Several readers have expressed regret about not being able to attend the Savvy Blogging Summit earlier this month. Recordings of the session are now available and the keynote by J.D. Roth is a free download!
Click here to visit Savvy Blogging and check out the sessions for purchase. At $10 each you can pick which ones would be most meaningful to you or get the whole batch of 12 recordings for $97. I am an affiliate so I’d appreciate if you use my link if interested.
If you missed previous posts, part one included background on the conference and the networking benefits. Part two included highlights from the opening keynote, monetization, community building, design and media sessions.
Media Kit Creation
This session was another one that I was really looking forward to and instructor Melissa Hourigan delivered. She discussed that the media kit should include:
About You
- Interests
- History
- Credentials/affiliations
- Goals with Blog
- Contact Info
About the Blog
- Tag line
- Mission statement
- Polls
- Video
- Images
- Reviews
- Community/Network
About your Audience
- Demographics (age, sex, income, etc.)
- Online Stats (subscribers, fans, followers)
- Influence (interests, volunteering)
- Inbound Links
- Organic (keywords bringing traffic)
For Advertisers and Paid Media
Include the following:
- Awards and accolades
- Industry conference attendance
- Consistent branding and message
- Graphics, logos, elevator pitch, bio
- PDF or google document for pricing options
- Contact Information
- Advertising options, rates and guidelines
- Review and contest opportunities
- Brands you’ve worked with previously
- Brand and/or reader testimonials
Photography
This session was taught by David Mejias of David Mejias Photography. He is an example of why you should never judge someone by how they look. I thought what is this young guy going to teach me?
Well, not only is he incredibly talented but he put complex information into easy to understand context. Hopefully, I can do him some justice in sharing tips with you.
Photography is the study of three things: light, color and gesture. Tips to improve your blog photography include:
- Simplify background
- Everything in the frame should be deliberate
- Use all four sides of the frame
- Develop a point of view (concept, black/white, etc.)
We also learned what all those symbols mean on the camera dial.
SEO Tips and Strategies
This session ran over because attendees could not get enough and kept asking questions that we all wanted to know the answers to. Troy Lerner from Booyah Online Advertising led this session. Here’s some of the tidbits I wrote down:
- 2/3 of Google’s algorithm is based on trust of websites
- Links are more important than keywords
- Page title should include keywords
- Content: Body copy supports the title
- Keywords should be in anchor text
- Don’t bother with nofollow (google has a problem with all ads, not just text ads)
- Important text should be at top left of website
- You’ll earn more money with text ad
- Use google webmaster tools
- Website speed is important..but compare to competitors
- Keep posts to 300-600 words in length
- Use google trends for ideas on what to write
- Write guest posts (incoming links are very important)
- Put 2-4 anchor text links in a post
Summary
Other sessions included business law, personal productivity, strategic planning and consulting. I’ll be diving back into their materials after tackling what I learned in the other sessions.
Taking a chance and applying for this summit was the best thing I could have done for my blog and my growth as a blogger.
I’ve heard people say if you can take on thing back from a conference and apply it then the conference was worth the money. This conference gave me dozens of tidbits to apply so the money spent on registration and travel very well spent.
Was anything helpful to you? What have you learned at a conference that you applied?
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Wow that sounds like a jammed packed weekend. So much valuable and useful information. Thanks for the recap.
It was jam packed! We started with breakfast at 7 am and finished dinner around 9:30 which made for long, wonderful days!
Wow! It sounds like you were submerged in information! Thanks so much for sharing these tips. Now I wish I would have gone, too. I’m curious as how to use the Google webmaster tools. I’ve never really looked into them. Looking forward to any other information you share!
You’re welcome. It was a ton of information and a great experience. I hope you download the free presentation.
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