The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers
Posted on 15. Mar, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, business blogging, interview, lee odden, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Video Interviews
Earlier this week Frank J. Kenny did a Skype interview with me about small business blogging and why or why not it makes sense. Frank’s audience is the network of Chambers of Commerce across the U.S.. I think it’s a timely question considering the ongoing “blogging is dead“, “no it’s not“ debate that’s been going on for the past 5 years or so.
As a small business owner myself, I’ve been blogging here at Online Marketing Blog for over 8 years and can testify as to the pros and cons like few others can. In our case, we’ve had great success with our blog as a way to achieve industry awareness and credibility, attract new business, employees, media coverage, speaking opportunities and many other benefits.
In the interview with Frank, he asked 3 key questions about blogging and social media that I wanted to share here since it’s had such a huge impact for both our clients large and small, as well as on our own small business.
Why should small businesses blog?
Blogging is a method of creating and publishing conversational content. Blogs are an easy to use content management system. The value is in the content and ability for companies to leverage the inherent promotion and engagement capabilities of the blog publishing platform. Blogging offers a few key advantages:
- Easy to use platform to create sharable, linkable content that addresses specific prospect and customer interests
- Serves as a hub to a hub and spoke model of content marketing and promotion
- Creates a promotable SEO and Social Media asset – every post is a potential destination for a link and an entry point through search engines.
Through multiple channels of discovery, blog content can reach:
- Prospects
- Existing customers
- Potential employees
- Marketing partners, investors
- The media: journalists, bloggers
What is the impact of Google+ on search and how does it affect business blog marketing?
Google+ personalization and it’s impact on search is the hot topic and any company that wants an advantage in Google search results needs to consider Google+ and other social media participation. The behaviors of content creation, sharing and engagement are incredibly rich signals that search engines can use to improve search results quality and search user experience.
The more people that have included your Google+ profile or page in their circles, the more likely content that you’ve created, shared and engaged with will appear in their Google search results while they’re logged in. Google+ optimization should be an essential part of any business blog effort.
At the same time, social media content, whether it’s text, images or video is content that can be crawled and ranked in search results. Social media optimization can improve search visibility of that social content for people that are actively looking for solutions.
When we make optimization recommendations, we go beyond search keywords and have our clients consider social topics as well. Understanding what keywords consumers are searching on as well as the topics they’re discussing on blogs, twitter, and other social networks can inform an editorial plan that does a much better job of attracting new customers because it’s focused on their language and the things they care about. Incidentally, I go deep, deep into this within Optimize.
How much emphasis should small business bloggers place on SEO vs social media?
The consumer journey through the sales funnel is increasingly weaving through a social and search experience. Our model of optimization focuses on how consumers Discover, Consume and Share content so the notion that people will come across a small business solution because of a social connection to a friend that then leads to a search on Google or Bing to get more information is entirely likely and common.
When people use specific words in a search they are segmenting or qualifying themselves to a certain degree because the words they use indicate intent to a particular purpose or outcome. Creating, optimizing and socializing blog content according to those purposes or pain points can be very powerful for any sized business that wants to be found or talked about where relevant customers are looking.
There’s so much more I can say about this (and I will – see my upcoming speaking schedule)
Here’s the video version of the interview:
Despite the success we’ve had with our own business blogging efforts at TopRank Online Marketing, we’re probably only realizing a fraction of the potential benefits from business blogging. If that’s the case, why do so many other companies with significantly greater resources fail at blogging for their business? They quit, lack vision, underestimate resources and timeframe, and fail to understand where blogging can be integrated with achieving multiple business goals.
Hopefully you’ll find the advice above useful to help your business blogging effort. If you have specific biz blogging questions, please ask them in the comments.
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers | http://www.toprankblog.com
The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers
Posted on 15. Mar, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, business blogging, interview, lee odden, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Video Interviews
Earlier this week Frank J. Kenny did a Skype interview with me about small business blogging and why or why not it makes sense. Frank’s audience is the network of Chambers of Commerce across the U.S.. I think it’s a timely question considering the ongoing “blogging is dead“, “no it’s not“ debate that’s been going on for the past 5 years or so.
As a small business owner myself, I’ve been blogging here at Online Marketing Blog for over 8 years and can testify as to the pros and cons like few others can. In our case, we’ve had great success with our blog as a way to achieve industry awareness and credibility, attract new business, employees, media coverage, speaking opportunities and many other benefits.
In the interview with Frank, he asked 3 key questions about blogging and social media that I wanted to share here since it’s had such a huge impact for both our clients large and small, as well as on our own small business.
Why should small businesses blog?
Blogging is a method of creating and publishing conversational content. Blogs are an easy to use content management system. The value is in the content and ability for companies to leverage the inherent promotion and engagement capabilities of the blog publishing platform. Blogging offers a few key advantages:
- Easy to use platform to create sharable, linkable content that addresses specific prospect and customer interests
- Serves as a hub to a hub and spoke model of content marketing and promotion
- Creates a promotable SEO and Social Media asset – every post is a potential destination for a link and an entry point through search engines.
Through multiple channels of discovery, blog content can reach:
- Prospects
- Existing customers
- Potential employees
- Marketing partners, investors
- The media: journalists, bloggers
What is the impact of Google+ on search and how does it affect business blog marketing?
Google+ personalization and it’s impact on search is the hot topic and any company that wants an advantage in Google search results needs to consider Google+ and other social media participation. The behaviors of content creation, sharing and engagement are incredibly rich signals that search engines can use to improve search results quality and search user experience.
The more people that have included your Google+ profile or page in their circles, the more likely content that you’ve created, shared and engaged with will appear in their Google search results while they’re logged in. Google+ optimization should be an essential part of any business blog effort.
At the same time, social media content, whether it’s text, images or video is content that can be crawled and ranked in search results. Social media optimization can improve search visibility of that social content for people that are actively looking for solutions.
When we make optimization recommendations, we go beyond search keywords and have our clients consider social topics as well. Understanding what keywords consumers are searching on as well as the topics they’re discussing on blogs, twitter, and other social networks can inform an editorial plan that does a much better job of attracting new customers because it’s focused on their language and the things they care about. Incidentally, I go deep, deep into this within Optimize.
How much emphasis should small business bloggers place on SEO vs social media?
The consumer journey through the sales funnel is increasingly weaving through a social and search experience. Our model of optimization focuses on how consumers Discover, Consume and Share content so the notion that people will come across a small business solution because of a social connection to a friend that then leads to a search on Google or Bing to get more information is entirely likely and common.
When people use specific words in a search they are segmenting or qualifying themselves to a certain degree because the words they use indicate intent to a particular purpose or outcome. Creating, optimizing and socializing blog content according to those purposes or pain points can be very powerful for any sized business that wants to be found or talked about where relevant customers are looking.
There’s so much more I can say about this (and I will – see my upcoming speaking schedule)
Here’s the video version of the interview:
Despite the success we’ve had with our own business blogging efforts at TopRank Online Marketing, we’re probably only realizing a fraction of the potential benefits from business blogging. If that’s the case, why do so many other companies with significantly greater resources fail at blogging for their business? They quit, lack vision, underestimate resources and timeframe, and fail to understand where blogging can be integrated with achieving multiple business goals.
Hopefully you’ll find the advice above useful to help your business blogging effort. If you have specific biz blogging questions, please ask them in the comments.
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers | http://www.toprankblog.com
How to Increase Business Blog Traffic, Readership, & Community
Posted on 07. Mar, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, business blogging, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
One of the key objectives and performance metrics for business blogging is to grow the network of people that find, interact with and share blog content. An optimized approach to growing a blog community relies on an understanding of who the audience is and what their information goals are, not just what the brand wants to achieve. Many companies start out blogging about their own products and services, company news and essentially the kinds of things that belong in a corporate newsroom.
An ego-centric approach to business blogging misses the opportunity to create meaningful connections with people empowered to publish, share, refer and buy. Blogging is a publishing platform that allows both one to one and one to many communications so content should take advantage of those engagement opportunities by thinking about content that’s interesting from the reader’s perspective.
So, what can companies that are planning on setting up a blog or that would like to improve the performance of their blog do?
The first thing I’d recommend is to find a niche related to the major problems your business solves for customers and make a plan to dominate it. Develop a matrix of topics and media types that map to the intersection of target audience needs and the key messages your brand is trying to promote. What’s the one thing your company, division, department or product is absolutely the best at? Think of blog posts, videos, images, presentations, infographics, polls, interviews, liveblogging, reports, reviews and other types of content that you could create to be the “go to” resource for that category. Once you’ve achieved dominance of conversation, referrals and search visibility for that key topic, document what has made your niche efforts successful and duplicate that process to other topics relevant to your business.
What are the mechanics of growing a blog community? It can differ a bit according to your industry, goals, target audience and resources, but here are a few simple tips that have helped our agency at TopRank Marketing gain an online footprint and brand credibility that is equal or better to agencies that are many, many times larger than we are.
- Tell Stories. Whatever it is that you’re trying to communicate, always think of what “the story” is. If you were a journalist assigned to cover a beat, what unique angle, hook or perspective would you use to make the information you’re publishing interesting to a particular audience? With practice, you can find good stories in anything.
- Empathize with whatever market or audience you’re after. Put yourself in their shoes when thinking of topics. What are your target audience’s pain points and goals? Write about the journey to solving those problems.
- Engage and Recognize. Find ways to ask your readers, subscribers, fans, friends and followers to interact and participate directly on your business blog as well as the other social media and networking channels used to grow community and promote useful content (including your own). Reward and recognize the kind of participation you’re after. Repeat. The simple satisfaction of contributing and being recognized is one of the most powerful when developing a strong blog community.
- Quality for the win. A quantity of quality is what wins with blog content. There’s a lot of competition in the blogging space so it’s important to produce high quality, relevant and sharable content on a regular basis. At TopRank Online Marketing we help companies plan and implement this but with a good plan, it’s entirely possible for companies to figure it out on their own over time. Provide something your readers can’t find elsewhere online and do that consistently.
- Easy to Search and Share. Blog content that is easy to find on search engines and that is often shared by credible sources within relevant social networks can grow your community in very meaningful ways. People that search are often looking for something specific and when your blog content “ranks” well for those phrases, it lends instant credibility that can manifest as an increase in traffic, readership and growth of your community.
Many companies start blogging because competitors are doing it or because it seems a necessary piece of the online and social media marketing mix. Hopefully those companies are thoughtful about what they want to achieve through blogging and understand both the necessity of planning and commitment to make it work. We’ve been blogging for over 8 years here at TopRank and with nearly 50,000 blog subscribers, almost 20,000 Twitter followers, 14,000 Facebook fans and a growing community on Google+, we’ve been able grow a network, readership and community that many of the world’s largest internet marketing agencies can’t come close to matching. On top of those social KPIs we can attribute millions in $ of new business, amazingly talented employees, speaking opportunities and partnerships to the content and relationships built from our blog. I think that kind of impact is possible for any company that wants it and is willing to make the commitment.
For me this is a short post, so there are many other things a business could do to grow community, readership and traffic to their business blog. What are some of the tactics or approaches you’ve taken to attract and engage your blog readers?
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
How to Increase Business Blog Traffic, Readership, & Community | http://www.toprankblog.com
How to Increase Business Blog Traffic, Readership, & Community
Posted on 07. Mar, 2012 by Lee Odden in Blog, business blogging, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
One of the key objectives and performance metrics for business blogging is to grow the network of people that find, interact with and share blog content. An optimized approach to growing a blog community relies on an understanding of who the audience is and what their information goals are, not just what the brand wants to achieve. Many companies start out blogging about their own products and services, company news and essentially the kinds of things that belong in a corporate newsroom.
An ego-centric approach to business blogging misses the opportunity to create meaningful connections with people empowered to publish, share, refer and buy. Blogging is a publishing platform that allows both one to one and one to many communications so content should take advantage of those engagement opportunities by thinking about content that’s interesting from the reader’s perspective.
So, what can companies that are planning on setting up a blog or that would like to improve the performance of their blog do?
The first thing I’d recommend is to find a niche related to the major problems your business solves for customers and make a plan to dominate it. Develop a matrix of topics and media types that map to the intersection of target audience needs and the key messages your brand is trying to promote. What’s the one thing your company, division, department or product is absolutely the best at? Think of blog posts, videos, images, presentations, infographics, polls, interviews, liveblogging, reports, reviews and other types of content that you could create to be the “go to” resource for that category. Once you’ve achieved dominance of conversation, referrals and search visibility for that key topic, document what has made your niche efforts successful and duplicate that process to other topics relevant to your business.
What are the mechanics of growing a blog community? It can differ a bit according to your industry, goals, target audience and resources, but here are a few simple tips that have helped our agency at TopRank Marketing gain an online footprint and brand credibility that is equal or better to agencies that are many, many times larger than we are.
- Tell Stories. Whatever it is that you’re trying to communicate, always think of what “the story” is. If you were a journalist assigned to cover a beat, what unique angle, hook or perspective would you use to make the information you’re publishing interesting to a particular audience? With practice, you can find good stories in anything.
- Empathize with whatever market or audience you’re after. Put yourself in their shoes when thinking of topics. What are your target audience’s pain points and goals? Write about the journey to solving those problems.
- Engage and Recognize. Find ways to ask your readers, subscribers, fans, friends and followers to interact and participate directly on your business blog as well as the other social media and networking channels used to grow community and promote useful content (including your own). Reward and recognize the kind of participation you’re after. Repeat. The simple satisfaction of contributing and being recognized is one of the most powerful when developing a strong blog community.
- Quality for the win. A quantity of quality is what wins with blog content. There’s a lot of competition in the blogging space so it’s important to produce high quality, relevant and sharable content on a regular basis. At TopRank Online Marketing we help companies plan and implement this but with a good plan, it’s entirely possible for companies to figure it out on their own over time. Provide something your readers can’t find elsewhere online and do that consistently.
- Easy to Search and Share. Blog content that is easy to find on search engines and that is often shared by credible sources within relevant social networks can grow your community in very meaningful ways. People that search are often looking for something specific and when your blog content “ranks” well for those phrases, it lends instant credibility that can manifest as an increase in traffic, readership and growth of your community.
Many companies start blogging because competitors are doing it or because it seems a necessary piece of the online and social media marketing mix. Hopefully those companies are thoughtful about what they want to achieve through blogging and understand both the necessity of planning and commitment to make it work. We’ve been blogging for over 8 years here at TopRank and with nearly 50,000 blog subscribers, almost 20,000 Twitter followers, 14,000 Facebook fans and a growing community on Google+, we’ve been able grow a network, readership and community that many of the world’s largest internet marketing agencies can’t come close to matching. On top of those social KPIs we can attribute millions in $ of new business, amazingly talented employees, speaking opportunities and partnerships to the content and relationships built from our blog. I think that kind of impact is possible for any company that wants it and is willing to make the commitment.
For me this is a short post, so there are many other things a business could do to grow community, readership and traffic to their business blog. What are some of the tactics or approaches you’ve taken to attract and engage your blog readers?
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. |
How to Increase Business Blog Traffic, Readership, & Community | http://www.toprankblog.com
Content Marketing and the War of Attrition
Posted on 17. Jan, 2012 by Joe Pulizzi in Blog, business blogging, content marketing, content strategy, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
There are a lot of reasons why content marketing doesn’t work for some companies. If we were making a list, they would include:
- A lack of understanding reader/customer needs
- Focusing on the wrong metrics and objectives
- A soloed approach to content marketing
- Poor execution
- Bland storytelling
- Lack of authenticity
- Creating information that, simply put, is not helpful or engaging
- Sales pitches disguised as content
And the list goes on…
But the biggest culprit (and it’s not even close) is a lack of consistency, and, in some cases, a content stoppage.
Research from IBM in 2010 stated that about 80 percent of corporate blogs never post more than five entries (hat tip to Rebecca Lieb). That is a truly unbelievable stat…a stat that gets to the heart of the matter.
Content Marketing is a War of Attrition
One of my favorite books (and movies) is Moneyball, the story about how Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane (played in the movie by Brad Pitt) revolutionized the sport of baseball in 2002 by focusing on the statistic of on-base percentage. To Billy, nothing else mattered more in the game than getting on base. The more people that got on base, the more opportunity to score runs. Scoring runs becomes primary and all the other statistics like slugging percentage, fielding, steals and batting average are secondary.
During a critical part of the movie, Billy Beane states in a team meeting:
“Everyone wants to attack. Quit trying to attack. Let the game come to you. There’s no clock on this thing. This is a war of attrition…Let them [your competitors] make mistakes…and when your enemies are making mistakes, don’t interrupt them…this is a process, a process, a process.”
Now think about your marketing. Many companies are looking for the big burst (ala advertising campaign) instead of putting in the time, day in, day out.
Simply put, most content marketing mistakes happen because the content, for whatever reason, stopped. You will win at content marketing because you keep your customer promise and work the process. Every day, every week, every month, you work the process.
The Best and Worst Content Marketing Example Ever
By now, we all know about the Old Spice/Twitter/YouTube campaign from last year. It was brilliant. One of the best real-time content marketing and social media examples I have ever seen.
It’s also one of the worst.
Why? Because it stopped. They treated that content marketing initiative just like every major campaign in the history of advertising…they gave it a time limit. Somewhere along the line, they confused the amazing content for advertising. Ouch.
Like a savvy publisher, they could have continued to adapt and evolve the content. They could have continued the engagement (and revenue growth).
Sorry…off to a new campaign.
600
Today’s post marks #600 in just less than five years. Not mind blowing, but respectable. Except for two weeks (where I took a vacation), I have had at least two blog posts every week for over 230 weeks.
The result. This blog was (and is) the single-most important activity that has led to our success as a company.
Sure, I like to think that this blog has served as a valuable resource for many, and helped to drive the industry forward. But more than anything else, the reason for its success is that I am still here, typing away at this blog, trying to make a difference. You can do the same.
Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success. – Napoleon Hill
The original post is titled Content Marketing and the War of Attrition , and it came from The Content Marketing Revolution .
BlogWorld LA: Optimize & Socialize For Better Business Blogging
Posted on 24. Oct, 2011 by Lee Odden in Blog, Blog Marketing, Blog Optimization, BlogWorld, business blogging, Marketing PR Conferences, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
After a successful Blog World Expo New York, I’m very much looking forward to BlogWorld Los Angeles in just under 2 weeks. Judging from the conference agenda, there’s an impressive roster (275+) of experts, pundits and long time bloggers presenting on just about every relevant topic you can think of.
Blogging has been cited as one of the most effective forms of social media marketing for achieving top visibility in search and on the social web and corporate investment in social media is growing significantly. This is as true for agencies like TopRank Online Marketing as it is for any business with a good story to tell. We’ve promoted blogs as the centerpiece of a hub and spoke model that has been adopted by many other agencies and corporate marketers.
While there are numerous success stories and sources of best practices, most companies handle their business blog in a way that disappoints. Even those corporate blogs that do manage to implement a customer-centric editorial plan, neglect to leverage key discovery and engagement channels like content optimization for search engines and social media optimization.
On November 5th, I’ll be giving a presentation to help business bloggers solve that problem and more, with “Optimize & Socialize for Better Business Blogging“. This presentation will identify key principles and specific tactics that I’ve learned over the past 8 years of blogging here and for other sites, plus working with numerous client blog consulting projects. The session will provide hard won insights into leveraging SEO and Social Media as key tools for blog content planning, creation and promotion from the editor of the only 3 time #1 ranked Content Marketing Blog (Junta 42), #2 Social Media Blog (Social Media Examiner), top marketing blog (Advertising Age).
Key takeaways for the session include:
1. Plan your way into an infinite number of compelling and relevant content ideas that boost search traffic & engage readers
2. Create campaigns that incorporate blog content with other marketing tactics for extended search & social visibility
3. Promote blog content that inspires social sharing, link building and search traffic
In each area I’ll break it down into:
Blog Content Ideas & Planning
- Key Problems: Running out of ideas, Lack of effective ideas, Difficulty in sourcing contributors
- Solutions: Tapping into front line staff, community and the competition using a feedback loop that will boost effectiveness and motivate others to join in.
Blog Content Creation
- Key Problems: Corporate narcism, inconsistent publishing and quality as well as content that does not result in the desired outcomes.
- Solutions: Audience empathy and guidelines for content strategy that result in content that inspires action and sharing.
Blog Content Promotion
- Key Problems: Great blog content with low subscriber counts and poor engagement.
- Solutions: A process to integrate blog content distribution and syndication as well as engagement that will leave readers waiting to see what will come next.
As I’m prone to do, I’ll pack as much actionable information as possible into the session and provide a copy of the PPT deck to attendees. I hope to see you there!
Gain a competitive advantage by subscribing to the
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. |
BlogWorld LA: Optimize & Socialize For Better Business Blogging | http://www.toprankblog.com
10 Questions to Ask Before You Blog
Posted on 19. Oct, 2011 by Joe Pulizzi in Blog, business blogging, content marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing
One of the most frequent questions I receive while traveling is about blogging. The questions revolve around how to get started, what to talk about, and even what software to use.
My questions back to them usually startle the person, because so many start thinking about what they want to say, other than how they can impact the reader. Here are a few…
- Who would the primary reader (subscriber) of your blog be?
- What do you want to tell them? (what’s your story?)
- Do you understand the key informational needs of that person? What are their pain points?
- Are you hanging out online where your customers are at? Do you or can you make a target hit list of blogs or sites where your customers frequent online?
- Are you leaving comments that add to the online conversation on the blogs you cover? (see Blog Commenting Strategy)
- Do you have a firm grasp on the types of keywords to focus on that your customers are searching for? (see Google’s Keyword Tool)
- Do you follow those keywords using Google Alerts or watch their usage on Twitter? (to find the influencers in your market)
- Can you commit to blogging at least two times per week? (content consistency is key)
- What is your ultimate goal in starting a blog? In one year from when you start blogging, how will the business be different?
- How will the execution process work within your company (see Content Marketing Workflow) and how will you market the blog?
- BONUS – How will you integrate the blog with the rest of your marketing? How can the blog make everything else you are doing better? Can it?
These are the general starter questions (for both businesses and even individuals). Yes, a bit overwhelming for first timers, but necessary.
The majority of blogs out there don’t make it. The worst thing you can do as a business is start a consistent dialogue with your customers and then stop. Better not to do one at all.
And remember, blogging is just a tool. That said, it can be a very powerful tool to consistently communicate valuable, compelling content on a consistent basis. If you are ready to get started, here are six steps to successful blogging.
Have an additional question? If so, please list it below.
Image courtesy of Shutterstock.
Double Your Page Views by Adding an Image? Seriously
Posted on 17. Oct, 2011 by Joe Pulizzi in B2B, Blog, business blogging, content strategy, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
New research from Skyword found that business-oriented web pages with images performed 91% better than those pages without images.
Skyword examined the performance of tens of thousands of posts in performing the study, and was able to segment the value of images for business purposes (excluding entertainment, news and sports posts, among others).
So, images don’t just make a little difference…they make a ton of difference.
Adding a little commentary and common sense to the study, it seems reasonable that posts with images both perform better in search results and are also shared at a higher rate than those posts without images.
This puts an ever increasing importance on both the managing editors and content producers (the people that make your content look pretty) within the organization (full content marketing team information here).
Of course, this should come as no surprise. In the magazine business, we had a saying that the cover of a magazine serves just one purpose…to be opened. Design has the majority to do with that happening, just like the importance of the headline of this post.
Next steps?
- Define the role of your content producer, and the mix between original art and stock photography.
- Include images in all your blog posts.
- Review all your content to make sure that it is visually appealing.
- Tag all your online images with meta-tags and captions when possible (millions of searches per day are image searches).
- Build time into your content process so that design doesn’t become a last-minute operation.
6 Steps to Successful Blogging
Posted on 22. Sep, 2011 by Joe Pulizzi in Blog, blogs, business blogging, content marketing, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
I had the pleasure of presenting to over 100 HVAC contractors today at HVAC Comfortech 2011 on how they can position themselves as THE home comfort services expert in their region. The central theme of the presentation was blogging.
First off, blogging is just a tool...nothing more, nothing less. But for businesses, especially smaller businesses, blogging can be a powerful way to share expertise and solve the pain points of customers.
I started off by sharing how Marcus Sheridan, CEO of River Pools and Spas, has become the leading expert in the fiberglass pool business by consistently blogging and sharing information that his competitors simply were not willing to share (hat tip to Jeff Molander and his excellent new book Off the Hook Marketing, which I would recommend to anyone interested in amazing social media case studies that have actually generated revenue). How did Marcus do it? Here is some insight from Content Marketing World.
In 2007, Marcus was struggling in a tough economy to grow his fiberglass pool business. By 2010, Marcus and River Pools became the go-to place for fiberglass pools, selling more than any other retail location in North America. At the same time, he decreased his traditional marketing spend by over 75%. Not bad.
Just the Blog Stats Maam
Yes, blogging is just a tool, but here are some facts about blogs you may not know (courtesy of Hubspot).
- 90% of consumers read blogs.
- Over 70% of consumers read more than five blogs.
- 100% of businesses surveyed that blog more than once per day received customers directly from their blog.
- Businesses that blog are 4x more likely to be found on the web.
- Businesses with blogs get 55% more traffic on average.
Telling stories that help your customers with their problems is central to search engine optimization, social media and lead generation. Without great stories, these three are nearly impossible.
Why Blogs Work
- Great blog content makes us sound interesting and positions us as experts.
- Search engines love blogs.
- Social media loves blogs.
- Your customers read blogs.
- Blogs are a great way to communicate with customers without directly selling.
- Blogs are a minimal investment compared to most outbound marketing options.
6 Steps to Blogging Success
There is no silver bullet to a successful blog. A business can be successful blogging using different voices, different frequencies and different word counts. But if you haven’t started a blog yet, here’s a great start.
Set Up Listening Posts
The first step to blogging is to listen. A lot.
Be sure you set up listening posts using the following tools:
- Talk directly to customers.
- Open feedback channels with customer service and sales.
- Use customer surveys.
- Analyze keyword search terms using Google’s Keyword Tool.
- Find story ideas, shareable content and build your influencer hit list with Google Alerts.
- User Twitter Advanced Search.
- Develop your Twitter listening channel with a tool like Tweetdeck, or for multiple accounts and better analytics, use Hootsuite or Dlvr.it.
These activities will give you a solid pulse as to the pain points of your customers and where story opportunities may present themselves.
Log Your Customer Questions
Marcus recommends logging every question your customers have ever asked you. By doing this, you are mapping out your story ideas and editorial calendar.
Remember, your customers don’t care about you, your products or your services. They care about themselves. So your focus should be about solving their challenges through valuable, relevant informational posts.
Create Your Publishing Hub
The content needs to be located somewhere. WordPress, Hubspot or Compendium are three solid options.
Focus on Content Distribution
Now that you’ve developed your content hub, start to think about the different ways to distribute that content to customers.
- Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+.
- RSS and Blog-to-Email Feeds
- Email Newsletters
- Guest blogging
- Guest webinars
- News releases
- eBooks/White Papers
And don’t forget to activate your content in the community through blog commenting (remember those influencers you found through Google Alerts and Twitter?).
Develop Your Calls to Action
There are a number of secondary and user indicators that will help you show progress with the blog. More than anything, we want to make a connection with the reader in some way through some behavior change. These could be small or big, such as:
- Liking you on Facebook
- Following you on Twitter or LinkedIn
- Subscribing to your blog
- Subscribing to your enewsletter
- Downloading your eBook or white paper
- Trying a demo
- Making something available for sale
Since most of your blog visitors are first-time visitors, we want to try to give them a reason to come back. Strong calls to action for subscription should be readily available. Think like a publisher!
Keep the Editorial Calendar and Repurpose
If you don’t set a content schedule, the work won’t get done. It’s as simple as that.
There is no silver bullet, but choose a content schedule that works for you.
Once that is complete, look for ways to repurpose your content into other avenues that would be valuable to customers, including:
- An eNewsletter
- eBook or White Paper
- A Print Book (Robert Rose and I just did this).
- A Print Newsletter or Magazine
- Submission of posts to other credible sites and media outlets
Lost? Here are 42 different ways to package your content marketing.
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Whatever you decide, if you want to be the leading expert in your industry, you have to commit to it and work the channels. Good luck.
Here is the presentation from today’s meeting. Enjoy!
The Missing Ingredient in Your Blog Strategy: Commenting
Posted on 15. Sep, 2011 by Joe Pulizzi in Blog, business blogging, content marketing, content marketing world, Small Business Internet Marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media
Coming off the very successful Content Marketing World, I thought about all the relationship building it took that helped make CMW the largest event in the industry. Frankly, it was a combination of a number of things that made it happen (I’ll share the story on that in an upcoming post). BUT, what really amazed me was the first step to the majority of our relationships with the leading content thinkers around the world.
Commenting on Blogs
Yes, I said it. What opened the door to, dare I say it, the majority of my relationships and friendships with the speakers at CMW was commenting on their blogs.
How did I first make contact with David Meerman Scott? I commented on his blog. Mike Stelzner…same thing…as well as Brian Clark, Jay Baer, Bernie Borges and Drew Davis.
The Forgotten Skill of Blog Commenting
I was recently at a large marketing conference where I asked the audience how many of them had corporate blogs. About 50% of the room had a blog. Then I asked how many of them had a blog commenting strategy. Only about 10% of those bloggers had a commenting strategy. What a shame.
Great content alone is not enough. You have to work it.
In many of my presentations, I show this picture of LEGO Jesus and ask the audience what Jesus was doing before he really started “spreading the Word” at age 30. I ask them to envision this:
Jesus is 29 years old and distraught. He has this amazing news to share with the world, but no one is following him. It’s just him and his mom Mary. Just before his 30th birthday, Jesus asks Mary what he’s doing wrong and why no one is following him. Mary says simply, “Look Jesus, I love you, and I love your teachings and parables…but if you want people to follow you and truly understand the stories you are telling, you have to leave the house”.
If You Create Great Content, But No One Reads It, Did You Create Great Content?
Gilad de Vries from Outbrain made a fantastic statement at Content Marketing World:
If you write a blog, but no one reads the blog, did you really blog?
You could be the greatest content creator on the planet, but if you don’t work the channels, no one will know about it AND your business won’t be positively impacted. Number one on your list of distribution techniques should be commenting on the right blogs.
Not sure how? Here’s a handy list:
- Find out where your customers and prospects are hanging out? Use tools like Google Alerts and Twitter (or a reputation management system) to find out what blogs are making impact on your customers.
- Develop a list of at least 10 – 15 key blogs that you are going to be engaged in. We cover ours with the Junta42 Top Content Marketing Blogs list.
- Make an informative comment on each of those blogs at least once per week.
Realistically, this should only take an hour or two per week, but the payoff will be tremendous. Each of those influential industry leaders will know you. After a while, some will start sharing your content. At some point, you may even become friends with them. And, over the long-term, it will positively affect your blogging and online marketing goals.
So, if you have a blog but don’t have a commenting strategy complete yet, do it today. It’s that important.
For a more formal plan, check out this post from Brody Dorland on the 12 Things to Do After You Post a Blog.
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