Want to get a list of the best-ranked marketing blogs?  Then the AdAge Power 150 is your resource for a daily ranking of marketing blogs.

From CopyBlogger to SEOMoz to Brian Solis to Duct Tape Marketing to Yoast, there are currently 1,165 marketing blogs on the Power 150 list. 

To be considered to be ranked, each one of the marketing blogs must be at least six months old and have at least 50 posts.  In addition, at least half of the content on each blog must be about marketing.  Many of these blogs are very specific about providing helpful content to obtain the best results in the digital marketing space, to include writing for the blog itself, search engine optimation, blogging for small business, etc.

The list was created by Todd Andrlik and is managed by managed by Charlie Moran.

For the completed list, go to:  http://adage.com/power150/.  And for more information about how Todd set up the blog and why it is now housed on AdAge.com, go to:  http://adage.com/article/power-150/power-150/119692/

This is a great resource and one we’ll refer to often.  Hope you will, too.

Related articles

• 11 PR Blogs You Need to Read in 2011 (ereleases.com)
• My Picks: 5 Top Online Marketing Blogs from the UK (toprankblog.com)
• Top 9 Content Marketing Resources for 2011 (searchenginepeople.com)
• How a Blog Went From Zero to AdAge 100 in Nine Months (businessesgrow.com)

If we were writing a book right now, we might call it “Lessons Learned in the Trenches” and this would be one of the first topics that we would discuss when it comes to online marketing for small businesses.  Social media particularly is redefining how people use the web and since it isn’t slowing down anytime in the near future, many small business owners are having a tough time catching up.

And that’s because the technology and applications are improving so fast that it is very difficult to keep up with the changes, especially those of the search engines, even for those of us who are in it everyday. 

Wordpress is a perfect choice for small business websites.

But that’s all the more reason for the small business owner to take control of their online brand, and to utilize a flexible, open-source CMS platform like WordPress to build their self-hosted website. 

First, let’s clarify that we’re not website designers by trade.  We’re content generators.   And whether small business owners realize it or not, they will become content generators as well because static websites are quickly becoming a thing of the past for many reasons.  A static website = a static business.  Keeping a website continually updated is becoming more and more important in search engine rankings as well as increasing the chances a prospect will convert (recency and relevance of content to the viewer). 

After working with several small business owners and learning about the challenges they’ve experienced with their websites, we’ve compiled five reasons why a small business owner should build his or her website in WordPress.  WordPress…

1. Is Free and Updated Software.  Because WordPress is an open-source project, there are literally hundreds of people working on it everyday.  What does that mean to the business owner?  It means you are free to use it for any type or size of business without having to pay a licensing fee.  It is always being improved and the  updates are free with a simple download.  Design templates are endless but if you want something unique or want to make changes to a template, a web designer can rather easily custom design for your tastes.
2. Includes a Blog.  Whether you think you need a blog or not,  or even if you’d like to have one but are not sure that you would have the time to update it, it is critical that you build a website with integrated blog capability.   In fact, WordPress was originally built as blogging software which gives it some unique advantages.  Once programmers started working with it, they realized they could use it to build full-scale websites.  We highly recommend that our small business Clients use a blog for many reasons (credibility, easy content generation including video, promotability, website traffic, etc.) but the main factor in integrating a blog within your website is that it is a very easy way for small businesses to keep their website updated with great content.  
3. Is Great for SEO.  Small business owners are not always well-versed in search engine optimization techniques (hey, it’s difficult for us to keep up with it and we’re in the industry).  But it’s important to know the factors of where your site ranks naturally when people do a search on a product or service that you offer.  While other software platforms can be great for SEO for the experienced user and programmer, WordPress comes prepackaged to help you immediately with the basics and beyond plus the ability to easily add on other plug-ins designed to help you with SEO such as the very popular All In One SEO Pack which now comes in a Pro version.  There are plenty of other search engine ranking factors like age of domain name and hosting, but at least you’ll start out with more than the basics covered.
4. Is a Content Management System (CMS).  A CMS website platform allows the novice user to update their website with copy changes and new graphics in an easy way, almost like using Microsoft Word.  WordPress is not the only CMS website software, there are others such as Expression Engine, Drupla and Joomla.  But WordPress is becoming the most popular and widely-used and easiest-to-use for the small business owner who would prefer to a) not spend a lot of time making website changes, b) would rather not have to pay a website designer to make the changes.  The latter adds a lot of cost and those dollars could be allocated much better in online or offline marketing efforts and we can’t stress how important this is, especially to a small or start-up business.  And, with it being so widely used, there are many people who are WordPress experts who can help you if you need it.
5. Has Easy Social Media Integration.  It seems social media changes faster than SEO these days and WordPress makes it easy to nicely integrate social media within your site.  There are so many options with various plug-ins and easy-to-use widgets which help you to custom design your site in the way that you choose.   Just like a blog, we believe your social media should be seamlessly integrated in places in your site that are natural to your reader.  By showcasing your involvement in social media in the right places on your site, it shows that you are staying up-to-date with current trends, that you’re accessible and that you’re encouraging customer feedback and engagement with your company.  All good things to do.

Recently, we spoke with an interior designer whose website developer built her website using Flash.  It is not optimized for SEO and she cannot do anything with it without calling her web guy.  She doesn’t know if she has Google Analytics on the site and her blog is created separately in Blogger.  Her social media links look like an afterthought because, well, they were.  Overall, the site is gorgeous but isn’t practical for her as a owner/operator of her business.  Unfortunately, she spent a lot of money on her website only to have a web presence that isn’t cohesive from a design, operational or SEO standpoint.  We really get annoyed when we see these situations because there isn’t much we can do to help without redoing nearly everything she’s done.

We’re not saying here that you can’t successfully build a website in another platform but we favor WordPress for small business owners for many reasons.  The biggest one is to keep costs down while giving you the ability to expand your website as your marketing needs increase .  For example, if you’re doing a lot of PPC advertising with Google or Facebook, then you want to create landing pages on your site that are specific to those ads.  You don’t want to be in a position to have to call your website designer every time you need to feature a special event, run a targeted offer or make changes to your staff photos.

If you need a quick analysis of your online brand efforts, simply call Traction Group at 804.777.9940.  We’ll be happy to give you a web assessment and answer any questions you may have.

Here are our top 10 best ways for you to get more mileage out of your small business blog:

1. Write an effective blog title. Your blog’s title is its billboard. It is what piques peoples interest enough to stop and read it. Don’t be vague – blog titles are no place for story lines. If it takes people more than a glance to figure out if it has any relevance to them, then you’ll lose your target audience. Quick.
2. Write with enough substance but not too long. Ideal blog posts are 350-500 words in length. They can be shorter or longer. If shorter, be sure you’re covering your subject with enough detail. Sometimes posts that include photos or videos can be shorter as far as number of words is concerned. If longer, be sure you’re making enough new points within the article that you won’t lose your reader, or graphically break up the copy with photos, bullet points or numbers as we’ve done here.
3. Add a call-to-action. We usually prefer that the post is closed in some way, either with contact info to get more information or a next step for your reader. Don’t just leave ‘em hanging, as if the post writer was lazy and left an unfinished piece. Your readers are looking for you to sum up your points in some way or lead them to the next step so they don’t have to guess at your intention.
4. Review your keyword list. All blog owners should be working with a keyword list that includes 5 main key words or phrases that you want to really own in the search engines, along with other keywords that are relevant to your content and what your target audience is searching for. Revising your blog posts to ensure a proper density of your main key words as well as any ancillary key words or phrases is critical to your blog’s success.  Tip: If you do not have a keyword / keyphrase list, don’t write another post until you create one!  This is critical to your blogging success!
5. Ping your blog. Be sure to ping your blog each time you post new content. This helps the search engines to know to look for updated content on your blog. Technorati, the search engine designed for searching blogs, is still valuable as is using Weblogs.com.
6. Blog Communities. Taking the time to list your blog in popular blog directories not only helps you gain new followers by making your content appear elsewhere but increases your search engine rankings because these sites have more SEO power than your site by itself. One of my favorites is NetworkedBlogs, which integrates directly with Facebook. NetworkedBlogs keeps a ranking of the top blogs in each city based on local followers so it is particularly important for local businesses. Other blog directories we feel are a must are BlogCatalog, Blogged and MyBlogLog.
7. Blog post sharing.  It is critical to make it easy not only for your readers to comment on your blog but also for them to share it. Popular sharing services such as ShareThis, which also provides results tracking, and TweetMeme make it very easy for others to share your posts with their audiences.
8. Outbound links. Can’t tell you how many blog posts we see that utilize zero outbound links. Blog posts aren’t book pages so don’t treat them that way. The whole idea is that your post provides an interactive experience and a way for people to learn more about a company, product or service that you mention in your post. Plus, it’s just common courtesy to refer out because that is exactly what you want others to do for you.
9. Write well and often. Ideally, you should be posting two to three times per week on your blog. More often if possible. Google, Yahoo and Bing tend to find your blog easier and more often when there is fresh content posted that includes your blog’s main key words and phrases. Building repetitive use of keywords and phrases over several entries, plus creating a history or backlog of posts (duration length) aids your overall ranking. Always add relevant photos, YouTube videos, SlideShare presentations or other graphics to make your posts more visually appealing.
10. Tag you’re it. Don’t forget to take the time to include your category and post tags for each and every entry and be consistent with matching the tags to the post itself.  This includes the custom title tags, meta description and meta keywords.

Effective blogging can take time but it’s worth doing if you’ve made the commitment to your blog. If you have created guidelines for your blog’s content, including your keyword list, then you can have guest bloggers add content if frequency of writing is a problem for you. If you own a small business, appoint several people to be part of a blogging team so that you as the business owner don’t have to be responsible for creating all the content. Or sometimes you can find a virtual assistant or intern to help write and/or edit and post with the proper tagging sequences.

If you’d like to know how to get more steam out of blogging for your small business, please tweet us @TractionGroup or call 804.402.0804.

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net