Creative inspiration by iNkMan. Guest blog entry by Jason Yormark, Vice President of Marketing & Social Media at Strategies 360. You can find him on Twitter, Facebook and at his personal blog jasonyormark.com.

Look around and you’ll find hundreds if not thousands of blog articles on how to drive more traffic to your website/blog.  Everything from back link strategies, to social media to blog commenting are recommended to help drive eyeballs to your site.  And while all those strategies certainly can contribute to that, the most often overlooked strategy is the one that should warrant most of your time; the writing.

Too many blog writers churn out complete garbage.  Often times it’s just over done topics or content that’s only purpose is to drive traffic to their site.  If you really want to build a long term successful blog, concentrate on these few writing tactics, and I assure you, you will find yourself the owner of a healthy blog with a sizeable audience.

1. Titles Titles Titles! – Make sure you spend a decent amount of time writing an effective title for your blog post.  Stay under 71 characters if you can as Google will truncate your title in their search results.  Your title is your selling point for users to click through.  Make sure you utilize tools like the Google Keyword Tool to determine which keyword phrases are searched for the most frequently for your given topic.
2. Solve Problems – Always be thinking about how your blog posts can be crafted in ways that genuinely help people by solving their problems.  If you can advise your readers on how to solve a problem, or introduce them to a valuable tool, they will become your biggest cheerleaders.
3. Be Concise & Specific – Often times blog writers feel compelled to write 2000 word posts all the time to get their point across.  People don’t read on the web like they do books.  Most of the time they like to get in and out quickly.  I find that 300-400 word posts can often be very effective and are often my highest page view articles that I write.  Don’t always feel like you have to write a novel for every blog post, or you’ll find yourself getting burned out and not publishing as often as you need to maintain your audience.
4. Visually Appealing Layout – Short paragraphs and even more so, lists, are great ways to entice readers to actually read through your entire posts.  It’s no secret that these types of posts typically resonate with readers.  Also ensure you take time to find visually appealing images to correspond with your posts that you can use.  When shared across social media networks, often times a strategically chosen image can draw visitors to your post.

Take the time to craft meaningful, useful, well written posts, and you will build an audience through your writing alone.  That coupled with promoting yourself socially and through engagement, and you’ll be most certainly have built yourself a nice sized audience.

Jason Yormark is Vice President of Marketing and Social Media at Strategies 360. He leverages his extensive community building, digital marketing, and social media experience to create and drive the execution of compelling social media initiatives for S360 clients. Jason regularly blogs on social media and technology at his personal blog www.jasonyormark.com, and you can also find him on Twitter and Facebook.

Do you own a flip camera? I’m adding this to my wish list!

So here’s a thought when thinking about a blog entry describing a different use of streaming media (not emulating a television or radio show):  Utilizing streaming media as a blog platform, also known as “vlogging”.

With the popularity of reality shows rising, it’s not a surprise that we (society) also flock to user generated sites that contain video content, like YouTube.  But if you try to think about another way of using streaming media, why not a blog entry in video form?  Here are some different ideas for streaming media blogging and reasons why it wouldn’t be so shabby…

Food Journal

Forget the Food Network!  These guys get paid to eat and review restaurants.  Why not put the power to the people?  I’m a huge fan of Yelp and having user generated food journals would be interesting.  People can upload videos of restaurants to capture a holistic experience like sound, idiosyncrasy of waitstaff, etc.  While text reviews and blogs are fun, video blogs might cater a different attraction.

Idiot’s Guide

A classmate of mine recently started a video blog about How to Use a Flip Video.  YouTube is already a semi-mecca for how to:  play the guitar, ride a bike, etc.  Professionals can use streaming media blogging to create buzz.  A yoga instructor can use streaming media blogging to show different yoga positions.  Or a bartender providing different drink recipes and ways to make them.  The possibilities are endless!

Personal Journal

Many people have privacy issues regarding their online identities, but there are also a lot of people who crave to attract attention online.  If there are those who blog about their life (and other interests) online, I’m sure some would be willing to give streaming media blogging a try.  This also might work for families who are juggling long distance relationships, for those who want to create a professional profile and presence online, or for those who just want to keep a journal record of themselves.  Whatever rhyme or reason, streaming media blogging is just another outlet for the human mind.

Check out the latest flip video camera to create your first vlog.

U-G-L-Y, your blog ain’t got no alibi… (it’s ugly)!

Unless you enjoy being dissed by a bunch of cheerleaders, you may want to consider the usability and design of your blog.  I’m no graphic designer (despite my small stint as a digital design major in my college days), but I do know how to spell ugly when I see one.  Here are a couple of great blogs I follow, and the design takeaways from both.

Twooting.com (Podcast Blog)

If you’re looking for a podcast that is entertaining and resourceful, these are your guys.  While I am a huge fan of their podcast, I need to pop pain medicine before visiting their website.  Twooting.com has a lot of rich information, but you need five pairs of eyes to find and read through all their topics.

Pros – Utilize Best Takeaways

• Branding – To achieve audience reach, you must develop a brand that is catchy and relevant to the topic of your blog.
• Color Scheme – Keep it simple.  Using too many colors will distract your readers and make your overall design very messy.
• Resources – Make sure to highlight the important resources your blog has to offer, and embed the rest.  Readers who are very interested will eventually find the less important resources as they dig into your site, and it will be like finding icing on the cake.

Cons – Learn From Others

• Organization – Categorization is key.  If you have great resources to offer but scattered on your site, your readers won’t be able to find them.  They won’t stick around to figure out your maze.
• Tabs – Utilize tabs (web pages) to organize the content on your site.  I love that Twooting.com offers a calendar and list of podcast episodes, but they are located on a very crowded home page.
• Simplicity – Don’t let John Maeda down (author of The Laws of Simplicity).  Put yourself in the readers’ shoes and think about the easiness of your site usability.  I personally like having one navigational column to make the content easy on the eye.

Adam Metz (Social Media Blog)

It is rare for me to classify anyone as a social media expert, because the industry is too new to understand all there is to know.  However, Adam would be my one exception.  The MetzMash blog not only discusses new trends, but introduces new ways of thinking about and measuring social media.

Pros – Utilize Best Takeaways

• Simplicity – Honestly, I can’t put more emphasis on the important of simplicity.  You can be creative and keep things simple, just like Adam’s website.
• Links – Having links to other blog content, such as past articles, can help your readers navigate more easily and increase your site traffic.  You can place them at the bottom of blog posts or in the navigational column.

Cons – Learn From Others

• Blog Real Estate – Don’t be afraid of being plain.  Personally, having a little white space won’t kill your site.  If anything, it will allow your readers to scan your site more easily.
• Image Size – I like how MetzMash utilized one picture of Adam, and how each page reveals a different expression.  It would have been nice for the image to be 75% of what the current size is now.  This would allow more space for content and less space for tiny facial features (not that they are bad).

Ultimately, you want to pimp your blog before these cheerleaders pay a visit.