can even charge for if you like); and in Characteristics of Traffic Generating Posts, he details factors that can make blog posts go viral, such as being controversial, writing about people, having a social media angle, and inviting reader participation through questions or "little challenges."


Blog Project: 30 Traffic Generation Tips by Daily Blog Tips

Daniel Scocco invited 30 bloggers to provide a key traffic-building tip and posts the list here, including recommendations from Sridhar Katakam: " Keep track of blogs and leave comments on them. A good way to keep the conversation going is to install a MyBlogLog widget and visit the blog of people visiting your site," Andrew Timberlake: "A great tip for generating traffic is off-line by including your url in all your off-line liturature from business cards, letterheads, pamphlets, adverts through in-store signage if applicable. I even have our website on my vehicle," and Mark Alves: " Participate in Yahoo Answers and LinkedIn Answers where you can demonstrate your expertise, get associated with relevant keywords and put your URL out there."


Content Marketing: How do you write to entertain readers? by Writing On The Web

The remarkable Patsi Krakoff presents eight tips for writing blog posts that stand out by both informing and entertaining readers, such as: telling a story; revealing a mistake you made and the lessons learned; or hardest but most valuable of all, rising above cliches and providing a higher level of current thinking.


5 Simple, Effective Tactics to Promote a New Website by SEOptimise

Glen Allsopp reveals four websites critical to helping launch a new blog, plus the critical practice of commenting on other blogs to help spread the fame of your new site. As Glen notes, commenting generally drives only a small amount of direct traffic, but helps establish a relationship with the blogger that can lead to links and other benefits down the road.

Previous posts in this series:

Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 1
Best of 2008: Interactive PR, Part 1
Best of 2008: SEO Tools, Part 1
Best of 2008: Search Engine Marketing
Best of 2008: Web Analytics
Best of 2008: Email Marketing Tips
Best of 2008: SEO Keyword Tips & Tools
Best of 2008: Sales & Marketing Copywriting
Best of 2008: SEO Link Building
Best of 2008: Website Design
Best of 2008: WordPress Tools and Tips
Best of 2008: Web & SEO Copywriting
Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 2
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 1
Best of 2008: AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 1
Best of 2008: SEO Tools, Part 2
Best of 2008: SEM Landing Pages
Best of 2008: Blogging for Business, Part 1
Best of 2008: Interactive PR, Part 2
Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 3
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 2
Best of 2008: AdWords Tips and Tactics, Part 2
Best of 2008: Strategy and Branding, Part 1
Best of 2008: Cool Web Tools, Part 1
Best of 2008: Blogging for Business, Part 2
Best of 2008: Random but Interesting, Part 1
Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 4
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 3
Best of 2008: Strategy and Branding, Part 2
Best of 2008: Cool Web Tools, Part 2
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 4
Best of 2008: SEO Guidance, Part 5
Best of 2008: Amusing, Creative and Just Plain Odd, Part 1
Best of 2008: Random but Interesting, Part 2
Best of 2008: Social Media Optimization, Part 5

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Contact Tom Pick: tomATwebmarketcentralDOTcom