We tell our clients that blogging is a very critical piece of branding themselves. It can be overwhelming at first, but with some good direction, you can have a great blog in a short amount of time that will, hopefully, establish you as an industry leader! Here are a few basics of blogging that we often see that are either missing or done incorrectly.

Social Media Buttons: Your site needs to have these, and they need to be prominent. At the very least, you need to have Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and an RSS feed. Anything else is an added bonus.  The more you have out there, the better your SEO rankings are going to be. The links also need to be correct. I’ve come across way too many blogs that I want to follow via RSS, and the links were bad. Usually, you have one shot to get someone to subscribe or follow. Don’t blow it on bad links.

Twitter: If you’re not on it, GET ON IT. I tell my clients that there is about a 6 week learning curve on Twitter. Once you get the hang of it, you will find it your #1 way to push people to your site. Twitter is to links as Facebook is to photos. Follow people back. There is no bigger turnoff than going to someone’s Twitter profile and finding they don’t follow back. I’m not saying follow everyone back, but take a moment to see who the person is. Unless they are obvious MLM or spammers, I’ll pretty much follow anyone back. I don’t care how big your blog following is—you’re not Ashton Kutcher or Lady GaGa, so stop acting like you’re that popular. Also, if someone @ replies to you—respond. You wouldn’t ignore me if I walked up to you and spoke to you, so why do it on Twitter? Again—you’re not THAT great. If you set up your Twitter account to have an Auto-DM, don’t ask a question like “Do you have a website?” because what will happen is that you’ll get someone who responds to you.  And if you’re not following them back, it won’t go through, and you’ll look foolish.

Facebook:  Set up a page for your blog. You’ll get people who will want to connect with you, and you probably don’t want them ALL to follow your personal page. If you have your blog set up on Networked Blogs, you can configure it so that it will auto-post your most recent posts. Every now and then, cruise through Facebook AS your page. Comment on other Facebook pages so it helps your page show up on more feeds.  Ask people to subscribe to your page ... this way they never miss your updates!

RSS Feeds: I haven’t run into many that don’t have an RSS feed set up for their blogs, but what I have run into are blogs that have bad feed links. Make sure it’s set up right so people can easily follow your blog. For me, I like to read my blogs on my iPad via Flipboard. My happy reading experience is dependent upon proper RSS feeds.

Blog Comments: It blows my mind that I would have to mention this, but, if someone comments on your blog post, you need to respond back to them! I have made numerous comments on blog posts that went without response or some form of recognition. The entire reason any of us are blogging in the first place is to grow our readership. Guess what? The quickest way to NOT grow your audience is to ignore those who are taking the time to actually comment. This is what you strive for—don’t ignore those who stop by “your house.”

Did I miss any hot buttons or other mishaps that you’ve come across?