Archive for About Blogs – Page 9

Tips for Better Blog Outreach and Blog Marketing

helpfultipsHow can you make the most of your blog marketing and outreach? Here are some helpful tips so that your business blog attracts more readers, and you get found, get known, and get clients.

Small business owners know that a well-formulated blog with consistently fresh content can improve brand image, customer interaction and overall revenue. Blogs are so powerful, in fact, that their Web pages are prime real estate for outside companies that are hoping to improve page rank of their own.

In fact, a key tactic for SEO ranking is the practice of guest blogging with links back to the author’s site.

Back linking programs are becoming a standard operation of business blogs in all industries and of all sizes. The pro for blog owners is quality content written by someone else. The obvious benefit to outside companies is the ability to add a link to increase their own online credibility.

But such practices are not without peril. If you are thinking about allowing other writers in your blogging space, but unsure of how to maintain creative control and authority, follow these steps for the best outcomes in back linking and blogger outreach programs:

  • Agree to terms upfront. You put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that your blog accurately represents you and your brand image. Though an outside company may have good intentions, it does not have your vision or know your blogging goals. Take the time to explain who your audience is, what types of posts do well with readers and what topics are completely off limits. If your blog is about B2B technology, make sure outside bloggers do not send you posts about B2C topics. Come up with a regular deadline and a workflow. Read More→

Are Infographics Becoming Too Complex?

There’s no doubt that infographics are an extremely useful internet marketing tool, and as such, they’re becoming ever more commonplace when trying to gain new blog readers. There’s  no better way to attract new customers than with a clever graphic.

The problem, however, is that we’re seeing more and more that are overly complex, and are simply a waste of time. Sometimes you have to ask yourself, would this infographic be better if it were shorter, simpler, or even as text?

The main advantages of infographics, and the main reason they’re used, is that they can convey information quickly and concisely in an eye-catching way. Boring processes and masses of statistics can be explained quickly through the use of a great image, and people love this.

If you’ve got a great product for instance, you can explain some of its main features in a graphic. It’s much better to get a series of facts from an infographic than a large body of text, but if the infographic itself becomes overly long and complex, the point is lost.

Get Your Point Across Read More→

How Blog Readers Find You – A Diagram

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again:  a business blog is the best way to get found online, the best way to connect with potential clients, and the pathway to turning readers into clients.

So, what’s your favorite excuse for not blogging for your business?

I keep hearing the same reasons, over and over.

Top 3 Excuses for Not Blogging:

  • “I don’t have time to blog.”
  • “My clients aren’t surfing the Web reading blogs.”
  • “Oh, that means I’ve got to write about my business every week?”

There are over a billion people connected to the Internet. I’m willing to bet my lunch money that quite a few of them fall into the category of “your ideal clients.”

It’s not likely they go online looking for you, your business or your blog. I’m not saying that. But they do go to search engines and they type in questions with keywords.

And they do go to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Here’s what this looks like, how readers find your blog, in this Smart Draw diagram I did:

How Readers Find Your Business Blog

Read More→

Blog Writing: 5 Tips to Break a Blogging Rut

Business blog writing is tough. No matter how long you’ve been writing on your business blog, sooner or later, you’ll find yourself in a blogging rut. How do you break out of blogger’s block?

There are many reasons that people blog – the most important being to convey their personal message in a clear, concise way.

Here are other key reasons blog writing is key for your business:

  • Building an online base of targeted customers
  • Reaching customers on an individual level
  • Improving your “findability” through online searches

Whatever your blogging motivation, one thing is vital for traffic improvement – blog writing consistency.

Posting content for a business blog on a regular basis sounds easy enough, but seasoned bloggers know that it is tough to keep posts fresh and meaningful to their audience. Sometimes there is just not enough motivation – or coffee – to get the creative juices flowing and break writer’s block.

Instead of staring blankly at a computer screen, or giving up completely, give these ideas a try to keep your business blog writing consistent: Read More→

Better Blogging: Messages that Inspire Desire…

Better-blog-writingWhy should you be writing and publishing blog posts and Web content for your business? No, it’s not because of search engines in order to get indexed and found. That’s important but it’s a side-effect of doing Content Marketing right.

The only reason “you should be blogging” is to get your message across to the people who need it. All the other reasons pale in comparison:

  • My business needs a good website/ blog to look professional
  • My company needs to build credibility and trust
  • A good-looking professional blog or website will build a marketing list

What’s your message? How can you inspire desire? I suggest that your blog messages should focus on what truly matters to your target audience of potential clients. What’s their beef? What problems do they encounter that your product or services can solve? How will you make a difference in their lives? Read More→

Content Marketing with Blogs: Online Persuasion

Want to know more about online persuasion and how you can write content that gets results? Here’s a quick one minute video promoting my Content Marketing with Blogs ebook.

The e-book formatting and design was done by my son-in-law, expert graphic designer and creative genius, Scott Krakoff. Tell me what you think…

If you haven’t downloaded it yet, be my guest: Content Marketing with Blogs…

Business Blog Attacks: How to Keep Comments Civil

What happens when a business blog is attacked by rude comments from readers? It can happen and does.

Blogging connects business owners with customers and potential clients in ways that a basic website cannot. One of the best features of a blog is the comment section because it makes it possible for the writer to hear back from readers. New ideas are gleaned from reader comments and they just make the blogging atmosphere a little more fun. (Image: freedigitalphotos.net)

This blog recently discussed the many ways celebrity blogger Perez Hilton does his job right and on that list was taking time to understand your target audience. A great way to do that is by inviting them to comment so you can hear from them directly. Read More→

Quality Content: How to Write Great Blog Posts Every Time

How do you create quality content that attracts online readers and yet works to promote the growth of your business?

Creating great content for your business blog is a what and how issue, as in what constitutes “good” content, and how does one produce that content so that it brings in the readers that a business blogger wants. Quality content stimulates reader/ customer engagement.

Here’s what quality web content looks like: It’s short, sweet, smart, and funny.

  • Content has to be short to accommodate the average reader’s attention span and need to scan quickly.
  • Sweet because it has to attract readers to your article (think arresting titles).  You want to hit that sweet spot right in the center of their curiosity and desire to know more.
  • It has to be smart to stimulate the reader to think, tell them something they don’t already know, and trigger them to join in on the conversation, to share or comment.
  • And finally, the content needs to be funny or at least clever to hold their attention and trigger good feelings. (Note: an alternative would be to be outrageously negative, which also stimulates comments and sharing.)

Without any of these factors, you risk losing readers to boredom. It’s click and bye-bye!

How do you keep readers interested and coming back to your blog?

Read More→

Blog Like Perez Hilton: 10 Ways to Bring Traffic to Your Blog

The second-best thing about writing a blog is that you have an opportunity to express your opinions, thoughts, and viewpoints to the rest of the world. But the number one advantage to blogging is that it’s a meritocracy; in other words, anyone can be successful at it!

Just look at Perez Hilton. He comes from an unremarkable background far away from Hollywood, but his blogging has amassed thousands of followers and his approach has changed the way people view the entertainment industry

Of course, being a winning blogger is more than just creating good content. You have to be able to get people to read what you write on a consistent basis. Here are ten ways to increase traffic flow to your blog:

  1. Put your blog in your email signature. This is a task that you can complete in less than a minute. After you do so, every email that you send will be a marketing message that could bring you another reader. (Hint: check out WiseStamp!)
  1. Go to your target audience. Find the communities where your potential readers get together. Then determine which ones are more likely not only to read your blog’s content, but also share it with others.
  1. Use social media. Share your posts on Facebook, Twitter, Google +, and the many other popular Internet gathering places. Enlist services like StumbleUpon, Tumblr, and Reddit to help spread your message.
  1. Optimize for search engines. This sounds technical and complex, but all you really have to do is watch a tutorial video and learn how you can leverage what you write without making many significant changes to it. (Handy hint: subscribe to ScribeSEOTool and learn how to optimize each blog post with a handy checklist!)
  1. Seek out similar blogs. You can comment on blogs that publish similar content, and in the process reference your own blog in the hopes of piquing the interest of that blog’s followers.
  1. Invite – and write – guest posts. Getting established bloggers to write a guest post for your blog can boost your standing in a social community – and being a guest poster can showcase your writing talents to a new audience. (See Patsi’s post about a nifty way to get guest authors to participate in an exchange program for your blog.)
  1. Conduct surveys. People love to express their opinions, and one easy way to let them do that is to conduct surveys on any topics relevant to your blog. You can either utilize a polling widget or plug-in, or just ask for responses in your blog’s comments section.
  1. Create your own graphics, photos, etc. How will this generate traffic? Because if you license them so that people who repost them must credit your blog, you can build another channel of traffic flow to your blog.
  1. Enable subscriptions. It can be as simple as creating an email newsletter or making your blog accessible to RSS feeds. Readers are great, but getting a good core of loyal followers can exponentially increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
  1. Incorporate analytics – and study them. There are so many easy-to-use blogging analytics tools out there. But the real successful bloggers pore over their results and tailor their blogs accordingly.

Image credit: wikipedia.org

About our Guest Author: Chris Martin is a freelance writer and blogger who writes about the hottest topics on the Web at www.business.com.

Guest Blogging: How to Write a Compelling Email Offer

Too busy to keep up with posting on your business blog?

A very smart tactic for small business professionals is to invite guest bloggers. Let’s face it, publishing frequently is time consuming. Guest blogging is wise but only if done appropriately. It can cause more work if guest writers are not selected prudently.

Lately I’ve been getting one or two emails a week from aspiring freelance bloggers asking to submit guest posts. Some of the emails are well-written and I’ve said ‘yes.’ But many aren’t writing a compelling offer in their emails. And some are committing writer suicide by proposing samples and topics unsuitable for my audience (“Abraham-Lincoln-Vampire-Hunter-Slays“?!).

One invitation stands out far above the others and I’ll share it with you here. The email is very effective and can be copied by any small business professional as an outreach offer. I’ll even spell it out for you as a template. Read More→