© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts [email protected] Blogging for Business By Stephan...

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]

Blogging for Business

By Stephan Spencer, Founder & President of Netconcepts, Founder of InnSite

CONFIDENTIAL © 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts www.netconcepts.com [email protected]

Blogs

Online journal, organized in reverse chronological order 2.5 billion Google search results for “blog” 3 types, according to Seth Godin

– News blogs, Writers blogs, “Our blogs” The community of bloggers = blogosphere Blogosphere is rich with interlinkages

– Bloggers always cite (and link to) their sources in their posts– Links also appear in “blogrolls”, “trackbacks”, comments, RSS


Why Blog? Search engines (Google in particular) love blogs Bloggers think of you as “one of them”

– More links– More favorable coverage in their blogs

Journalists read blogs Readers get to know you

– Gives a more human face to your business than a traditional website– Provides insight into your personality– Builds trust and rapport


Why Blog?

Can position you as a “thought leader”– Get invited to speak at conferences, author articles, etc.– Builds your credibility

Can get readers “hooked” and coming back for more, thus further burning your brand into their minds– Subscribed to your RSS feed– Subscribed to your email ‘blogletter’ (e.g. FeedBlitz)


How My Blog Has Benefited Me

Inquiries from prospects Speaking gigs and PR

– e.g. a blog entry was taken verbatim by DM News and published

Credibility & thought leadership status– e.g. a recent client chose us over a competitor for online

marketing services partly because of my blog– e.g. recruiting panelists for Thoughts Leaders Summits


How My Blog Has Benefited Me

Upselling existing clients on additional services Links from popular bloggers, in posts and in blogrolls

– e.g. Robert Scoble of Microsoft Business development & relationship building w/ other

bloggers– e.g. business referrals, speaking opportunities, etc.

Search engine visibility– e.g. #1 for “rss and seo”, top 10 for “blog optimization”


My Blog’s Traffic Trend

Pageviews:

Visitors:


What What happened on happened on June 1, 2004?June 1, 2004?


Unwritten Rules of Blogging

Be transparent and honest– Don’t plagiarize, hire a ghostwriter, misrepresent, etc.

Allow the submission of comments & respond to them Quote / link to your sources Admit to your mistakes. Don’t try to erase them. Disclose any conflicts of interest


Encourage Bloggers to Link to You Offer a niche-specific blogroll, tool, How-To, or

compilation of news stories Post a scoop Expose a story as flawed or a fraud Be a contrarian about a story, product, or prominent

blogger’s opinion Be humorous. Good topics include a bizzare pic of your

subject, “10 things I hate about…”, and “You know you’re a when…”

Source: Performancing


Encourage Bloggers to Link to You Publish or commission some original research Creative-Commons-license photos you made of an

event you’re blogging about Make available for free a theme, plugin or piece of

software Start a “meme” that others can replicate and that links

back to you (e.g. buttons/stickers/tools for bloggers/webmasters to post on their sites, contests, quizzes, surveys, etc.)


Encourage Bloggers to Link to You

And of course…Have an RSS Feed!


RSS

Better than the Inbox– Unspammable content delivery channel to individuals– Viable replacement for enewsletters

Web-wide Syndication– Propagate deep links that drive traffic and “search engine

juice” “You should be fired if you do a marketing site without

an RSS feed.” - Robert Scoble, Microsoft


SlashdotheadlinessyndicatedonNanodot.org


The top result was thanks to syndication via RSS


How subscribers follow RSS

Web-based aggregator– Bloglines (now owned by Ask Jeeves), My Yahoo!, MyMSN,

MyFeedster, etc. Installed application

– NewsGator (Outlook plug-in), Sage (Firefox plug-in), Pluck (IE plug-in), FeedReader, etc.


RSS What will help subscribers keep their finger on the pulse

of your business/industry and compel webmasters to disseminate to their visitors?– News alerts, latest specials, clearance items, upcoming

events, new arrivals, new articles, new tools & resources, search results, a book’s revision history, top 10 best sellers, project management activities, forum/listserv posts, recently added downloads, …

– For blogs: latest posts, latest posts by category, latest comments per post, …


Subscribe tosearch resultson MSN Search


Subscribe tosearch resultson Yahoo! News


Subscribe todeals with onlineretailers


Subscribe toarticles


Subscribe topodcasts


Subscribe toa feedpersonalizedto you


Podcasts

“Time shifted Internet radio” Mainly for downloading MP3 audio clips, but video can

be podcasted as well Podcast-capable RSS reader automatically downloads

audio/video clips and syncs them to your MP3 player


Vlogs

Vlog = Video blog Posts video clips on blog and

in RSS feed Subscribe to vodcast feed

with iTunes or FireANT vlog reader


Moblogging Sign up for a free

Flickr.com account Email photos from

your cameraphone to your blog

Subject line becomes the title; message body becomes the body of the blog post


Tagging

Folksonomy = collaborative categorization by users Tags = keywords applied to content by users or authors Pioneered by Flickr & Technorati Tag clouds – an alternative nav & great for SEO Swickis & buzzclouds – by Eurekster


Search Engine & Blogs

Google has become “the operating system of the Internet” Rankings can be manipulated “Implied endorsement” effect Combination of on-page and off-page factors On-page

– Body copy, title tags, headings, etc. Off-page

– Links act like votes. Votes weighted (e.g. A-list bloggers).– Link text very important (“Google bombing”)


SEO & Your Blog

Naming your blog (Think: keywords!) Titling your posts (Think: keywords!) Writing your post content (Think: keywords!) Linking to your blog (Think: keywords in the link text!)

– Add a link to your blog from your main site – Links to you from Trackbacks or Comments won’t help

Tagging your posts (Think: keywords!)– To Technorati tag pages and internal tag pages too


SEO & Your Blog

Your domain name Your URLs


Case Examples Positive buzz

– President Carter’s blog– Somerville Gates– Voltaic backpack

Negative buzz– Raging Cow– Kryptonite– Dan Rather


President Carter’s blog 8 days of blogging during a trip to West Africa 138,000 results for “carter west africa blog” in Google Blog was marketed via press releases, through partner

organization Web sites, and via the Google AdWords program “garnered significant increases in visits to our site, resulting in an

average quadruple our normal daily average. We have sustained a significant increase in Web traffic since February 2004” - Carter Center


Somerville Gates

“a micro sendup of the saffron extravaganza in New York's Central Park”

$3.50 in art supplies Received over 4 million hits Invitation from Tufts University for

juried art show


Voltaic Backpack

Solar-powered backpack from a small start-up Blogging friend Treehugger blogged about it Then got picked up by CoolHunting Then got picked up by Gizmodo A flurry of orders ensued.


In Summary

Welcome to the “conversational Internet” Join the conversation, or be on the outside of it Become more real and human to your visitors Reap the benefits in more PR, better search engine

rankings, and more bookings Don’t want to? You risk becoming the next Kryptonite


Thank You!

It’s time for some Q & A! Put “blogging” on the back of your business card and

leave it with me if you would like a copy of these Powerpoint slides

© 2006 Stephan M Spencer Netconcepts [email protected] Blogging for Business By Stephan...

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