First, your keyword list. Hopefully you already have one. If you don’t, hop on over to your favorite keyword discovery tool (I like Google’s Keyword Tool) and do some research. Depending on your niche, you might find yourself with a list of 100 or more keywords.

Now that you’ve got your keyword list, start thinking about what kind of blog posts you’ll be writing. I told you about 14 kinds of blog posts yesterday, but there are dozens more. Make a list of at least 10 that fit your style of blogging.

Do you see where I’m going with this yet?

Take the first item on your keyword list – let’s say it’s “homemade cat food” – and start brainstorming ideas for each type of post on your list, like this:

“12 Ingredients You Should Never Put in Homemade Cat Food”
“How To Make Homemade Cat Food Your Cat Will Flip Over”
“Cuisinart Elite Collection 14-Cup Food Processor: Perfect for Making Homemade Cat Food”
“5 Tips for Delectable Homemade Cat Food”
“Is Homemade Cat Food Better for Your Cat? We Asked a Vet, and the Answer Might Surprise You”

If we assume you’ve got 100 keywords and 10 different types of blog posts, you’ve got about four years worth of content right there. That should keep you writing for a good long time.

P.S. In a future post I’ll talk about how to keep writing even when you’re sure you can’t possibly type another word. Be sure you sign up for my RSS feed so you don’t miss it!

Everyone loves a story. Photo by Dave Parker.

Okay, Google won’t get bored. Google is a computer and is incapable of getting bored. Yet.

You still need to mix things up a bit to keep your blog interesting, though, so here are 14 types of blog posts you can write instead of that boring old beginning-middle-end post you keep repeating.

• List Post. This is a list post. Pretty self-explanatory.
• How-To. How To Install Microsoft Exchange Server; Bathe a Puppy; Save the World. Not all in the same post, though.
• Product Review. This kind of blog post ties in really well with an affiliate program, just in case you want to get paid someday.
• 7 Tips. This is just a different kind of list article. It doesn’t have to be 7 tips, but it should be an odd number. I don’t know why. Just because.
• Tell a Story. Everyone loves a good story. Tell us why you finally upgraded to Windows 7, or how you discovered that you’re allergic to mink, or what you learned about email marketing while you were on vacation.
• Interview an Expert. Email interviews are super easy to conduct, and take very little cleanup to become a blog post.
• Answer a Reader Question. Don’t have a reader or a question? No problem. Go find a question on a forum or on Yahoo! answers and answer that.
• Video Post. Set up that new Flip Mino you got for Christmas and just start talking. You don’t have to be a television anchor to do this. In fact, you’ll probably get a better response if you just concentrate on being you.
• Case Study. Did you split test your Aweber sign-up page? Change your cat’s shampoo? Try to pass off tofu as chicken to your kids? Write up a case study with the results of your experiment.
• Industry News. No matter what niche you’re in, there is news about it. Check out PR Web for press releases, set up Google alerts with your keywords, and search Twitter to find out what’s happening in your market.
• Best of the Web. This is just a round-up of the best blog posts in your niche, and is a popular choice for a weekend series.
• Best of Your Blog. These are always big around the end of the year. They’re also known as “sneeze pages” (marvelous image, huh?) and are not only easy to write, but great for your internal linking structure.
• Debate a Controversy. This is a fabulous way to get lots and lots of comments. Nothing like a good debate to stir things up.
• Compare Two Unlikely Things. How Chinese Buffets Remind Me of Blogging, or How Choosing a Day Care Provider is Like Getting a Root Canal.
• Start a Blog Series. Like Monday Marketing, Temptation Tuesday, or Funny Friday. You’ll have at least one day’s post figured out every week. And no, you don’t have to be alliterative about it.

These 14 ideas are just the beginning. There are many more post formats you can use to spice up your blogging day. Got a favorite? Share with us in the comments section.

Well, it’s that time of year again. Time to take stock of what worked and what didn’t in the previous year and to make a plan and set goals for the new year.

An Internet marketing plan has lots of parts, and they don’t all work for every business model. Here are some areas Internet marketers should concentrate on in the coming year.

• Blogging Regularly. I’ll be the first to admit that I struggle with this one. I have clients to write for, newsletters to put together, article marketing to attend to, and only when all that is done do I think about my blog. But regular blogging is important for building and keeping a readership, so my plan going forward is to develop an editorial calendar so I can write and schedule blog posts in advance.
• Social Media. Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg, and hundreds of other sites are all good for bringing in traffic. To be successful, you have to remember the social part of social media. Talk to other people, don’t make everything about you.
• Article Marketing. This is an effective way to find new readers for your blog or drive traffic to a sales or squeeze page. You don’t have to submit hundreds of articles, but you do need to be consistent, and to realize that article marketing is a long term project, not a flash in the pan.
• Forum Participation. Niche forums are the perfect place to find topic ideas. What questions are people asking? What do they talk about? These are the topics you should be writing about on your blog. But be careful…it’s so easy to spend a lot of unproductive time on forums. Don’t mistake socialization for work.
• Guest Blogging. Guest blogging is similar to article marketing in that you are providing content for someone else to publish. The difference is the audience. Since you’re writing for another blog in your niche, their readers are already interested in your topic. Guest blogging is great for driving targeted traffic back to your site.
• Blog World Tour. A blog world tour is like guest blogging, but much more intense. Typically, a blog tour involves spending a few days on each of several blogs in your niche. Nicole Dean did this with great success this past summer, and since then many other bloggers have followed her plan. You can find out more about how a blog tour works in Nicole’s Blog World Tour Planner.

The real key here is to stay active and stay involved. You can’t write and publish one article and then sit back and wait for the traffic to roll in. You can’t Tweet once and expect to gain a following (never mind what all those spam @replies will tell you).

Have you worked out your marketing plan for 2010 yet? Share your plans with us in the comments

P.S. One last thing–continuing education. This is absolutely vital if you want to be successful. Internet marketing changes constantly. What worked yesterday will not work today, so you need to keep up. The best way to do that is to get involved with a group of other marketers. I belong to one of the best on the web: Self Starters Weekly Tips, which is led by Lynn Terry. I highly recommend it.

You know your business, and I know how to reach your audience. Together, we can increase your traffic and your profits. Here are some of the things I can do to help:

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These are just a few of the ways a talented writer can help your business grow. Contact me today for a no obligation consultation, and together we’ll work out a plan to improve your online presence–and your bottom line!

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I’m looking forward to working with you!

A good resource box leads your reader back to your site. Photo by webhamster.

Today I thought I would cover how to write a really outstanding resource box that will drive traffic back to your site instead of driving them away.

The number one key to a terrific resource box is to make it a natural extension of the article itself. The article should be complete without it, of course, but the resource box should pull the whole article together just like a good concluding paragraph does.

Don’t Put a Stop Sign at the End of Your Article

Don’t start with your name. A lot of writers want to begin the resource box like a biography. “Mark Marketer is an Internet marketer specializing in organic worm composting…”

As soon as the reader comes to the name, they know the article is done, and they stop reading. Your name is a big red stop sign, and if they stop reading, they don’t click your links.

Don’t start with “For more information about worm composting…” Same problem here. The reader knows the article is done, and she moves on to the next thing.

Gently Lead the Reader to Your Site

Do tell us what your site adds to the article, with appropriate anchor text in the links. “Organic worm composting is a fun hobby the whole family can enjoy. Whether you choose an indoor worm composter or just introduce some worms to your organic garden, you are sure to benefit from these living garbage disposals.”

One Link or Two?

Some article marketing gurus will tell you that no one clicks on the second link, and that’s probably true, so I recommend putting your best link first. But don’t forget that link building is also one of the goals of article marketing. If the directory you’re submitting to allows more than one link, then you should definitely use it.

The resource box is the most important part of your overall article marketing plan. Don’t just throw something together as an afterthough. Make it work for you.