Rebecca Lieb: * Have a content strategy, and arrange it around your topic/focus. A blog isn’t a one-off, it’s an ongoing project and you need to populate it with relevant content on an ongoing basis.

* Don’t forget to optimize images, video and audio files with relevant, keyword-rich metadata. They’re content, too!

* Don’t forget to link – outbound links beget inbound links!

Michel Leconte: Here are three things I’d consider for you to help build traffic and ranking:

* Add automatically deep links to your RSS feed footer by using RSS Footer

* Set your feedburner options to optimize click tracking for SE rankings / Use Mybrand services or Pingshot.

* Invite contributors to participate in your blog, and play the news game; set the right folder/article url/xml newsmap structure, and submit your articles to Google News.