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Developing and running a successful blog business can be a monumental challenge. It’s hard work, just like anything else, and you’ll likely stumble your way through more than a few mistakes along the way. Wouldn’t it be nice if you had something to guide your way?

Well, you do. Collis Ta’eed is the guy behind Envato and he’s sharing everything you need to know in his new book, How to Build a Successful Blog Business. Available now through Rockable Press, this 330-page book serves as the subject of today’s review.

Blogging for Profit

There is a distinct difference between hobby bloggers and those who want to develop their blogs into real businesses. This book is clearly targeted at the latter group.

It has already received considerably positive feedback from such big names in the industry as Yaro Starak and Darren Rowse. For example, Chris Garrett is saying that you “need to get this now” if you’re “serious about blogging as a real business.”

You also have to recognize that Collis Ta’eed comes from a place of significant authority. He has developed several blogs that not only generate considerable traffic, but impressive revenue too.

A Comprehensive Guide to Blogging Business

You may have already had the opportunity to read Make Money Online by me and John Chow, but that book focused mostly on how you would develop a blog where you are the main contributor.

With How to Build a Successful Blog Business, the material covers just about every aspect of running a blog as a business. This 330-page book includes sections on brand creation, staffing, business structure, content planning, monetization, and long term strategies.

Perhaps of even greater interest are the three case studies that close the book. In these chapters, Collis describes exactly how he built and developed FreelanceSwitch, Psdtuts+, and AppStorm.

Writing Style, Comprehension, and Accessibility

It’s going to take you some time to get through the over 300 pages of content, but the information is all presented in a clear, systematic, and easy-to-understand manner. Consider this snippet from the first chapter.

Opportunities in blogging also arise from the many niches and topics that are still wide open. If you walk into any bookstore and look through the myriad magazines that line the racks, you’ll find there are audiences interested in reading about everything from sewing to tattoos, boating to cooking, movies to shopping. Can you name the blog to read on tattoos? How about a great blog about boating? Think you can find one?

The style is not unlike the “blogging voice” that you find on many of Collin’s sites around the net. It’s casual, but informative. You will find, though, that many of the pages are very text-heavy.

As a freelance writer myself, I was particularly interested in the FreelanceSwitch case study. Most of it was text, but Collis did include several screenshots (e.g., Google Analytics) and charts (e.g., revenue over time) to help illustrate his points.

Blogging as a business can be daunting and intimidating for many, but How to Build a Successful Blog Business outlines everything you need to know in a way that is easy not only to digest, but also to implement in your own endeavors.

Buy the E-Book or the Paperback

Anyone who is seriously considering a career not “just” as a blogger, but as the owner and manager of a blog business should buy this book. You’ll learn about hiring freelancers, setting up your accounting, developing traffic, increasing your income and so much more.

If you want instant access to the material, you can buy the e-book version for $39. This comes with a 100% money-back guarantee. If you prefer the dead tree edition, the $47 paperback is printed and shipped through Lulu.com.

CLICK HERE TO BUY HOW TO BUILD A SUCCESSFUL BLOG BUSINESS

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 In this week’s Whiteboard Friday Rand Fishkin clues you in on four link building tactics that you likely haven’t heard about. Given the importance of link building to SEO, this video should prove to be worth its (virtual) weight in gold. (I mean that in the best possible way ;-p)

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Hey, SEOmoz fans!  Welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday.  Today we’re talking about link building and specifically four tactics that are relatively creative, not talked about a ton in the SEO sphere, that can help you get some direct links to virtually any kind of site.

Let’s start with number one up here, giving testimonials.  I know this sounds a little odd.  You’re thinking to yourself, "Wait, I’m a marketer.  I should be trying to get testimonials about my product, my service, my company."  But in fact, give and you shall receive.

So in this case, if are you are a site owner and you have a business and you say nice things about a product that you use, products that you like, free web apps, tools on the webs, blogs, resources, whatever it might be, or specific products or companies, and you email them and say, "Hey, I just wanted to let you know, I really like your service.  I enjoy using it.  If you’d like to use this as a testimonial, feel free."  You can say some nice words and then have a, "My name is Rand Fishkin and I am the CEO of SEOmoz."  When they publish that, they will take it and put it on their GoodProduct.com website, and you can see that gets embedded right into their site and it will link back over to your site.

So, it is a great way to build up a repertoire of contacts, build good relations, and do something nice for the people who are doing something nice for you.  I would definitely not do this disingenuously.  Make sure that you are actually recommending things that you would recommend to a real friend.  It will come back and bite you otherwise.  But if you do this, you can get those great links too.

The second one, design galleries.  This is an odd case because you do have to jump through some hoops.  If you can contract some of those exceptional, high quality, CSS and web design folks to build a really great looking site, something that looks nothing like this horrific drawing.  I don’t even know why I put so many boxes and lines.  I am sure there was a reason.  You can get featured on sites like CSS REMIX or Drawer or CSS Gallery.  If you do a search for CSS galleries, in fact, you will find literally hundreds in the first few hundred results of places where you can get a live link pointing back from those pages just by submitting your site and having a site that looks great.

Now, what I would recommend is that before you go through the design process make sure that you visit a lot of these places and get inspired.  See what makes it.  See what is hot right now.  Those designs have the added benefit of being often very good for users.  Using CSS properly means that you’re loading pages, you are keeping code and design separate.  It can often increase your rate of attracting links as well.  Linking and quality of design are a direct relationship.  As the quality of design rises, so too does the likelihood that people of all kinds, not just design galleries but of all kinds, will link to your site.  They’ll find you more credible.  They’ll want to show you off.  They’ll want to share.  This is a great investment both for the direct links you can get and for the future.

Number three.  This is sort of an interesting one.  Thanks to sites out there like HARO, which is Help a Reporter Out, and a few others, I think PR Newswire runs one as well, you can be a press source simply by combing through databases or lists of people who say, "Hey, I am a reporter in need of a story about a business that keeps dogs in their office and what the impact of having dogs around is.  Can we interview you, show off your business?"  Those stories when they get written about, they might appear in sources as big as "The New York Times" or as small as your local newspaper, but they appear online as well.  When they do, that link will point back to your site giving you a link from a nice press resource, which is a great place to get a link.

Number four, the last one here, turning raw numbers into a data story.  I like this a lot because the idea here is that people produce a lot of interesting data about virtually every industry, but they don’t always do great things with that data.  They’ll produce interesting numbers or numbers that seem boring on their surface but can be used in interesting ways.  It is up to you to be creative about, hmm, okay, comScore published this, Nielsen published that, Forrester published this data research.  If I combine some of those numbers or if I think about how they play out, I can come up with a great story and maybe some cool graphics too about what that means.  I can take some of the data over time and build a story about what’s happening.  I can show that data next to something like Google Trends data or Search Insights data or data from a second or third source.  When I combine those, I have great link and media bait.  The nice thing about producing this is it is not just sort of classic link bait where, "Oh, that’s interesting, I want to share that." But it is interesting because when you are the reference resource for the data, everyone else who writes about the story or who wants to share it has to link back to you.

A good example of this, check out www.seomoz.org/dp/free-charts and you’ll see a bunch of places where we have taken data from great folks like Eightfold Logic used to be Enquisite, comScore, Hitwise, Nielsen, Forrester, and we’ve combined them into unique and interesting ways to view that data.  We didn’t even do much with it, just showed sort of, "Hey, they said that 30% of searches come from Europe and 40% come from Asia, etc., so we’re going to build a pie chart of that that looks great and people can embed that."  Now when they do, they link back to SEOmoz and have the source in there.  We’ll always say what the original source is too.  But by hosting this stuff and creating it, you get all these great links.

All right everyone, I hope we have helped out your link building efforts here today.  I look forward to the discussion in the comments.  We will see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.  Take care.

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If you have any other advice that you think is worth sharing, please post it in the comments! This post is very much a work in progress.

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Everytime I go away for a break I’m confronted with the choice of either letting the blog sit idle for a couple of weeks or to work hard for the week or two before going to make sure that content keeps flowing. I’ve never really been able to bring myself to let things stand idle – so this week I’ve worked hard at getting enough posts up and ready to go (across ProBlogger and dPS I have 60 posts scheduled – it was a big job!).

The vast majority of them are guest posts. While a few of you may be disappointed that you’ll not be hearing from me for a week or two – I actually think it’s a massive opportunity for the ProBlogger community to hear from some fresh voices on some topics that I would never have come up with myself.

Here’s a screen grab of the upcoming schedule (including a few that already have gone up). Some of them are a little cryptic as I wrote them more for my own benefit and didn’t intend to share this – but hopefully it gives a little insight into how I prepare for a break – I did this for dPS also.

I hope you enjoy the next couple of weeks of content here on ProBlogger – having read all the posts I’m sure you will!

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

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Making money as a freelance content writer isn’t easy. If you aren’t running your own blog or website, turning content into cash can be a difficult thing. But there’s opportunity out there – you just have to try a little harder than normal to find it.

One of the best places to look is the Problogger job board. Here, potential employers are looking for people like you – writers serious about their craft, with a strong content-creation skillset that often develops from reading a website like this.

Because of these potential employer’s high standards for Problogger readers, this won’t be the kind of cheap, outsourced content creation you’ll have to scrap up pennies and quarters from – it’ll be real, well-paid writing gigs with some of the best and biggest websites and content hubs on the internet.

Of course, with better gigs come higher standards – so you, as a potential applicant, need to spice up your resume and take note of the intimate details that’ll make your application pop.

How I Found a Content Writer on Problogger

My friend at another company recently created a posting for a content writer on Problogger and told me about his success. As a Marketing Manager at a new company with many quality content development needs, I decided to create a posting as well.

Overall, I was rather impressed with the quality of applicant, but what also shocked me were the glaring problems with many of the resumes and cover letters in my inbox. Similarly, I was equally impressed with some of the ways the better applications “stood out” in ways I wouldn’t have previously thought of.

Both of these revelations made me realize the necessity for this post – since I know the plight of a job seeker who often wonders – “Why wasn’t I picked?”—I thought I could help improve your application process in some way, and also, the chances you get picked up as a content writer on your next application go-round.

Common Application Mistakes Writers Make

1. They had zero attention to detail. One of the classic ways to weed out auto-applicants is by using a “use this” subject line. For example, specifically requesting that the applicant include the job description as the subject. Amazingly, by including this simple detail in my job description, I automatically weeded out 15% of the applicants. Similarly, other applications would announce they were using a templated cover letter due to the appearance of two different fonts, or that they had found my application on Craigslist.

C’mon, really?

How can I possibly rely on you to complete a content piece with exact specifications if you can’t do it for a simple, straightforward application?

2. Their application was too bland. Yes, employers are hiring you on your content writing skills, but when I get 200 applications in my inbox for a position that isn’t full-time, it would be an immense waste of effort to scroll through 600 content pieces to find the best writer. I, like most employers, have a sifting process that involves automatically disregarding many of these applications.

If your cover letter was too brief or non-personal, this implies a disinterest in the job. Although you might have been aware of enough to post the “use this” subject line, you were also not with it enough to customize your application to look anything different than 5 million other similar ones that have made their way into employer’s inboxes.

3. Their content samples were not specific to the application. Although you may be a great writer, I would need to be extremely impressed with your prior history to choose you if you had not written about the subject I was asking for. Again, by disregarding many of these applications that don’t have a specificity, potential employers save a lot of the hassle, and to be blunt, being a “great writer” does not mean that you are cut out to write about green technology, fashion, or marine biology. Sorry.

When businesses come to Problogger looking to hire, it’s not because they want to find a generic person who can pump out articles about anything – they want expertise in an area. The cheap, bland kind of content creation can be found elsewhere.

If you’re really interested in a position that creates content green technology, write a sample article about it for submission. That’s the only way you’re going to get hired unless you’ve got a stacked history of creating viral, amazing content.

4. They only linked to their own blog. You might be able to write well about stuff you care about, but are you skilled enough to think outside the box and also meet the specifications of a certain job description? By linking to just your blog, you’re telling me you don’t have experience writing according to other’s specifications. It’s great that you’re a good writer, but there’s more to the job description than that. Ability to follow directions, attention to detail, and domain expertise are all things that can put an average writer far above a good one.

5. They lacked effort. Some people just flat out didn’t try, asking for payment information, more job details and etc. before supplying additional details. Don’t waste your time making these kinds of pitches! Employers have to pay $50 to get on the job board, and they do it for a reason – there is a wealth of quality potential writers that read the site. By making this kind of inquiry, you are not only wasting the employer’s time, you are wasting your own.

In this way, applications work like the below graph. At a certain effort level, the chances of being hired are rather low, not because you’re a bad writer – but because everyone makes that level of effort. Once you’ve hit an imaginary line – somewhere between 10-20 minutes of effort when applying, your chances jump dramatically. Before that, every second added does little to improve your chances.

How to Make Your Application Stand Out

Beyond the failures in the application process, there are also plenty of application “pluses” I stumbled into that made me stop and say “let’s talk”. Getting an interview among 200 applicants is more than just not being bad – it’s about being really, really good too.

1. Create a Customized, PDFed Resume. As a freelance writer, there’s a good chance you’re going to be applying for lots of these positions. As such, if applying is something you’re constantly doing, you should take steps towards investing in this process – and that means creating an amazing, aesthetically pleasing resume. One applicant sent me a PDF with their work history, a professional photo, and content examples, all in one aesthetically pleasing package. I was immensely impressed with the time and effort they put into this package, even if it wasn’t customized directly for me. Showing an immaculate standard for quality and great presentation is something I want to see reflected in writing, too.

2. Be Creative with the Cover Letter. You’re a content writer, right? This shouldn’t be too difficult. If your opening line says “I saw your BLAND JOB position at BUSINESS posted at X and I was extremely impressed”, you’re telling me that yes, you do care enough to change those custom fields in your template, but you’re also telling me that no, you don’t care enough to try any harder.

If you know the company, find some interesting detail about it and open with it. If you’re lucky enough to know the name of the person you’re applying to, you can go even further to pique their interest. Not only will you likely stroke the ego, you’ll also show you possess the creativity and wherewithal to create quality content.

3. Have content specific to the application. This is straightforward, but the more focused the content is on what the job description asks for, the more likely you are to be seriously considered. The better this content is, the more likely you are to get picked up.

4. Tagging your application e-mail as “High Importance”. This is a minor detail but I found myself opening these e-mails first, and any time you get seen first in a batch of 200 e-mails, that’s a good thing. This function doesn’t work in Gmail, but there’s a good chance you’re sending your application to a business address – so there’s a high probability they’re using Outlook.

5. Be a great writer – everywhere. Again, a rather straightforward thing, but I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night not mentioning it. Every piece of text in a content writer’s application is important, so make sure every bit of it is a direct reflection of your ability to create great content.

If you can’t properly format paragraphs in the cover letter, you’re not getting hired. If your punctuation is shoddy, you’re not getting hired. If your presentation is subpar, you’re not getting hired. You’re a great writer – why not be one all the time?

Get Applying!

Now that you know how to get hired, get to the job board, check out those job descriptions and start applying! If you have any other stories, tips, or suggestions on how to get hired as a content writer, please share them in the comments!

Ross Hudgens is a Marketing Manager at Billy.com. He also blogs over at his personal website, Authentic Marketing. You should follow him on Twitter here.

This Post is from: ProBlogger Blog Tips.

How to Get Hired on the Problogger Job Board

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Needless to say I was shocked when I saw the scene. I approached him and said something like “What the heck dude! You never told me you had a Z3 M!”.

Right after that I obviously questioned him regarding how he managed to buy one, since he apparently was just a student. He told me that he made money buying and selling stuff on a site called eBay. I was surprised, but that was it. I guess at the time all I cared about was partying and having fun (I was 19 after all), so I didn’t pay too much attention to my friend’s entrepreneurial endeavors.

Looking back I wish I had acted differently. That is, I wish I had gone to my friend and said something like “OK, you obviously have something working for you here. You figured something out that other people haven’t, with amazing results. I want that too. Would you be so kind to teach me?”

I am sure my friend would’ve been flattered with such an attitude from my part, and that he would’ve done his best to teach me all he knew about the eBay stuff he was working on. I am also sure I would be making 7 figures annually by now if I had started doing online marketing back in 2002….

Why I am telling you this story? To illustrate the point that learning directly from other people who already achieved what you want to achieve is one of the best ways to succeed, and yet few of us do it.

And here is the interesting part: I don’t think that convincing people to mentor you is that hard. You just need to show you REALLY want it, and that you are willing to do what it takes. The easiest way to do this is probably to find someone in your own city or country, and try to build a relationship. You could start it over the web, but sooner or later you would need to take it to a personal level. Invite the person for a beer, ask if you can pay him a visit some day to see his office and the behind the scenes of his websites and so on. You get the idea.

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If you’ve ever heard of this new kid on the block called HTML5, or maybe even consider yourself an expert on it, please note that this post still treats headings in the HTML4 / XHTML1 way of using headings. I’ll briefly talk about headings in HTML5 in the end, it’s a whole ‘nother ball game!

This post will cover:

1. 5 basic principles about headings
2. The headings for your homepage
   1. The issue of full posts on archive pages
3. Heading structure for your single posts / single pages
4. Structure of headings for your category / tag / taxonomy pages
5. Headings and HTML5
6. Conclusion: re-think your blog’s headers

5 basic principles about headings

Let’s get these things straight before we do anything about our heading structure:

1. The most important heading on the page should be the H1.
2. There is usually only one H1 on any page.
3. Sub-headings should be H2′s, sub-sub-headings should be H3′s, etc.
4. Each heading should contain valuable keywords, if not, it’s a wasted heading.
5. In longer pieces of content, a heading is what helps a reader skip to the parts that they find interesting.

Based on headings, there are tools out there that can, and will, make an outline for your content. If you were to make an outline for this article, it would look like this:

• [h1] The heading structure for your blog
  • [h2] 5 basic principles about headings
  • [h2] The headings for your homepage
    • [h3] The issue of full posts on archive pages
  • [h2] Heading structure for your single posts / single pages
  • [h2] Structure of headings for your category / tag / taxonomy pages
  • [h2] Headings and HTML5
  • [h2] Conclusion: re-think your blog’s headers

The most widely known, and probably also the easiest, tool capable of doing this is the W3 Validator.

The headings for your homepage

So while we can (and will) discuss some specifics in the comments, your homepage should probably have a structure that looks like this:

• H1: Blog’s name
• H2: Your blog’s tagline, if it’s “keyword-rich”; if not, all your recent posts should have an H2.
• H3: Your recent posts, or, if those have an H2, this could be used for somewhat older posts.
• H4: related content in the sidebar, like the heading of an “about” widget.
• H5: Unrelated headings in your sidebar, footer, etc.

As you can see, I differentiate between “related” widgets and unrelated widgets. It’s no use at all to have an H3 heading saying “Our Sponsors”. An H4 heading saying “About this SEO blog” could be useful though, if “SEO blog” is what you want to rank for.

The issue of full posts on archive pages

Maybe you’ve seen it, maybe you didn’t yet, but this sort of heading structure creates a problem. If you’re displaying full posts on your front page, your sub headings would be H2′s, just like your post titles. That’s wrong, of course, and a good example of why we should be separating our content and markup a bit more then we’re doing now, but that’s not an easy fix. Basically, if you’re displaying a post on an archive, category, tag or home page, each H2 should become an H3, H3 should become H4, etc.

No code samples yet, but my mind is working on this now, so it might come soon.

Heading structure for your single posts / single pages

This one is simple:

• H1: post / page title
• H2′s and H3′s: subheadings and sub-subheadings
• H4: your blog’s name, and possibly related widgets
• H5: same as above: sidebars etc.

Makes sense right? The most important line on the page is the post or page title, second come the subheadings. Your blog title still has some value because, if the post is good, people will search later on for “Yoast WordPress SEO”, for instance.

Structure of headings for your category / tag / taxonomy pages

If you actually want your category and tag pages to rank, meaning you’ve given them some unique content and are making them interesting for people, the heading structure should basically be the same as the homepage, with this difference:

• H1: category / tag title
• H2′s: post titles
• H3: blog’s name
• Rest: repeat from homepage.

Headings and HTML5

In HTML5 the entire method of dealing with headings changes, and while it’s a bit harder to grasp for people at first, the new system makes a lot more sense for content management systems. In short: headings and heading structures are section specific there, where section could be any part of a page. It would take too long to explain here, but if you’re interested, read the header section of Mark Pilgrims excellent Dive into html5.

Truth be told, Mark doesn’t talk about how search engines deal with HTML5 headers yet. In all honesty: I couldn’t tell you yet. Simply a case of “not enough data to tell”.

Conclusion: re-think your blog’s headers

Now it’s time for you to take some action. Go and use the W3 Validator now to check your blog’s outline. If you’ve read an understood all the above, you should now be able to determine whether your theme is doing a good job. If you’re using a premium theme or a theme that you downloaded from WordPress.org, I’d love for you to share your results in the comments!

The heading structure for your blog is a post from Joost de Valk‘s Yoast – Tweaking Websites.A good WordPress blog needs good hosting, you don’t want your blog to be slow, or, even worse, down, do you? Check out my thoughts on WordPress hosting!

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In a recent conversation with a channel marketing manager I was asked, “What can I do now to get my partners and resellers found?” As with many channel marketing managers, their time is very constrained, but the need to do more lead generation for their resellers is ever present. Additionally, they often talk about how their resellers do a great job once someone is introduced to them, but often their own websites are not helping them bring in new leads. After asking me that question, she said, “I wish I could just give them a few tips to get them started in Inbound Marketing and getting website traction”

5 Tips For Channel Partner Lead Generation

1. Identify Longtail Keywords -  Find 10 keywords that are in the longtail for your services or products and provide them to your resellers and partners to use.  Keywords need to be used in a consistent way on each webpage in the page title, the URL, the page headers and text. By doing the background research and providing a starting point, your partners or resellers can quickly optimize their pages.

2. Provide Partners with Lead Generation Offers -  Create an offer such as a ebook or webinar that can be downloaded or accessed from each partner’s website. Maybe your company provides security software and you have a tool that does a quick, free sweep of their network to test for vulnerability. Another option would be to offer a free assessment that will help prospect better understand which product offering best fits their needs. By creating these downloads, you are giving your reseller network an offer they can give visitors that come to their websites.

3. Create a Landing Page Template – Create a standard landing page that every reseller can put on their main page of their website to both capture lead data, and provide an offer. 70% of visitors to a website are in the “early stage” of buying. They are not ready to purchase, but are starting to investigate. Instead of having them visit your site and then “drive on”, give them an offer in exchange for collecting some of their information, even if it is just an email address. This will allow you to stay in touch with them via email offers or turn over the lead to your sales team for qualification and follow up.

4.  Develop An Email Template and Campaign – Email is an important part of the lead generation mix. Create a great email marketing campaign with an offer that each partner can send to new leads. Maybe it is a free assessment of a website, or an opportunity to attend a free consulting session. This campaign is to help move leads further down the funnel and to help increase a partners lead-to-customer percentages. Often channel managers have the ability to give marketing funds for offers, so why not provide them the email message to use as well.

5. Share Partner Successes –   If one of your partners is finding an offer is converting leads well or a free assessment is leading to more business in the door, let the network know! Inbound marketing may be new, but closing a deal is well understood and anything that drives more business to one partner will help the overall brand and network as well. Share the success!

What have you done to help improve inbound marketing for your channel partners?

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One thing that all of our partners agreed upon, is that before embarking on any redesigns, companies should truly understand their goals and their customers. Without these necessary prep steps, you’ll wind up designing a website in a vacuum and wasting money. Here are just a few of the key questions that you should ask yourself before you change one pixel:

What Are Your Goals?

We also heard from HubSpot Partner Kelly Ward, of Digital K, who believes that “it’s important to take a top-level view of the website. [Figure out] what are you trying to ACHIEVE with your website? Are you trying to attract new customers? Service existing customers? Portray a new image for your company?”

What Are You Currently Doing Right?

HubSpot partner Keith Moehring of PR 20/20 echoes just these sentiments. He says that “Prior to doing any type of redesign … a company needs to look at what keywords are driving traffic and to which pages, and what pages have incoming links…Another area that needs to be evaluated thoroughly is who is coming to the site and what is drawing them in.”

Are You Doing This For the Right Reasons?

Top Line Results’ Todd Hockenberry feels that sometimes website redesigns happen for the wrong reasons. First, there’s the “redesign as part of new management.” He writes “Not having a clear, strategic reason why they are redesigning is one I see regularly. Companies still look internally for that answer way too often – new manager, new logo, re-organization, don’t like the design.”

Todd also thinks that sometimes, companies build a site as a means of fixing all their business issues, without looking deeper at their true problems. He says, “We deal with a lot of small to medium sized manufacturers and there are many who think a new website will be a field of dreams.”

So, What are the “Right” Answers?

This last question is actually a trick question. There is no one right answer to these questions; every company has different motivations and goals with a redesign. However, take the time before starting to make sure that you’re investing your time and money wisely. To ensure that you are being true to your company’s needs & goals, really analyze if a redesign is necessary and what you want to accomplish.

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The following post is part of a series on How to Silo Your Website. You should review, How to Silo Your Website the Masthead, How to Silo Your Website the Breadcrumb, How to Silo Your Website the Content. For this part, we’ll be taking a look at the sidebar.

IMHO the sidebar is the second most abused and misused part of a website (the footer is the most abused which we’ll talk about in a later article). The sidebar is so abused because people stick too much third party content, widgets, social blocks, and simply too many links. In the past year I have worked on 5 client sites with between 300-500 links in the sidebar. No, that’s not a typo. That’s over 300 links in just the sidebar.

My first bit of advice: do some click tracking to see what people are clicking on. I like to use crazyegg (full disclosure: they are an advertiser, but I used them before they became one) or similar service that actually tracks X/Y coordinates on a page. See what people are clicking on and remove the elements that people don’t use.

Next make sure links to your most popular pages/content/products are there. Resist the temptation to go overboard. 10 is a good number; 15 is as much as I would recommend. If you are in a shopping environment, links to the main departments or categories is also a good idea. If you use faceted navigation (ie product/category links that change based on where you are or your last click), be careful. If the links are straight with no URL parameters, you have nothing to worry about. If the links change and pass parameters you are better off using no-follow. This isn’t to conserve page rank: it’s to prevent creating an infinite site from a search engine perspective. Using the rel=canonical tag is a good back up, but bandaid solutions are no substitute for bad architecture. You never want to leave thinking or decision making to chance with an algo.

Remove links to your service pages (privacy, contact, tos, etc) unless you need them for visual aesthetic (to balance out the content section). In fact, you want to reduce and remove as many links as you possibly can. We aren’t trying to conserve link equity but to control where it goes. It’s a slight but subtle difference.

If you are selling advertising, have affiliate links, or other banner-type content, this is probably where it is. If it’s what pays the bills and keeps the site running, keep it; if doesn’t convert then remove it.

If you have the ability to add in featured content THAT CHANGES daily, weekly, or (at the bare minimum) monthly, then do it. Also if you can add in related content links that change on a per page basis, then do it. You want to keep the sidebar content dynamic, with static and non parametric url’s. Bonus points if you can change the order based on templates or randomization.

So what are the takeaways here:

• Reduce the number of links to a minimum.
• Remove non essential elements, especially third party content, based on user testing.
• Include links to related or featured content, especially if it changes.
• Looks for ways to change or randomize content.

Next in the series: How to Silo Your Website: The Footer
photo credit: Eyeshotpictures

This post originally came from Michael Gray who is an SEO Consultant. Be sure not to miss the Thesis WordPress Theme review.

How To Silo Your Website:The Sidebar

Related posts:

1. How To Silo Your Website: The Breadcrumb Trail In Part 1 we looked at How To Silo Your…
2. How To Silo Your Website: The Masthead One of the more powerful tools an SEO can use…
3. How to Silo Your Website: The Content The following is part of the series How To Silo…
4. Putting a Content Based Website Together We’ve covered long term content and short term content, information…
5. Website Informational Pages Now that I’ve covered long term content and short term…

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