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Our Resolutions for a New Year of Blogging

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sydney harbor2008 was a great year for the HubSpot blog -- we had lots of excellent conversations, we learned a ton and we attracted over 5,000 new subscribers.

 
In the New Year we want to keep improving our blog -- and the conversation around it -- so we'd like your input.  

To get things started, I put together a list of our top five resolutions for the HubSpot blog in 2009. 

What should we add to this list? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

(1) Even Better Posts! Content is the bottom line for any blog. We get a lot of great feedback on our content, and it's gotten better over the past year, but we can continue to improve. We can do more with the amazing data we have at HubSpot. We can write posts that engage more with current discussions and events. We can pull in ideas and voices from politics, non-profits and other places that are relevant to internet marketing, but are rarely discussed.

(2) Participate More in the Comments -- I don't know about other HubSpotters, but I don't participate in the comments enough. Sure, I answer everybody who asks questions, but I don't do enough to continue and expand the dialog I begin in posts. I need to. If you engage with people in the comments -- really rub brain cells together -- you'll see a return. 

(3) More Keyword-Rich Posts -- Search engine optimization is central to business blogging. It's one of the main reasons we blog here at HubSpot. To keep improving our SEO, we need to create more content on the HubSpot blog that's relevant to the keywords we want our business to rank well for in search engines.

(4) Coordinate Better With Other HubSpot Content -- We need to coordinate the HubSpot blog with more of the other great things we're doing at HubSpot. When we have webinars, we need to share some of the great discussion there on the blog. Same for videos, white papers, events and HubSpot TV. This type of cross-channel coordination amplifies the discussion and also makes the discussion in each channel richer. 

(5) Provide Better Access to Our Archive -- We have hundreds of great posts in our archive. We need to do a better job of providing access to this content. Looking for advice on blogging? We have it. SEO? That, too. Linkbuilding? Absolutely. Trouble is, Google's search engine is the only practical way to get to most of these articles. In the New Year, I want to do things that will provide more access to these articles.

So that's my list. What do you think we should do more of? What should we do less of? What should we change?

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Posted by Rick Burnes on Fri, Jan 02, 2009 @ 08:34 AM

COMMENTS

Great outline:) I think I will take some of your thoughts and see how these and other 09 strategies I have made will make BillSavings.com a better and MORE, MUCH MORE user friendly site!

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 9:23 AM by Victoria


#5...yes, please!!! 
 
Do that and I'll stop emailing you on where to find past articles of interest. 
 
Nice article.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 9:31 AM by Drew Smith


That`s super great! I have some lines at my blog as well about what to do better in 09. The number one thing I want to do is to increase my list and getting more exposure. I have it all described AndresMarketingEvolution.com. I will come back here. Lots of great information :) 
 
 
 
Great site! 
 
 
 
Thanks, 
 
André T

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 9:32 AM by Andre T


Thanks, Victoria! I completely agree that user friendliness is KEY. (It would have been on our list of top 10 resolutions.) The only caveat is that you have to be careful that focus on user friendliness doesn't get confused with too much focus on design.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 9:32 AM by Rick Burnes


Great resolutions -- anyone with a blog can use them, including me!

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 9:34 AM by Dianna Huff


Andre T, thanks for the comment. We definitely want to increase our list size and get more exposure (after all, the HubSpot blog is run by the marketing team!). However, I didn't include those goals here b/c I think improvements to content, discussion and the blog itself are the only ways to achieve those goals.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 9:41 AM by Rick Burnes


Thanks for the great post. 
 
#3 is what I'll be working hardest on this year for my blog. Practice, Practice, Practice.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 10:14 AM by Sam Bowley


This is great. I am going to look at this in detail. I would like to hear about building lead generation into your blog and of course I want to hear the latest and most up to date information on how google and any other important site, like Alexa, is changing. It is my goal to stay on the forefront on the web and I am looking to HubSpot to keep me there.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 10:27 AM by Jodi Bakst


As a new blogger it is critical to us to figure out how to maximize the return for us in terms of SEO and subscribers for the time we spend working on it. Good to keep the focus here and see examples!

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 10:30 AM by Nikki


Nikki and Sam, glad you agree with the SEO focus. It's what you have to be focused on if you're blogging for business. One of the ways I'm trying to focus is by separating things that are current and popular, and things that are core to our product and our business. Blogging draws you to current stuff, which is good, but there needs to be balance.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 10:36 AM by Rick Burnes


Rick - great post. Thanks especially for the link to a past post - 7 Website Redesign Tip. That was a terrific post and I missed it first time around. This is a great example of #5.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 10:43 AM by Catie Foertsch


Good ideas, Mike. I've written so many great articles on my blog that I'm now posting on Twitter to promote specific ones.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 12:15 PM by Jeff Ogden


Great Blog Ideas- thanks for passing on!

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 1:42 PM by Carrie


I think those are great goals .. I'll be using some of them for my blog, too.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 2:28 PM by Jerry Weaver


Thanks for the great content in '08. Looking forward to even better posts?! Fantastic.

posted on Friday, January 02, 2009 at 3:46 PM by Chris


Non-profits are a perfect candidate for inbound marketing and it would be great to explore any difference in methods to raise awareness and increasing donations/members versus sales.

posted on Sunday, January 04, 2009 at 7:18 PM by sue scott


Your TweetIt app works wonderfully. I used it to tweet this blog post. Your comment on Jeremiah Owyang's "How Bloggers Should Inspire Retweets" post brought me here. Smart content, smart comment, smart move... and smart post. 
 
Thank you for sharing your experience in blogging. I plan to put it to use this year, the year I start blogging. Cheers.

posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 at 3:05 PM by Ronnie Ledesma


Great post, made me think that all my fretting about #3 is very important. Its what I'm really trying to focus on this year. Happy New Year and happy blogging!

posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 at 3:20 PM by Nancy


@Ronnie, thanks for the nice comment. Glad you like TweetIt -- and it's nice to hear people explain how the found us! 
 
@Nancy, #3 is a tough one; it's really easy to forget about, but REALLY important.

posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 at 3:43 PM by Rick Burnes


I am trying out TweetIt and like it, but I would like to offer a suggestion. Can you make he graphic a little smaller?  
 
Thanks for great tips and tools. 
Linda

posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 at 7:03 PM by Linda Abraham


Ronnie: Glad you like the TweetIt tool. Like a lot of things from HubSpot, it was built because we wanted it for ourselves. 
 
Linda: In a future version, we'll provide a variety of different TweetIt button graphics.

posted on Tuesday, January 06, 2009 at 9:34 PM by Dharmesh Shah


Great list of new year resolutions, I think that most of them are exactly what I am aiming to this year too, beside finding my own blogging voice, well, hope your resolutions come true! wish me luck.

posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2009 at 10:11 AM by Ahmed Naguib


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