Successful Blogging Tips: Lunch-n-Learn Thursdays

Zucchini Two-Ways

I selected this grated zucchini recipe out of the Student’s Vegetarian Cookbook, which I’d cooked a few times before. I also decided to do a take on this creamy, cheesy zucchini recipe video I found online from FoodWishes.com:

To round out my Mediterranean lunch, I served both dishes with Ciabatta bread, hummus, cucumbers and tomatoes. Here are the recipes:

Grated Zucchini With a Greek Twist

• 6 Large Zucchini, grated
• Tzatziki (I used Trader Joe’s brand)
• Olive Oil
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garnishes: Sliced tomato, cucumber, hummus, and ciabatta bread

Grate the zucchini and heat in a pan with olive oil, mix in the tzatziki when the zucchini is cooked. Season with salt and pepper. Serve the grated zucchini salad in a bowl, with sliced tomato, cucumber, hummus and ciabatta bread on the side.

Cheesy Zucchini

• 6 medium-sized Zucchini, cubed
• Olive Oil
• Garlic, minced
• Salt
• Pepper
• 3 year old white cheddar cheese, grated

Cube your zucchini. Saute with olive oil and minced garlic until tender. Season with salt and pepper and mix in the grated cheddar cheese until it’s melted, then serve while hot.

Quick Tips for Successful Blogging

Tim and Sarah covered the “learn” portion of our Lunch-n-Learn, giving our team some quick tips for creating better blog posts to engage customers, improve search engine rankings and market our services.

At Mightybytes, everyone takes a turn at blogging about what they know best, whether that’s web design, development, visual design, social media marketing, or sustainability.

Sarah identified quick tips to help staff who aren’t writers get started on posts:

Sarah’s Blogging Best Practices

• Always write in the active verb tense (I ran vs. I was running, for instance).
• Identify one, and only one, idea or topic per post.
• If you’re having trouble writing about something, try speaking it out loud. Explain your concept to someone next to you. Record what you say, then transcribe it.
• Blog posts don’t have to be long to be effective: try to illustrate a skill in 30 seconds or less, or publish a photo that tells a story or explains a concept, with a quick caption.
• Sarah explained the Mary Poppins Principle: When you’re writing about something technical or educational, try to mix it with something fun. A spoonful of sugar truly does help the medicine go down.

Tim’s Content Optimization Tips

Tim explained that while telling a good, useful story is first priority, optimizing posts for search engines is important too. Tim suggested these tools for optimizing content within website and blog posts:

• Inbound Writer, which comes as a standalone tool or a plugin for WordPress.
• The folks at SEOMoz have created an On-Page Report Card tool that grades any page on a wide variety of optimization factors and offers helpful tips for improvement. (Note: Requires a Pro account, which is available with a 30-day free trial.)
• Similarly, Internet Marketing Ninjas’ Keyword Density Analysis Tool can also give you a quick view of how the keywords on any page of your blog or website stack up.

For more tips on blogging best practices, check out the post Ten Blogging Rules: A Blogger’s Doctrine from our friends at Orbit Media.

Blogging Wrap-Up

These are some basic tips for better blog posts. Mightybytes provides comprehensive content and social media strategy services for our clients, such as this recent field reporting-based content campaign, which expanded the reach and amplified the message of Climate Ride as they pedaled across four states, raising money for environmental and cycling advocacy organizations.

What are your favorite blogging tips? Share them by leaving a comment below.

As Mightybytes’ multi-talented Production Assistant, Jeff Livorsi can play a trombone, photograph an event, contribute product ideas and recycle, all at the same time. Mightybytes is a Chicago-based web design and digital marketing firm and a certified B Corporation. Connect with us on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest or fill out our contact form.