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PRO MemberPermalink Reply by Phil Voice on January 10, 2012 at 15:58

Hi Peter

I'm delighted you've chosen to use LJN for your blog. It's an ideal platform for what you are wishing to do (even and especially if it's connected to your own dedicated blog sometime in the future).

I'd start off thinking of an index page. This can be a blog post that will become your master. You'll always have editing rights so you can pop in and add or change content at any time.

Anchor text

What will be especially important and make your blog strong in the future is if you pay special attention to your titles and anchor text and link to your blog post.

For example, if you start a blog about a particular plant then it's important you use the description of what the blog post is about and then link it to your index page. On the index page, your title will become the anchor text. 

You can use tags to create an index but there's a danger that someone else might use the same tag in their posts and that will mean that outside posts would be drawn into your index.

I hope the above doesn't sound to daunting to start with? If you need further help then shout.

Phil

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Permalink Reply by Scott Chambers on January 10, 2012 at 17:47

Was thinking of doing the same thing for some of our Decorative Aggregates but am completely new to blogging so thanks for the info!

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Permalink Reply by Rose Lennard on January 10, 2012 at 20:57

Hi Phil, hope you don't mind me picking your brains? you mention connecting to your own dedicated blog... I'm planning a redesign of my website and including a blog, but don't know if it's better (SEO-wise) to have an external blog eg on LJN as it creates inbound links to my site? or would it make sense to just have the same blog content on 2 sites, LJN and my own website?

I find the whole thing of having to have titles that work for SEO a bit depressing as it can end up making it all a bit samey and boring! Like when you open someone's website and it has a banner saying 'we design gardens in....' followed by a string of towns just so that the search engines find them - not very interesting content! A pity if we are all so concerned about SEO that we end up not being able to have our own 'voice'. But then I guess it's a waste of time if we're blogging, creating internet content, and not using to full advantage...
 
Phil Voice said:

Hi Peter

I'm delighted you've chosen to use LJN for your blog. It's an ideal platform for what you are wishing to do (even and especially if it's connected to your own dedicated blog sometime in the future).

I'd start off thinking of an index page. This can be a blog post that will become your master. You'll always have editing rights so you can pop in and add or change content at any time.

Anchor text

What will be especially important and make your blog strong in the future is if you pay special attention to your titles and anchor text and link to your blog post.

For example, if you start a blog about a particular plant then it's important you use the description of what the blog post is about and then link it to your index page. On the index page, your title will become the anchor text. 

You can use tags to create an index but there's a danger that someone else might use the same tag in their posts and that will mean that outside posts would be drawn into your index.

I hope the above doesn't sound to daunting to start with? If you need further help then shout.

Phil

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Permalink Reply by Peter Ashby on January 13, 2012 at 9:15

Hi Phil,

Thanks for the great advice! I think I´m a bit more confident to start constructing a blog now. I guess the index page would in effect be similar to the home page on a website so I need to give it quite a lot of thought. I know I´ll be tapping your knowledge again! Can you suggest any "Best of Blogs" done through LJN that I can get some inspiration from?

Cheers, Peter.

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