Guest post by: Brian Bourn

When we build websites and blogsites for our clients, we almost always recommend a custom designed WordPress site with an integrated blog. In fact, part of our intake process with new clients includes explaining the value of blogging for business and how it can help them increase website traffic and attract new clients. You can learn more in the article 6 Reasons Why WordPress is Perfect for Small Business.

Relevant, targeted, and fresh content is what search engines like Google want, and high rankings within the search engine results are what every website owner wants.

So how do you feed the search engines regularly updated, focused content and increase your website rankings?

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Often I hear stories of my friends, business peers and networking acquaintances sitting in front of their computer with Email Newsletter Writers’ Block. They just can’t seem to think of anything to write, don’t like feeling pressured to write something fabulous, and secretly hate email marketing because they don’t want to be a copywriter.

So, what do they do? They put it off and procrastinate.

Soon, it has been weeks, or sometimes even months and nothing has been sent out to their list. No announcements. No marketing. No helpful tips or information.

Unfortunately, their list of warm leads is growing colder by the minute!

Here is a quick list of email newsletter topics or content ideas that you can use to help put an end to writers’ block:

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Every business must have a website. This is no longer negotiable. Whether you’re a solopreneur, entrepreneur, small business owner, or a global organization, a website is imperative to your success.

The yellow pages and phone books are no longer the main way consumers locate businesses. With computers, laptops, netbooks, mobile phones, and other web ready tools, the Internet has now replaced the yellow pages and most consumers now turn to the search engines to find what they need.

Consumers aren’t just searching for broad terms either. Consumers are searching for local businesses and resources just as much as global businesses.

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My clients ask me all the time which events I am attending for the year and inevitably, the very next question I always get asked is why I am going.

The very first event I registered for this year was Fabienne Fredrickson’s Marketing and Mindset Breakthrough Workshop (MMBW). Yes, I totally registered so early to increase my expenses at the tail end of 2009.

But seriously, I also registered for Fabienne’s MMBW because several of my friends attended the event last year and came back raving about the valuable content and how easy it was to understand. But more important, I heard how they were able to learn tips and tricks to help them shift their mindset to play a bigger game and take bigger leaps toward their goals and dreams.

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If you trim out all the fat, filler, and fluff that beef up alot of marketing websites, you’ll see very clearly that there are really only three things that you need to do to make more sales and boost your bottom line.

STEP 1: Capture My Attention
Start with a captivating, powerful, direct headline that draws me in. Don’t beat around the bush or use cute-sy catch-phrases and don’t speak in jargon I don’t understand. Keep the headlines and the sub headlines strong, clear, and helpful. The easiest way to do this is to write one short sentence that communicates the benefits the article, web page, or blog post, etc. I will get out of the content.

Another great way to grab my attention is with a great photo, graphic or image. You have only a couple seconds to entice me to stay on your web page and read your content and sometimes a killer photo can do that even faster and more effectively than a headline.

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Your number one goal online is to be found more often by the consumers who want and need what you have to offer.

In order to be found, the search robots, spiders, or crawlers need to index your website. The search bots are scanning your HTML for content, links, images, headlines, meta tags, and more. They will then combine the information they find to determine your search engine page rankings.

In order to have your site crawled by search robots, they need a reason to visit your website and index your web pages.

The number one way to get your site indexed by the search engines is to update the content frequently and consistently. You need to be kind to the search engines by giving them what they want – fresh content, clean coding, and user friendly design.

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When determining your search engine results, one of the criteria used by the search engines is the number of links you have on your site. They look at:

• Inbound links: Links to your website from external sources.
• Outbound links: Links to other sites from your website.
• Internal links: Links between individual pages on your website.

Search engines also look at the quality of this links. Check out the blog post I wrote on link quality titled: Don’t Let Your Site Hang Out On The Wrong Side Of The Tracks.

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Link building is an important part of search engine optimization strategy.

Inbound, outbound, and internal links are important factors in the calculation of your website page rankings with the search engines.

Unfortunately what most small business owners and entrepreneurs don’t understand is that not all links are created equal. In fact, some links can help your website and some links can hurt your website.

Think of it like this: Associating your website with links to low quality websites like link farms, links that are misleading, links that are irrelevant, or links that are broken is like hanging out in the bad neighborhood on the wrong side of the tracks.

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The one part of website development that every entrepreneur and business owner gets stuck in is the content development and what pages they need to include in their website.

Some of the questions that are repeated over and over are:

• Do I need a testimonials page and do I have to call it that?
• What if I don’t have any testimonials right now?
• How do I know what to include on each page?
• Do I say about us, or about me, or just about?
• What pages do I need to include on my business website

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Written by Bourn Creative CEO, Brian Bourn.

Updating your website content for your readers and the search engines is one of the most important things you need to be doing on your website. One of the easiest ways to consistently provide fresh and focused content is through blogging.

You can read our blog post Blogging for Business: 3 Reasons Your Small Business Needs a Blog to learn more about how blogging helps business.

When it comes to blogging, linking new posts to old blog posts is a key strategy to keep all of your content relevant and help your readers easily find more on the subject you are writing about.

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