If you browse the 100’s of “how-to-blog” sites out there, it’s unlikely that you ever get any information or advice past the basics.  By basics I mean telling you to write frequently, comment on other blogs, write guest posts, etc. – you know, the basic common sense stuff.  This new series for bloggers is called Next Level Blogging; it is intended to help bloggers get to the next level.  It’s primarily for bloggers who are established and have a blog up and running with some decent traffic.  It’s geared to help these folks take their blog to another level with regards to traffic, income, status, and more.

Part 3 – Building Resources & Content

In the previous sections, I talked about hiring staff writers and targeting/segmenting the content you present to visitors based on what they are viewing.  In this section, I’m going to talk about taking your blog to the next level by building supplemental content in addition to the typical blog articles.

You’re probably assuming I’m talking about the standard static pages.  These can be effective resources but I’m talking about something more.  I’m referring to building resource pages for terms, ideas, people, topics that are frequently mentioned on your blog.  This is similar to tag pages or category pages, but more.

Here on 20smoney.com, I have some resource pages built for stocks (click here to see the list).  On these resource pages, I add some text, a stock chart widget that displays the current chart, and then the most important part, some php code to show the recent articles where this stock is mentioned.

To be able to implement php code in a Page (or Post) in WordPress, download the Exec-PHP plugin for WordPress.

I tag the articles with the ticker when they mention a certain stock, and then these resource pages pull the articles by tag.  Yes, you could do this with just the standard archive pages by tag, but you can’t add the supplemental information to make it a more compelling page of information.

Now, you can extend this principle to other things like a glossary, or maybe people, or other major topics.  I chose stocks because I write about stocks a good bit.  Then, the key is to link to these resource pages whenever you mention that topic, stock, person, or idea – the goal is to increase the pageviews per visit and keep people on your site longer.  Additionally, these resource pages might rank high in google for that specific topic or concept and draw in some nice search traffic.

Resource pages are a good way to beef up your blog, create more pages that are indexed, and keep your visitors on the blog longer.

The Next Level Blogging Series:

• Part 1 – Hire staff writers
• Part 2 – Target/segment your traffic
• Part 3 – Building Resources & Content