Since you don’t have coffee on the brain you might not have noticed how much faster and relevant your Google searches have become in the last few months. So I thought I’d share with you what’s going on behind the scenes so that you can include a few more search engine optimization strategies in your marketing portfolio.

Since July 2010, Google has been using their new site indexing platform called Caffeine! See what they say about their old vs. new system:

Our old index had several layers, some of which were refreshed at a faster rate than others; the main layer would update every couple of weeks. To refresh a layer of the old index, we would analyze the entire web, which meant there was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to you.

With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index. That means you can find fresher information than ever before—no matter when or where it was published.

Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale. In fact, every second Caffeine processes hundreds of thousands of pages in parallel. If this were a pile of paper it would grow three miles taller every second. Caffeine takes up nearly 100 million gigabytes of storage in one database and adds new information at a rate of hundreds of thousands of gigabytes per day. You would need 625,000 of the largest iPods to store that much information; if these were stacked end-to-end they would go for more than 40 miles.

Web searches should now be 50% fresher. What does this mean for you?  It’s time to step up content development (that means more blogging) and your social media creativity to stay ahead of the competition and stay as relevant as possible to your prospects and customers.

Are you up for the challenge? Did you notice any fresher results when Google searching? Please leave your comments below.

So what do I do now with the other 240-440 words of this post?

How about if I tell you why I believe 250-450 words is the ideal length for a blog post?

• Information Overload- Today’s reader is overwhelmed with the amount of available content, the ability to receive that content anywhere and anytime. You’ve probably got less than a minute to get their attention before they are distracted by the next B.S.O. (bright-shiny object).
• Focus- 250 to 450 words helps you as a writer stick to the point and not ramble on. Bottom line – no one wants to read your rambling thoughts and it’s a complete waste of your entrepreneurial time to do it.
• Search Engine Optimization- 250 to 450 words is a good length to saturate (I didn’t say stuff or over-saturate) your content with keywords.

When should blogs posts be longer?

• Blow-by-Blow- Ever feel like you really need to account for every detail about a situation or experience? Then this would be a good time for a longer blog post.
• Inspirational- If you are looking to convey a story with lots of vivid details and psychological triggers then by all means write until you run out of words.  But this style should only be tried by an advanced copywriter.
  

Leave your comments below and let me know what you think about the length of blog posts?

I’m afraid there isn’t a one-size fits all answer for “How often should I blog?” Unfortunately it depends.

• For someone completely new to writing and blogging I’d say 1-2 times per week is a good benchmark to strive for. Just getting into the habit of writing blogs is a big adjustment for some people and that’s ok.
  
• For others who are more prolific writers or who have advanced past the beginner blogger stage I’d recommend 3-4 times per week.  At this point you are not only writing content to feed the search engines love of fresh new content but you are able to stay top of mind with prospects, customers and influencers.
• For professional bloggers or someone who is aggressively looking to utilize their blog to catapult them to online marketing success, I’d recommend 5-7 times per week.

At first I was blogging to Penelope and a couple loyal friends.

And now FreeSocialMediaHelp.com is…

• Listed on Alltop

• Syndicated through Networked Blogs via Facebook
  

• Distributed to 2,500 people subscribe via email

• Shared with over 6,500 via Twitter

• 392,429 Alexa Traffic Rank (under 1 million next goal is to get this under 100,000)
  

At the beginning, it was such trouble to think of things to write about, to get motivated by my loyal audience of Penelope and friends.  So, I found myself letting a day, or two, or three go by without making another update because after all Penelope wasn’t going to say anything to me.But I found that when I committed to publishing blogs two times per week and promised myself that I would sit down one Sunday afternoon a month and force myself to write the 8-10 blogs it would take to cover myself for the month that something shifted.

It was subtle at first and now I can see everyday its fruits.  The process has become less strange, weird and uncomfortable and is now just a routine part of marketing my business now.

With each new follower, subscriber and blog commenter- I see something beginning to take shape that is much larger than myself. That is pretty awesome! It took a lot of trust at the beginning.

So to all of you out there who are stuck in that weird space of blogging being uncomfortable or foreign, I encourage you that if I can do it…so can you! If you need a little help figuring what to blog about-feel free to reach out.

To Your Social Media Success (and that means regular blogging),

Mande White

P.S. The point here is to get started. Its the discipline that creates the evolution into something that’s powerful. With each passing day there is more clarity in what I’m saying to who and why. I promise that it will happen for you too.

With the advent of social media, it no longer was necessary for someone or a company to have lots of money to have a readership.  Now we have “Influencer Marketing“.  Influencers are people who exercise influence over a group of buyers. The Word of Mouth Marketing Association defines an influencer as ‘A person who has a greater than average reach or impact through word of mouth in a relevant marketplace”.

In the case of HOW you reach out to the “influencers” I’d say things are the same BUT its the “influencers” who have changed. Today getting the attention of a top industry blogger might do more for getting your product or business noticed than an interview by the local television station.

Let’s look at some quick tips for how to reach out to bloggers–espeically if you have NO idea how to get started.

First, do your homework.  Find out who the bloggers are in your industry and subscribe to their blogs.  Spend time reading what they write about and HOW they write about products.

So how do you find out who blogs about your industry? Check out these sites:

• Alltop – the Internet’s magazine rack.
• Google Blogsearch – search by topic.
• Twitter Search – find bloggers by what they tweet about.
• Postrank Topics – search by topic.

Next, its time to build a relationship.  In the Web 2.0 world that’s pretty easy.

1. Start by following them on Twitter. (Quick tip…to find out someone’s twitter name google ” ‘their name’ on twitter” and the first thing that will usually come up is that person’s Twitter link)
2. Listen to their tweets. ReTweet (RT) their message to your followers if you find the information valuable and useful.
3. Comment on their blog posts
4. Set up Google Alerts and comment on articles they write

Spending a few months ‘listening’ and responding to what they talk about will make it all that much easier when it comes time to send an email asking for help.  Don’t try to push your product or agenda on someone until you’ve done steps 1-4 a few times.

See its just like when you used to read articles in the local paper by the business writer and study their style before reaching out to them.  Same process different medium.

My Challenge for you…Can you add 2-3 hours per month to your marketing mix to start researching influential bloggers in your industry? If you spend 30 minutes today finding and subscribing to their blogs then next week you can spend 15 minutes reading their posts.  Week after that read for another 15 minutes.  In a month you should have a good handle on what type of style the blogger has and have the confidence to start conversations with them on Twitter or leave comments on their blog.

Good luck!

1. Ask yourself “What are the 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions my target audience has about _____(insert product or service here)?
2. Ask yourself “What are the 10 Most Frequently Should-Ask Questions my target audience has about _____(insert product or service here)?  Those question you WISH your prospects would have asked BEFORE they paid you money.
3. Do you want to write a book someday?  Consider using your blog or article writing as an exercise in getting the book done one piece at a time.  Sit down now and write out what the chapters of the book would be then the sections then take each and create a new blog post or article.
4. Swipe ideas from others that you see and convert to fit into your industry. For example one of my clients has a FREE audio program ’6 Deadly Sins of Healthcare Marketing’ could you create a “6 Deadly Sins of X” for your industry? Then you can play with the various formats this can take, audio, video, blog post, tweet, article.
5. Do some keyword research and learn what words people are searching for to find your products and services.  Write articles or blog posts with those words in them.

Any other ideas or strategies you employ to keep your own content libraries fully stocked? Feel free to share ideas by leaving a comment below!