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How a Little Blogging Can Make a Big Difference for the Small Business

RSSFeed — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:25:39 +0000

This post was generated by an RSS Feed from Search Engine Guide

by Stoney deGeyter

Whenever a new medium emerges and becomes the “it” thing. Everyone flocks to it until the next shiny thing comes around and then that becomes the new “it.” Inevitably, those on the cutting edge of “it” always decry the downfall of the previous “it” which then becomes “that”. “That” is obsolete. “That” doesn’t have long-term value. You need to give “that” up and put your money in “it.”

But “that” doesn’t always go away no matter how much “it” gains in popularity.

Remember radio? Of course you do. We still listen to radio. Sometimes even listen to it on old fashioned radio tuners instead of over the internet or via satellite. But didn’t you hear? Radio is dead. Radio “died” with the invention of the TV.

Ah, the memories of old fashioned TV. Television died when the Internet came along allowing us to download programs on demand. But the television is still there, piping in hours of entertainment into our homes every night.

And then there was SEO. That died around 1992. Google killed it remember? Or was it social media that killed SEO? Oh heck, I keep forgetting because, well, SEO dies every year with some new proclamation of the new “it”. But then here we are, still helping people make their sites better so they deserve top placement in the search engine rankings.

Luckily the prophets of doom have been wrong more than they’ve been right. Heck, they are already onto their next death: the death of blogging. According to Wired Magazine, Twitter, Flickr and Facebook are the new “it” and blogging is on it’s way out.

We’ll file that right next to the death of SEO!

There is no doubt that Social media and micro-blogging platforms have diminished the need certain types of blogs and blogging. We no longer have to write long-involved posts about what we did last weekend, we can just twitter it as its happening. Pretty cool. But twitter and Facebook is hit and miss. If your followers are not there reading your updates when it happens, then as far as they are concerned, it didn’t, unless they go out of their way to read your specific history.

Think of twitter as live TV and blogs as your DVR. If you miss the live broadcast on twitter you’re SOL. But hey, if they blog about it, you can go back and get all the pertinent details on your own time.

Twitter, Facebook and even flickr updates only give you a small part of the story at any one time. It’s like trying to watch an entire movie in 3 minute chunks. Sure, it can be done, but it’ll take a long time and you lose a lot in the process.

I’m not against Twitter, Facebook or Flickr. I love them all. Each has their purpose and their place and they can certainly make it so you don’t have to blog as much as you used to, which can be a good thing for everybody.

The power of the blog

But blogging isn’t dead, nor do we want it to be. Especially for the small business. Blogs hold tremendous power that every small business needs to utilize.

Blogs bring traffic

Yes, people still read blogs. You’re reading one right now, so there is no reason to think someone won’t want read yours. It’s just a matter of having something valuable to say.

There are two primary ways people will come to read your blog. The first is via search engines. If you’re writing about your business’s topic, you need to be sure you’re doing keyword research. Find out what people are searching for that’s related to your industry. Then use those keywords in your blog posts. The more you write using keyword phrases the more opportunity you’ll have to bring in targeted traffic to your blog via search engines.

The second way people read your blog is through RSS readers. These are people who already found your blog, like your content and want to make sure they don’t miss a thing. Each blog post is imported into their feed reader which shows them all the new posts from your blog as well as other blogs they are subscribed to. From the RSS feed you can drive these readers into your site, whether it be your blog or your main business content areas.

Blogs promote your knowledge

Blog posts are a great way to share your knowledge. In any industry those that are viewed as the most knowledgeable tend to be the most trusted. Whether you are in a competitive field or a shallow one, you can make yourself–and your business–stand out by promoting your in depth knowledge of your topic.

Sharing little known tips, tricks, strategies, helpful tidbits, detailed instructions and tutorials all lend to your own credibility. Put enough of those together and you have your own e-book, or a library of e-books.

Blogs help people

Not an egomaniac? Fine, don’t think about blogging as a way to promote yourself or your knowledge. Just think of it as a way to help people. Because while you’re promoting your knowledge you’re also giving people valuable information that helps them in life, business or whatever. Your tips and tutorials are providing valuable information to people who otherwise may not have known. You are making people’s lives better by giving them an education.

Blogs build links

The more helpful your blog posts are the more likely they’ll be passed on or linked to. Twitter is great for passing around URLs. One good blog post can get a lot of distance through the social media platforms. As your resources get noticed you’ll start to build links. People will link to you in their blogs or websites or pass your information on via Facebook or twitter to other who may link to it. You’ll find your posts accessible from industry related websites and sometimes even direct competitors. People love sharing information and on the web, information is shared with links.

Blogs create customer and brand loyalty

The more you blog, and the more helpful your blog is, the more customer and brand loyalty you’ll be creating. Not every blog post is designed to get customers, nor should it be. But the more people who come to read your valuable information, the more likely they’ll be to become your customers when they need what you have.

But until your readers become your customers, you’re building up your brand. Brand recognition is extremely important as it plays toward perceptions… which are also passed along. Brand loyalty builds word of mouth, which in turn, builds more customers

Blogs increase sales

Building customers means one thing… you are increasing sales. Yes, your blog will have a lower conversion rate than your main areas of the site, but again, it’s primary function isn’t to directly build sales. But in the long run, that’s exactly what will happen. The more links you get, and the more your blog posts are passed around and/or read, the larger your reach becomes. As your reach grows, your sales grow.

There is no doubt that blogs are a lot of work. It takes time to decide what to write and then put your information together in a compelling way. In my next post I’ll discuss ways that the small business can manage it’s blogging schedule in order to maintain a healthy blog while not ignoring their business.

If you haven’t started blogging for your business you need to start. If fact, if you’re not blogging or twittering I’d say start twittering and work your way to blogging. If you are blogging, start twittering and promote your blog! But you need to get to blogging. A blog can be set up in a matter of hours and ready for your first blog post. Start building your audience today.

This post was generated by an RSS Feed from Search Engine GuideYou may also like to read:

How a Little Blogging Can Make a Big Difference for the Small Business is a post from: Build Me A Fab Website

How Small Business Owners Can Build a Blog Without Blowing the Business

RSSFeed — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 20:23:37 +0000

This post was generated by an RSS Feed from Search Engine Guide

by Stoney deGeyter

I don’t consider myself a real blogger. To me, real bloggers don’t have jobs, they just get paid for writing about their opinions. Kinda like journalists.

I’m just a small business owner that happens to blog on a few times a week. But since my source of income is my business blogging takes a back seat to business needs. Most small businesses can’t afford to hire a full-time blogger or ghost writer so they have to work blogging into their many business-owner duties. And because those duties are so heavy on the business owner, blogging generally falls by the wayside as more pressing matters are attended to.

Many small business owners are out there thinking “Blogging? That’s just one more thing to add to my already over-booked work schedule. No thanks.” I feel you.

There is no doubt that sitting down to write a good blog post takes time. Add in artificial deadlines and blog posting schedules, that’s why most small businesses simply don’t do it.

But blogging is an important aspect of growing your business. The key to good blogging is understanding how to work it in, prioritize it properly, and not to feel obligated to anybody but your family and customers.

Establish your blogging priority

Many small business that blog find themselves torn between business obligations and feeling like blogging is one of the most important things we can do to grow their business. It is important but it needs to be prioritized properly.

Looking at the big picture, blogging isn’t just about communicating with our audience. Blogging, when done effectively, helps us improve our reputation, build a brand, get customers, increase search engine rankings and, ultimately, grow the business. Yet, missing a day of blogging here or week there certainly isn’t going to cause your business to fail or turn your customers against you.

As with everything else, you have to keep your blogging time in perspective and prioritize it properly. You don’t have to blog every day. You can set time aside on a weekend, or on your typically slow days and write several posts at once and publish them later. If your designated “blogging time” gets interrupted by more important issues, take care of what’s important. It’s not the end of the world if you don’t get your post(s) completed on schedule.

Know when to stop writing

All of our time is limited so when writing a blog post sometimes we find it taking a lot more of our time than we anticipated. And BLAST!!! you still have two more posts to write today! Ok, stop for a second. Think about this. Can your really long blog post be broken down into several short posts? Snip here, cut there and you just met your blog quota for the week!

You can also break your blog writing time into several shorter periods. Write one post a week, spending 15-20 minutes a day until it’s done.

Change your blogging patterns

It is often not so much a matter of how much you blog but a matter of the content you provide. Not every blog posts has to be 1200 words. Some can be a few hundred, so long as the information you provide is valuable.

If you didn’t get time to sit down and write your typical blog posts, just think of something that you can share in a couple of quick paragraphs. Write it, post it, move on. You can always go back later and revisit on and expand the topic it later.

Short posts can often be just as good, if not better than, long posts. Quick bits of information can be fantastic to readers who don’t always have time to invest in reading long pieces.

Create a blogging schedule

How and when you blog is up to you, but I recommend that you work blogging into your schedule. Have certain times of the day or days of the week or month that is designated as blogging time.

It’s also a good idea to stay a few weeks ahead of yourself. I like to keep 4-6 weeks worth of blogs posts ready to go. This gives me a chance to 1) write a post and go back to it later for proofing, and 2) have blog posts ready to go should something interfere with my normal blogging schedule. Then you never have to worry about not having a blog post ready.

Blogging can be very important to the success of your business. There is a lot of value and potential growth you can get from it, you just need to make sure you set time aside to make it happen.

This post was generated by an RSS Feed from Search Engine GuideYou may also like to read:

How Small Business Owners Can Build a Blog Without Blowing the Business is a post from: Build Me A Fab Website

How To Write Articles For Blogs Or Websites

Abigail Andrews — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 08:56:46 +0000

It’s entirely possible to make extra income online via blogging or article writing, in fact, it is even possible to earn a living if you do it properly. However, it is very difficult to make significant money by operating just the one website, especially in the first few months even years of starting up, but build up a portfolio of websites and it becomes easier to earn decent money from advertising, paid content, link sales and other sources. So if you fancy earning some spare cash, if you find it easy to write, and if you like writing, there is no better way to earn a little bit of spending money than running a few websites.

Article writing/blogging is also essential for SEO. In essence, getting content out there makes it more likely potential customers or website users will find your article and therefore your website. Check out Beginners Guide to SEO for more information. However, the problem with operating multiple websites is coming up with quality content for each of them at a fast enough rate to keep your website visitors interested and benefit your SEO campaign.

In this article I will give you some tips for generating and creating content for your websites.

Writing Interesting Articles and Posts

The key in creating a resource website is to produce content that people will think is valuable. You want to get people to respond and seek you out for additional information. So how do you create an article that people want to read? How do you entice them into wanting more? Here are some simple tips:

Concentrate on one website at a time
Concentrate on just one blog each day rather than trying to switch from one topic to another which can be difficult. For example, choose one blog each day and during the course of the day you can explore different aspects of the subject and hopefully come up with ideas for a number of good posts ready to write.
Create draft posts for your ideas
I like to create draft posts for all my ideas in my CMS, some of which I may use, others I may decide against. Create a temporary title and note a few words about your idea in your CMS, also reference any URLs to go back and visit later for useful content. Do this for all your blogs so you always have a string of new article topics drafted in your CMS ready for exploration and expansion into a new article.
Find a topic for your article
Decide what general subject you want to write about. Think about topics that will be useful to, or interesting for your audience. Once you have a basic area to explore, begin to narrow the subject down and focus in on a more specific subject as this makes it easier to target keywords for your SEO strategy.
Research your topic
What specific questions are people asking, or what specific problems are they experiencing that you can help with? Type some searches into Google for your topic and see what comes up. How do people need help, can you write a better article than is already out there and offer even more advice? The easiest way to create an article that people find valuable is to actually answer questions that real people are asking.
Identify the keywords for the topic
Think about how people will find you article. What will they type into a search engine? You will want to use these keywords and phrases in your article. Read SEO for Beginners for more about keywords and keyword phrases.
Identify a title for the article
Create an effective article title that will get a reader’s interest and entice them to read your article. You only have 5 to 7 seconds to catch the interest of your reader. Your title should state a problem and then give incentive to the viewer to read the rest of the article to find the solution. Ideally, the article title should include the keyword phrase of the highest importance to you.
Begin writing your article content
Now that you have the topic, title, and content ideas, you can begin writing. If you have identified a good topic and done your research properly, there should be plenty to write and plenty of information out there to help you.
Write the introduction
Remember, a basic article starts out with telling the reader what you are going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you just told them. After you have written the article, it should be easy to tell them what you just wrote about. Introduction, Content, Summary. In that order.
Write the conclusion
This should be easy because you are re-capping what you just wrote about. You could bullet point, leave a teaser, add a call to action, or reference a further article for reading. Make the reader want to read more of your website.
Proof read your article
Once you have written it, look it over for grammar, spelling, flow, and if it speaks to the level of your audience. This is probably as time consuming as the previous stages all together. You want to make sure your article is ready for viewing.
Re-read your article and proofread again
I suggest not publishing an article for at least a day. You’ll be amazed at the way your article reads to you when you look at your article again after some time off. Make the appropriate changes and then you are ready to finish it.
Schedule your articles for publication
If you are on a particularly creative day and manage to write a number of posts, don’t publish them all at once. Save them ready to be published on a less creative day. Make sure you have a constant stream of regular updates rather than being sporadic. This is where scheduling posts comes in useful. Most Content Management Systems allow you to schedule a post by changing the post date and time so that it will just appear on the day and time you want it to. Using this method, you could write a months worth of posts, changing the posts dates so that they will come out naturally over the course of the next thirty days.
Let the world know about your article! Remember to redo your site map and resubmit it to get it indexed more quickly.

You may also like to read:

How To Write Articles For Blogs Or Websites is a post from: Build Me A Fab Website

Blogging To Help Search Engine Ranking

Abigail Andrews — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 10:00:11 +0000

Blogging for Search Engine Optimization

It makes absolute sense to blog to improve your search engine ranking and get traffic to our site. We all know that the more pages we have out there on the Internet the more chance someone will find us. Blogging is one of the best ways to get more traffic to your website.

Here’s the data from HubSpot. Those who blog see:

55% more visitors to their website.
97% more links to their website - want a higher ranking, get quality links to your site.
434% more indexed pages – this is the number of pages that show up in search engines. Just because you have a site doesn’t guarantee it is being indexed (findable). Just because some of your pages are in search engines doesn’t mean all of your pages are.

With that kind of return on investment who wouldnt want to blog and see those kind of results?

Blogging is Not for Everyone

When asking for ideas to improve your search engine ranking you have probably been told time and time again to blog. Well, while “blogging” is suitable for some, it’s not really suitable for others. For example, for me, for this website, writing a blog about what I am doing and where I am going and what kind of day it is outside is really not going to interest my audience. When you are told to blog you are probably being told to “write articles” of interest to your viewers or customers. Time and time again I have been asked, “I don’t know what to blog about?”. This is because you are thinking of blogging as a “diary” rather than as “useful articles” to attract your potential customers.

While the main goal of your blog may be to express your thoughts, talk back to your customers or as a vehicle to promote your product or services, you also need to provide your potential customers with what they want to know! For me, it is writing articles like this. For a children’s party organiser, it may be writing some articles on tips for entertaining your kids on rainy days!

Think this over:

Do you have content to write about? If you don’t have much to say blogging isn’t a good medium for saying it. Can you come up with content? Are you a good writer or does it take you all day to write a paragraph. For me writing is easy, writing an article takes literally 15 minutes. My return on investment, return on effort is high since it does not take me long. If your talents lie elsewhere then concentrate your efforts there. On the otherhand, most businesses can write useful atricles, try to think of blogging as both a diary as well as useful articles, and choose what suits your business best.
Can you commit to writing regularly? Google rewards consistency and consistency builds trust with people. If you can’t maintain a blog then it’s probably better not to.
Do you have the technical background to install and maintain a blog (plugins, features, etc)? Are you computer literate enough? Will you be able to handle your blogging tool?
Does your website allow you to blog? If you have a static site you will need to think about upgrading your website to allow you to add content. You need a content management system. This will cost money. Will you get your money back with the increase in visitors to your website?
Would you need help posting on a blog? If you need to hire someone to write your blog for you then is this investment going to be worth it? Do you trust them to write suitable content?

Advantages of Blogging for SEO

Blogs Promote Fresh Content

The main advantage of blogging is the freshness of content that a search engine likes and rewards. Blogs give you an increased presence on major search engines. A well-written, routinely updated blog can enhance your chances of high rankings on search engine. Establishing a frequent pattern of posting pattern means you’ll have the Googlebot coming to your site every few days. Your pages get indexed on google more quickly and create “backdoors” for any potential customers who find them on google. Imagine, a potential customer is browsing for things to do to entertain their children on a cold, wet day, they come across an article your wrote about such a situation, they then start browsing your site after enjoying the article, they realise you do children’s parties, oh it’s the youngest girls birthday next week, what a fantastic idea, a “princess party”……….now where is the phone?

Blogs Offer Low Cost Maintenance and Advertising

Blogs are inexpensive to set up, operate and maintain. To get a content managed website, or have a static site converted to allow you to add content, can cost as little as £300 – one off fee (with FABI Designs anyway!) How much does it cost to keep putting and advert in the local paper. If you placed an advert in the paper every quater, how much is it costing you? How much business do you get from it? Consider the fact that once your blog is built you can keep placing your averts for free, each article is a new advert, which stays in the public domain for ever!

Blogs Help Brand Building

Blogs serve as another channel on which to promote your brand and company. Blogs give you the opportunity to tell your story over and over, they help set you apart from the competition, promoting and building your brand.

Blogs Help With Relational Marketing

Blogs provide a way for you to speak directly, openly and honestly with your customer allowing you to build personal, long-lasting relationships with your customers that foster trust. Blogs are a fantastic PR tool! They can leave comments on your posts too creating a conversational dialog with your customers to further promote trust.

Blogs Improve Links To Your Website

Another advantage of blogging is the fact that people may find your article useful and link back to you, thus giving a vote for your website. Blogs are a source of free one-way links to your site. Google likes one way links and rewards them highly.

Position You As An Expert

Blogs enable you to articulate your viewpoints, knowledge and expertise on matters pertaining to your industry. If people know you release articles regularly and they find your articles interesting, they may well sign up to your RSS feed and keep coming back to your website. Thats more sales opportunits for you, repeat custom, isn’t that the aim of every business?

Search Engine Optimise Your Blog

You can optimise your blogging too. It’s not all about just writing a useful article or useful content. You need to think carefully about “how” you are writing. Simple SEO basics are called for here. I won’t go into details about the technical aspects of SEO, I will write more articles about this in the future. However, there are a couple of things to be aware of while writing your “blog” page.

The title of your article should grab attention, while containing keywords too. Think about what your viewers may be searching for. if they are likely to search for entertaining kids on a rainy day – what do you think your article title should be? Most blogging or CMS tools use the title and place it in the important tags that search engines use to rank your page. The title is KEY!
Blog articles must be well-written and padded with appropriate keywords so that search engine spiders will find them and index them. Remember your keywords in your content. Using the same example as above, your keywords would be, “kids”, “entertainment”, “rainy day”. Make sure you use these words regularly throughout the article. It’s how google identifies what your page is about and assigns relevancy. Be careful not to over use the words though, google will see this as spamming, just write naturally, with regular mentions of the words.

In conclusion, while the main objective of a blog should be to get your message out, don’t forget to take a little time for SEO and you should see your efforts payoff in the search engine results pages. Now there are some great reasons to blog: What are you waiting for?You may also like to read:

Blogging To Help Search Engine Ranking is a post from: Build Me A Fab Website