The other day, I was talking to a very dear client with a website that is being designed and launched shortly by an outside programming team. He hired me for the writing of the content, hired my writers for the writing of all the product in his shopping cart, and hired my SEO Expert for both ON-Page and Off-Page SEO, but had the site designed and programmed by a team in L.A.

He’s now ready to get the ever-important blog up and running, but doesn’t feel entirely confident in his writing abilities. He’s been asking me what I’ll charge to write his blog with weekly entries, and he’s collecting bids from other blog writers, too.

Now, given that I write two blogs – one here, and one very active blog at www.LagunaBeachBest.com , I know what it takes to write a blog.

AND, I know what it takes to write a blog that actually …

1. Is researched prior to the first word being written so that keyword phrases used by one’s niche audience are in place in each blog entry,
2. Is custom-optimized with on-page optimization (SEO) before it even publishes,
3. Promotes quickly cached pages in Google and other search engines,
4. Is immediately moved into several social media platforms,
5. Is adjusted and condensed to be placed on at least 3 other primary article directories for an even larger pool of social media linkage.

The first one – mere blog writing – will eventually work in getting more notice and audience to your website (as long as you have compelling content). Just posting entries on a blog, however, is a very long, slow train to fame.

The second one – a blog that is written with Internet marketing strategy in mind before even the first word of the first blog post is written – now THAT’S a blog that has the potential to gain very fast notoriety with a very large audience.

I’m quite sure there are many accomplished blog writers out there who know how to research keywords, write the SEO metatags for each entry, change slugs to read more SEO-friendly, and then write content that reflects your targeted strategy.

I’m also very sure that there are a few accomplished blog writers who know how to then post portions of each blog entry on various social media platforms in your behalf, using a combination of something like Ping.fm, HootSuite.com, and important manual placement. If they know how to do this, they’ll know which article directories they should also be placing condensations of each completed blog entry.

Sound like work? It is!

For writing my own blog entries, I estimate the following:
10 minutes keyword search
45 minutes content-rich, keyword-rich blog writing
10 minutes devoted to doing/writing the tags, SEO metatags, categories and changing the slug for each blog entry’s URL
So, that’s about an hour for the writing of the blog itself (and this doesn’t include the research I do on the subject before I start writing!)

Then, once the blog is published live, it’s:
5 minutes adding the entry to my spreadsheets with URL, short link and Bitly link all included (you need the different lengths for different reasons)
10 minutes manually placing on immediate social medias (Linked In, FB, Twitter for me) and Ping.fm
10 minutes of pre-programming the entry for additional tweets or FB mentions in the month ahead
20 minutes devoted to rewriting the blog and condensing it for load to major article directories (you can’t post the same blog entry to article directories or the search engines will slap you silly, assuming you stole it from someone – that someone being yourself!)
30 minutes of manual postings to my primary article directories to create much greater visibility and track backs to me.

So, that’s about an hour and a half of ADDITIONAL social media and directory posting work to truly get that blog posted in the most leveraged space for you.

Does all that work pay off? Absolutely. In spades. It even amazes ME how quickly each of my blogs rise in the search engines … how many complete strangers find my blog entries out there and follow the garden hose back to my website … and how much of my information is re-tweeted, “mentioned,” “favorited” and given the thumbs up to other people’s audiences, all with existing links snaking, again, back to my website.

My Google Analytics continue to show serious gain in number of visitors and first-time visitors day after day and week after week. My opt-in subscriptions on both sites gain new subscribers every day now.

It’s so amazing, it’s almost addicting!

When you really pay attention to your blog and play it the right way, it is by far the most efficient, leveraged social media tool you have in your toolbox. But that’s the caveat right there – you have to play it the right way, or the blog “writer” you hire has to know how to play it the right way.

When you’re interviewing blog writers, don’t hesitate to ask about what I’ve written above. A great blog writer who’s really dialed in is going to have hundreds of pieces of proof to show that he/she knows how to create your greatest possible marketing leverage. (Oh, and make sure they’re good writers, too, would you?!)

Note: I’m beginning to put together a webinar on How To Do A Blog The Internet Marketer’s Way. I’ll be dividing it into two sections –

One class will be designed for people who are just starting to set up and write their blog, or want to know how to “dial in” their blog entries for better visibility. I’ll teach which blog formats to use (hint: WORDPRESS!), all the free plug-ins you need that so few bloggers even know how to utilize out there, and how to do the research, and write the blog using professional content writers’ rules of thumb.

The second class will be a more advanced class to walk you through the primary social media postings (Along with setting those social medias up!), important article directory postings, and tools of the trade that help make this all a bit more efficient and faster.

I’m trying to get an idea of interested numbers of attendees – can you let me know if you’d be interested in one (be specific) or both classes? You can either comment below, or email me directly at Diane@Armitageinc.com

Thanks! We’ll make you a professional (and, more importantly, famous) blogger yet!