7 must-haves for a successful business blog

I’ve learned a lot during my seven years of blogging. Online Marketing Blog has received a lot of praise recently, but more important, my experience with reviewing others’ blogs has been a learning experience. I’ve looked at more than 1,000 blogs to create the BIGLIST and recently reviewed the top UK online marketing blogs, as well.

Here are a few key characteristics that represent a highly productive blog in terms of branding, community, SEO, PR, recruiting and taking mindshare away from the competition:

1. URL. Pick something short and easy to remember. Blog.domainname.com works well, as does domainname.com/blog or companynamblog.com. Try to avoid obscure or long URLs like www.domainname.com/files/about/blog?home or worse, companyname.blogspot.com. If you’re representing a business, act professionally and use a domain name you control for your blog URL.