20 top blogging tips to make a big marketing hit

Thursday, December 01, 2011

Blogging continues to top the on-site SEO charts. 

In the wake of Google's ongoing Panda updates, which are still rolling out like marketing Tsunami across the magical interweb, everyone's talking about quality. 

There have been freshness-related search engine algorithm updates too, namely the 'Caffeine' algo update and its offspring. So the fresher you can keep your site, the better

Blogging remains a popular and effective online marketing medium because it is one of the easiest ways to steadily grow your site, adding good quality, fresh content without having to tinker with your your architecture. 

Here's twenty handy tips to help you write great posts and build a popular blog your business can be proud of. A blog that drives visitors to buy from your site because they think you're great, trust you, like you and appreciate your expertise:

1. make sure your blog sits in your main website directory so you get the benefit of backlinks from people who like your site. If your blog is on a different url your website doesn't get any benefit. This one sits at www.lucidsynergy/blog, which is perfect 
2. instead of selling, inform and excite
3. make people think, be contentious, be bold
4. let your personality show through 
5. lose the jargon
6. never use caveats or small print - turn them into positives and include them up front instead
7. only say something when you've genuinely got something interesting to say
8. be aware of your business's key words and phrases, focusing on them so search engines 'understand' what your posts are about. But don't overdo it! 
9. get inspiration from your trade press, breaking news stories, your sector's history, new product development, New Scientist magazine (an excellent source of amazing news for every sector)
10. try to state both sides of an argument and leave conclusions to the reader rather than lecturing
11. use images in your blog posts - they make a huge difference! But use small file sizes. Search engines don't like sites that take ages to load because they're difficult for people with slow connections - that's most of the world - to use
12. split your posts into paragraphs and use headers throughout to pick out different sections and ideas. It makes posts easier to read and search engines appreciate it too. The same goes for bullets and lists
13. be honest. People can smell BS a mile off
14. focus your posts on the reader's needs. Don't just blow your own trumpet. Think about the kind of stuff you'd like to read on a blog like yours, and give it to your visitors
15. think up a title that'll make people want to read your post
16. include a key word or phrase in your title if it's appropriate, to attract search engines' and readers' attention 
17. link back from your blog to your website somewhere obvious so people can get there in one click if they decide to buy something or contact you
18. vary the length of your posts. Some short with links to interesting places. Some medium. Some long. Variety is the spice of blogging life and it keeps people coming back for more
19. think about opening your blog to comments. If you don't, you still get the SEO benefit. But if you do, make sure you configure your blog so you have to authorise comments before publishing them. Otherwise you'll suffer a huge deluge of spam comments. One of my sites gets 7000 a week. Thank goodness for the spam catcher! Interaction with your audience is good stuff. But it isn't essential for blog success
20. blog as often as you can. Daily is fantastic. Weekly is cool too. Any less frequent than that and you're not really taking full advantage of your blog. And you might as well - it's such a simple and effective on-site marketing option 

Technorati's latest 'State of the blogosphere' report is out... what's the news?

Thursday, November 17, 2011

Every year since 2004 Technorati has carried out research into the state of the blogosphere. This year's report was released earlier this month and it reveals some interesting stats. Here's a quick run-down of what's new. I've included a link at the foot of this post so you can read the whole thing. 

First, who's blogging?

• 60% hobbyists writing for fun
• 18% professional full and part time bloggers writing for other people
• 8% corporate bloggers writing for their employers
• 13% entrepreneurs blogging for their own businesses

Second, why are they blogging?

• professionals, corporates and entrepreneurs' main reason for blogging is to win unique visitors
• 42% of professional part timers cite revenue as their main reason for blogging
• 38% of professional full timers say their main reason for blogging is to generate money
• 69% of hobbyists do it for personal satisfaction - no surprises there
• 57% of part time professionals say personal satisfaction is their main motivator
• 49% of professional part timers say they're in it for personal satisfaction
• 40% of corporate bloggers and 47% of entrepreneurs say they write for personal satisfaction 

OK, monetising a blog directly isn't as easy as the 'get rich quick' merchants would have you believe. It's a tough marketing challenge, not for the faint hearted. But surely the professionals' focus, no matter what category they belong to, should focus on converting as many unique visitors as possible into paying customers?

When asked 'Why do you blog', the reason 'to make money or supplement my income' came 7th out of 12 reasons. 'To attract new clients for my business' came 9th and 'to attract new clients for the business I work for' came 11th. Top was 'to share my expertise and experience with others'. Only 29% of the entrepreneur segment use their blog primarily to attract new clients. Again, this seems very odd to a marketer.   

Most telling of all, apparently more than 60% of corporate and entrepreneurial bloggers say they have 'gained greater visibility in their industry through blogging'. Hm. That sounds like an ego trip to me. So is blogging these days more about ego than sales? If so, is it a clear sign that monetising a blog is a serious marketing challenge that very few professional bloggers are willing or able to step up to?   

See what you think. Here's a link to the real deal: http://technorati.com/blogging/article/state-of-the-blogosphere-2011-introduction/

What is link bait and how do you create it?

Thursday, April 14, 2011

Have you heard of 'link bait' but haven't a clue what it's all about? Here's a plain language explanation.
 
You might or might not know that search engine optimisation takes two main forms; on site and off site SEO. On site stuff covers everything you can do to maximise your site's appeal to punters and search engines. The other side of SEO concerns building inbound links to your site. 

Hopefully your site is so cool that people will naturally link back to it. That's what search engine optimisers try to replicate - a natural growth in inbound links that 'shows' Google and co that your site is respected, trusted and enjoyed by the people who find and use it.

One way in which SEOs try to attract attention is via link bait. There's a lot of talk bandied about but in essence it involves attracting attention by putting something really exciting, unusual, funny or otherwise inspiring out there. In the hope that it'll go viral and people will link back to it, Tweet it, re-Tweet it, share it on Facebook or whatever. Thus delivering useful inbound links to your site, extra visitors and invaluable publicity.

A lot of the time link bait happens by accident. It's like viral marketing. It isn't as easy as you might think to be funny enough, wacky enough or unusual enough to motivate people to share something or link to it without being paid to do so! 
 
Here's an example. A client of mine is fascinated by serial killers. She asked me to write a blog post about business lessons you can learn from serial killers. Which I duly did, and enjoyed every moment. She uploaded it to her blog and tweeted it. A few hours later it was being re-tweeted around the planet and had attracted a lot of attention. And - hopefully - several really juicy inbound links. The last I heard someone on Twitter had awarded it 'best blog post title of the day' status and it was still going strong.

If an idea strikes you but you're not sure if it's a bit too crazy, go for it. It may become link bait. It might sink like a stone. But at least you've given it a go! 

Blog power - A valuable part of your ecommerce toolbox!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Once upon a time blogs were used as personal web logs, rather like online diaries. But the commercial potential soon came to the fore. Search engines thrive on fresh website content. And a blog is one of the easiest and fastest way to add new stuff to your site, keep human visitors interested and please search engine bots 'n' spiders.

As long as your blog sits on your url, not somewhere else, it'll play an important part in maintaining your ecommerce business's visibility and encouraging customer stickiness.

Here's a few simple ways to make the most of your blog's potential and get it working hard for your business. 

• vary the length and content of your blog posts so you provide variety for your readers: short news items, thought leadership pieces and white paper-style articles, new product launches, competitor, market and sector intelligence...
• be careful with the hard sell - keep it real. Most people don't appreciate overt hard selling and they won't come back if you over-egg it
• by the same token, don't blow your own trumpet too hard or too obviously. Constant boasting puts people off
• post to your blog at least twice a week. The more, the merrier
• use key words and phrases in your blog posts to help enhance your business's overall visibility for those terms
• invite guest bloggers to contribute for variety
• use your blog to develop your business's tone of voice and brand personality
• segment your blog content into sensible categories to help search engines and people find their way around
• include images - it's amazing what a difference they make to human readers