I love startups. I write about them. I work at one. As a blogger as well as a guy on the inside, I've come to understand how important it can be to get coverage in blogs. In covering startups, I've come up with a short list of tips that can make it much easier for bloggers to cover your startup. I'm not much for list-type blog entries (not known for brevity), but here goes.

1. Logos

I cannot stress the importance of having your logo available in an easy-to-embed format. If I'm checking out a startup, I always want to include their logo in the post. If I can simply right click on your logo and paste it into my post as an image reference, I will do it in a heartbeat. And as a startup, isn't that what you want?

There are three pervasive issues with logos IMHO:

A. Coupled Logos

A coupled logo (in my own definition) is one that does not stand alone. If your logo is part of a 920×300 navigation element at the top of your page, bloggers can't simply paste an image reference. Though I have no problem firing up Photoshop, cropping the image, uploading it to my server, then linking to it, many bloggers won't go through the hassle. If it takes more than two steps to add your logo to a post, many people just won't bother.

B. Flash Logos

I'll talk about flash more in a bit, but when it comes to making logos accessible, flash is a nightmare. Like the coupled logo problem, if your entire site is in flash, there is no way for a blogger to add your logo to their post. Instead, the blogger has to take a screenshot and crop to get the logo.

C. Unavailable Logos

I learned this one the hard way, and it should have been a no-brainer: keep your logo available. Web sites are evolving creatures. The site you have now might look completely different in a month. But when you change the look and feel of your site, don't simply delete or overwrite your previous logo files.

Once, when I launched a new web site, I blew away all the old logo files.  What happened? All blog posts about the company that referenced the old logo had a broken image. Whoops.

2. Text

Have text available. I know how simple this sounds, but it's not. There are so many new sites out there that are completely flash-based, and it is impossible to copy and paste text embedded in flash.

I like being able to go to a site's "About" section and paste that text into a post. I'll usually write a paragraph about what the startup is trying to do, then will add:

From their site:

This is the text from the site's about section. When it's available, I'll paste it so you can see what the company has written in their own words. And as a company, since you've spent the time and energy coming up with copy and positioning, wouldn't you like people to use this to describe you? Even if they bash you afterwards, you've at least got your own copy alongside the review.

But even the most eloquently worded about text is worthless if it's all in flash. If it can't be copied, it won't be pasted.

3. Ajax is great, but.....

I love AJAX. Who doesn't? But there's one big drawback: linking. If you use AJAX, that's fine. But don't make it impossible for bloggers to link to your pages. For example, it's easy to link to a company's "About" section when the URL is http://www.company.com/about. It's difficult when the About section is: Go to the home page and click on the left hand navigation. A submenu will populate, then click on "About". The "About" copy will then appear at right, but there's no URL to get there directly.

4. Blog

Having a blog is huge. It starts an interaction with live people. I'd much rather link to a startup's blog than just linking to polished marketing text. And since blogs are frequently updated, a link to constantly evolving content is much more valuable to a company than a link to static copy.

5. Contact Info

Make your contact information easy to find. When possible, have contact information for an actual human being. If a blogger has a question, they're much more likely to contact a person than info@somestartup.com, which may or may not actually go anywhere.

Obviously this is not an exhaustive list, and I'd love to hear any other tips. These are just some of the issues I see frequently when checking out the latest shiny new thing.

The preceding article originally appeared on blogstring.com and is reprinted here by permission.