There’s always something to howl about.

Blog makeovers with traffic source in mind.

I have been really enjoying Stephanie’s latest two posts. One’s here. The other here. I also cannot help but notice that a lot of people are getting into updating their blogs and changing how they are presenting themselves to the world. I could not be more thrilled.

We are doing many of the same things in our Louisville blogging group. (Think of it as our own little scenius.) Making wholesale overhauls of our blogs (in my estimation) is part of all of our 2009 marketing efforts. I just want to share some of the things we are finding as we downshift and shove our collective right feet into the carburetor for 2009.

When we plan a blog, we begin with the traffic source in mind. (huh?) In other words we start with a clear idea of whether the blog will attract people via SEO, Paid Search (PPC), Word of Mouth, HomeGain, Social Media or what. All of these are LEGITIMATE sources of traffic. ALL of them can be highly profitable. All can connect you to clients if they are prepared properly. And each will have their own likely entry point into your blog.

Does it make a difference how you lay out a blog which traffic source you are going to use? In my opinion, yes.

At Unchained in Orlando, Kelley Koehler gave a great example of setting up specific landing pages for Paid Search. One of the great benefits of PPC and services like Home Gain’s BuyerLink program is that you can choose which page to send the traffic you are BUYING to. (Meaning that if you create landing pages appropriately, you will increase conversion…).

SEO will mostly send folks to your home page and to the posts of your blog. Why because that is where most people will link to you. Also with word of mouth. BUT, posts also get a lot of rankings attention in search. By thinking these things out and designing your blog correctly you can drastically improve your blogging results. You can send the right folks to the right page. You can also have a call to action ready for them on post pages as well as the index page. (Note: By having a more static index page you can have more control of how search engines SEE your blog.)

No keyword “stuffing”. No silver bullet. Just good planning, knowing that’s where you are gonna get the traffic from, where they will arrive, and what you are gonna invite them to do when they get there.

If your primary source of traffic is going to be local advertising and or word of mouth, the ONLY entry point to your site will likely be the index page. (I mean, when you tell someone to visit your blog or put your blog on your business card…it’s going to be myrealestateblog.com and not a post or a category url, right? (grin)

Can you prepare a word press blog for ALL of these things at once? Yes, IMO you can. Using the exclude pages plugin you have almost complete control in WordPress as you can add pages WITHOUT having them in the navigation bar. This is EXTREMELY helpful in building PPC (and other bought traffic, like HG ) without disturbing the structure of the blog for SEO purposes by forcing everything onto the main navigation. With a few changes to most themes, you can do the same with categories.

If you are in the process of an “extreme blog makeover”, here’s to you! Here’s wishing you a great 2009!