Blogging for Business Presented by Drew Becker and Stephen Peacock

What is a Blog?

• A blog is a combination of the two words “web” and “log”

• A site on the web with entries or posts to give information and/or hold a discussion

• A post is followed by comments by others and replies by author

• Originally created by individuals in 1990s

• Appeared as business strategy in 2009

Blog Example

Blog Stats

• There are 70 million WordPress blogs worldwide

• There are 39 million Tumblr blogs worldwide

• Four out of 5 internet users visit social networks and blogs

• 34% of bloggers post opinions about products & brands

• By the end of 2011 over 181 million blogs around the world, up from 36 million only five years earlier in 2006.

Why Blog?

Reasons

Inform about your product

Inform about your services

Increase your expert status

Bring others to your site(s)

Keep in touch with prospects and clients

Advantages

Easier than newsletters

Update at any time

Long lasting shelf life

Easy to syndicate

Share your expertise and knowledge

How much time?

• Short posts may take only a few minutes (Twitter)

• Longer posts may take 45 minutes to a couple hours

• Remember, this is a reflection of your knowledge and experience and should be well crafted

Do it Yourself Blogging

Advantages

– Save $

– Complete control

– Determine when to write blog

– Satisfaction of accomplishment

– No need to coordinate

Disadvantages

– Discipline required to continue regularly

– Can be difficult if you do not like to write

– Time to write

– Time to research

– Time for SEO

Hire a Blogger

• Advantages

– Save time

– Professionals to write

– Professionals to research

– Experts with SEO

– Coordinate with website

• Disadvantages

– Outlay Cost

– Time to educate

– Teach your “voice”

– Finding a competent blogger

Blogging Tools

• WordPress.com or Self Hosted WordPress

• Tumblr and/or Posterous

• Blogger – formerly Blogspot

• Inside919 – no longer free

• ActiveRain – Real Estate

• Any number of niche directories allow you to blog

OMG – What Do I Blog About?

1. Lists – people love list. Top 10 almost anything…Top 10 Questions our customers ask

2. How-to and Tutorials

3. Strategy to complete a task or project

4. Reviews of Products, Websites, Books, software…

5. Tips and Tricks

6. Link Roundup – curated list of excellent resources

7. Current Events in your field

8. Recommendations – favorite books, website etc

9. Company News, awards, events

10. New staff

11. Crowd sourced posts

12. Controversial topics in your industry

13. Agree/Disagree with a top professional in your field

14. Pose questions to your audience

15. New theory you are developing

16. Compliment another business and say what they’ve done right

Blogging Best Practices Research

– Develop a list of blog ideas that are relevant to your products, services, or profession. Prioritize your list putting those most related to your key products/services first.

– Review what your competitors are blogging about

• Take a look at local or regional competitors

• What are they blogging about? What keywords are they targeting?

• If they are local – consider agreeing or disagreeing with something they wrote

– Create your editorial list of blog post topics

– Start with number one – do research to find most used keywords

• Visit and use Google Insights for Search

• Visit and use Google External Keywords Tool

Keyword Tools

• http://google.com/insights/search

• https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

More keyword insights

Even more insights

Best Practices

Write an awesome blog post

• Start by writing a KILLER headline and a 160 character first sentence

– Include your keyword(s) in both

• Make sure they are compelling

• Would your headline work well as a question?

• Is it attention grabbing?

Format of Blog Post

Break your blog post into 3 or more sections – give each a sub-header (sub-title) that includes your keywords

• Introduction – Briefly outline the topic of your post or the problem you

will solve

– ask questions and/or identify problem/benefits

• Discussion – Give details

– include links to other resources

• Conclusion – Summarize above

– Include a call to action

• Headline less than 70 characters

• Description less than 160 characters

• Content is conversational • Sub-headers include keywords • Attractive image • Links to external and internal

pages • Keywords in body text are

bolded

Planning and research pays off!

You can be found for multiple keyword searches if you plan and execute well!

• Link to valuable resources

• Recognize good content by others

• Use video when available

• Close with call to action

Add Images

• Select an appropriate image(s) – be creative

• When adding image fill out the section for ‘Alt Image” tag and put the main keyword in the tag

• Consider adding a caption – use your keyword!

• Multiple images are okay too – learn how to float them right or left in your blogging software

• You may need image editing software: Lunapic.com, pixlr.com, fotoflexer.com

Why a Page and a Post?

Meta Data and Tags

• Title – include article title and geographic area (when relevant)

• Meta Description: Up to 160 characters – ideally will be the first sentence of your post

• Keywords: No more than 10 keywords/terms

• Tags – like keywords, they help with discovery of related content by people and search engines on your blog

Check Your Work

• Proof the entire post

– Check spelling

– Check Grammar

– Re-read it at least twice

PUBLISH! • Publish Your Blog Post

– Share your blog post with others

• Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Inside919

• Provide easy tools for people to subscribe for updates via RSS

• Respond to comments when/if they come

• Retweet every day for a few days and post on Facebook page again in a week or two

• Rinse and repeat with the next topic on your list.

• Establish a regular schedule for blogging

– Assign topics to people in your business

• Helps spread the work around

• Helps promote other staff as knowledgeable/experts

Measure Results

• Install analytics!

• Google analytics is free, easy to integrate and most powerful.

• There are other choices: Get Clicky, Piwik, AWStats, and Webalizer to name a few.

What You Should Track

• Number of visitors

• Visitor location

• How they find you

• Length of time

• Bounce Rate

• Goal Completion

• Number of comments

• Number of social shares

• Number of new business inquiries

• Number of people who subscribe to your updates

Core Analtyics Other measure of success

Blogging for Business Presented by:

Drew Becker, Convey Media Group

(919) 264-9868 or drewbecker11@gmail.com

Stephen Peacock, Peacock Creative Services

(919) 386-2296 or stephen@peacockcreative.net