Companies Blogs

Blogging, Search, and "All that Jazz"

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

Here at Compendium, we are huge advocates of blogging for search. Simply by having multiple blogs titled with the keyword phrases that your company wants to get found for (versus having a single corporate blog), you are dramatically increases your opportunity for sea ch engine optimization.

But the great thing is that this is not in place of all of the other reasons (all that jazz) why individuals and businesses typically start blogs - to identify with others on a human level, to share information and knowledge, to connect with others - those things stay intact, too.

Take our own blogs here at Compendium as a great example. We have tens of thousands of new people every month who are searching on phrases like "blogging best practices" and finding one of our blogs. When they arrive, they get to see real, happy people who are passionate about what they do sharing helpful information.

At the heart of blogging is still the idea of connecting with people on a personal level and giving them the information that they need and want. Compendium allows companies of all sizes and kinds (over 400 of them!) accomplish this while at the same making it easy for their prospects to find them online.

To see for yourself how Compendium makes this possible, just go here to schedule a quick online demo.

Exciting new feature release this week!

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Abby Brosmer

This week, Compendium was excited to announce a new feature release for all standard users. A keyword tab was added to the text editor screen you see upon login. This tab now allows users the ability to see a full listing of their companies keywords. It also allows for easy navigation and sorting of large and small keyword networks. Want to know more...Check out the solution in our knowledge base.

As a blog contributor, it is important to know what topics are important to focus on. And while the 20 suggested keywords are listed to the right, for general content ideas. Often in a blog post, a user can rearrange a word or two of natural writing to accomplish the addition of a keyword, helping the SEO of their corporate blog.

As far as blogging best practices, I am of the belief that it is import to write naturally and to write about what you know. My own practice is to write a post, keeping in mind a general topic about Compendium and corporate blogging as whole. I write everything and then, I go back and revise to add in some keywords. I never want my content to be stacked with keywords. Not only does it look spammy to the search engines, but it looks spammy to readers as well.

I would love to hear how what you think of the new keyword tool. Also, tell us about how you write...how do you add keywords to you posts, and what are some of your blogging tips?

Closing the Gap Between Company and Stakeholders

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Amber Mohling

Posted earlier today was an interesting article by Kevin Moss entitled Blogging Really Can Enhance Corporate Sustainability. In the article, he discusses the value of blogging to corporate responsibility.

This article got me thinking about the importance of companies not only using their blogs as a tool in stakeholder engagement but also using it as a tool in search marketing.... because you have to get people to find the blog before you can expect engagement to take place.

Compendium's blog software enables our clients to get found on a variety of keywords related to their business in organic search. Next, as discussed in Kevin Moss's article, the company can further use the blog as a tool in stakeholder engagement & communication.

To learn more, check out the Compendium website.

Blogging and Business Sustainability

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

This morning I was reading an interesting article on business sustainability and how it relates to blogging. It took a refreshing look at why a corporate blog is important to the sustainability of a company, as a communication tool.

A key paragraph stuck out to me, where the author describes how a blog ultimately holds a company and its employees responsible for the message they are delivering and the work they are producing. Which is something that happens internally in a company everyday, but with a blog - it holds you accountable to your customers as well.

"Simply having a company blog open to comments from readers gives a key message on the importance and acceptance of differing viewpoints to that company. When truly an expression of the views of an individual business executive, blogging provides a strong foundation for individual accountability. And through opening him or herself up to a more personal connection with readers I believe the executive blogger creates an environment in which the views of their external stakeholders [potential customers] are front of mind..."

A blog is a simple and effective way to engage with those outside of your company, and allows a business the ability to have a conversation with those interested in their products and services. It allows the company to share its knowledge and show why they are a reliable partner to their clients and customers, in a cost effective and environmentally friendly communication tool.

Full article: "Blogging Really Can Enhance Corporate Sustainability"

Don't wait for the case study

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Jim Hyslop

I talk with a lot of people every week about Compendium's value proposition as an inbound marketing tool that leverages blogging for search acquisition and more often than not the conversation always ends up with the question "can you send me a case study?" the response is "of course I can"

We obviously wouldn't be in business if we didn't create success for our clients day after day. We have case studies that you can download directly form our website as any smart, results driven company should. The thing here is that success looks different for every business and every vertical.

There is nothing easier in the world than selling using a similar situation type of sell...trust me. But at the end of the day, I think it is important to ask yourself "do I want to read the case study, or BE the case study?" Chances are if you are reading it, it isn't about your company and you may have already missed out on a large portion of market share because you made the decision to NOT adopt new strategies for business growth. Some of the most successful companies today are where they are at because they were forward thinking and allowed someone to write a case study on them.

Get Out of the Way

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Brian Graham

I was talking with a business owner on the phone yesterday and the conversation went south on both his account and mine. We were getting in our own way. He was not getting it and not listening to me and I was not getting it and not listening to him. Traditional marketing, "push marketing", is a lot like the described conversation. You are trying to push your product, service, or message until someone will get it instead of creating opportunities to listen and help.

Blogging best practices suggest telling stories of how you help people in your business. By creating an inbound marketing strategy through a blogging solution you are letting your potential customers and clients find you on their terms. You are getting out of your own way and letting the process happen. You are letting the relationship grow. This is the "social" aspect of blogging that lets your company be human.

Try listening and understanding and get out of your own way to let progress happen. Start a blog for business. It is a great place to begin.

How are you integrating your blog?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Stephanie West

http://www.mobiletechnologyblog.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-integration

I have blogged about it before, but I think it's worth blogging about again - your blog and your website should work together. Having a blog to drive search traffic and generate leads is great! But your blog should also be a reference. It is a great marketing tool - but it's an even better marketing tool when it is used with your website.

Your website is the best source of information for prospects to reference. It should contain the most up-to-date information and be easy to navigate. So if your website is a source of information, where does your blog tie in?!

Your blog should be a humanized form of your website. It is your humanized marketing strategy. If it is integrated properly with your website, prospective customers can use it as another resource and a way to receive information from the employees that work for your company and support the product/service.

Integrating your blog is something that Compendium emphasizes. Building your blog for search is important, but in addition to that, you should connect your blog to your website to give prospective customers the most information about who you are and what you are selling.

Versatility in blogging

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Michael Burton

One of my favorite things about blogging is its versatility. Here at Compendium, we firmly believe that blogging for business fits directly into the marketing campaign of any organization. Blogs are such a powerful tool because they can be tailored to be about anything you feel like writing about.

Whether you have a huge company providing business world-wide or own a small Mom & Pop store in your small town, there is a place for blogging in your business. Blog posts can focus on anything from your products and services to special promotions and upcoming events.

Any of your employees can find a place in blogging as well. Hearing from a wide variety of employees, such as marketing, sales, support, etc. can give readers a look at different aspects of what your company does and how it operates.

If you would like more information on how Compendium might fit in best with your company, contact a Compendium blogging expert today!

Corporate blog security

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Brian Millis

Are you one of the thousands of businesses trying to force a freeware blog platform to operate as a marketing tool? Yes?

The most obvious question then is; How is that working out for the company? Is it driving lots of organic search traffic? Converting that traffic into qualified inbound leads? How much revenue have you generated directly from blog leads?

Well, those are all great business questions to consider. But what about an even more basic consideration than measurable results . . . what about:

Is your business blog more of corporate RISK rather than a useful marketing TOOL?

Just check out this recent post from Kyle Brady about a hack-in through a Wordpress blog. In case you don't want to read the entire article, here is what happened:

a list of hundreds of URLs to assorted pages, mostly porn, appeared after the </html> tag on all pages of the site
for content created after the attack, it somehow embedded itself inside the Wordpress content, and all links redirected to a malware site – in addition to breaking the entire page

Now thankfully, the post details out the lengths that were taken to discover the issue and how to fix it. I consider myself pretty technologically savvy, and even I thought it was confusing.

Doesn't that seem like a lot of work to fix a tool that most likely produces very few results? This is the second time just THIS WEEK that I've heard about similar security issues. I think that all businesses out there should be considering third generation corporate blogging. The differences are pretty simple:

Security
Automation
Measurable Results

Ready for what?

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by Brian Millis

I sent an email to a prospect that showed a compendium client who increased online revenue by 40% in less than 6 months and has tracked over 100k in online sales back to blog traffic. This was the response that I got back(kept anonymous, of course):

. . . She was interested in the software and we would love to take on blogging in the future, but we are not quite ready at this time. Thank you for the information on Compendium- I will keep your emails and discuss again with my manager when our time comes to enter the blogosphere.

Ready for what? What business is not ready to increase revenue by better search marketing? I feel that it should be every businesses' time to enter the world of corporate blogging. Why? Because it is an easy and efficient way to communicate with target markets online and convert online traffic to paying customers.

Our platform takes most of the fear out of getting started with blogging for business. I think tha

t these responses come from companies that see this strategy as a HUGE time commitment. That really is not the case. You can log into Compendium, get prompted with your most valuable key phrases, have endless content ideas delivered right to you, and get real-time feedback on how you're doing as you write your post.

So what is keeping you from being ready?

CPG Online Marketing Spends

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by Clayton Stobbs

This morning's eMarketer newsletter caught my eye (article here) as it discussed the trend towards more online marketing spending for consumer packaged goods companies. In the past and even today, CPG firms have largely focused on traditional media and avoided mediums that are more difficult to measure (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, other social networks).

Nevertheless, given the trend, corporate blogging for SEO should be an important strategy to consider. By carefully monitoring and measuring traffic, conversion etc. and tying strategies back to actual product sales, CPG firms could benefit immensely.

You tell me: Is this good business blog content?

Monday, November 16, 2009 by Chris Baggott

You Tell Me...is this really a blog post?

I saw this post on an ecommerce blog the other day and had to give pause. The powerful blogging software we offer has a complete API, so it's easy to integrate into other content sources, but I had not seen anyone use it to feed in relevant live chat transcripts.

At first I had to ask the question that I'm sure you are asking: is this legitimate content in a blog for business?

I really quickly came to the conclusion that yes, this is not only a really clever way to leverage existing content, it's actually quite valuable for the audience.

Here's the thing: Lot's of people have the same problem.   As a result, lots of blog traffic comes from organic search.   Those people ask questions...they want to find answers.    These live chat transcripts are direct answers to direct questions.   What's great is the simplicity.

You are already having these conversations. Doug Karr once suggested looking at all the emails you send out each day as a source for blog content.   I thought that was brilliant and I think this is too.

Every day people in your company have interactions with customers and prospects.   They help people, provide information and solve problems. This content is nothing more than a reflection of that value...you have already invested in it, so why not share it with others who can benefit?

Will Speed Kill Your Website?

Saturday, November 14, 2009 by P.J. Hinton

Over at Marketing Technology Blog, Doug Karr has written a post about a proposed change in Google's ranking algorithm that would take into account page load times. Under the new system, sites whose pages load faster would get a boost.

In the WebProNews interview cited by Doug, Google engineer Matt Cutts says that the change is backed by several Google engineers who believe speed should be a differentiating factor. Doug says that he is skeptical of Cutts' claims, arguing that it is spin, and the more likely reason is that Google is not wanting to make the investments in bandwidth and computational infrastructure to do more sophisticated forms of crawling.

I have to disagree respecfully with Doug's hypothesis because the assumptions don't match Google's operational profile. If you look back on the trajectory of Google's path to success in search, it is tied largely to their devotion to a couple of simple principles:

be better than anyone else at delivering timely and relevant search results
if state-of-the art tech isn't up to the task, build something new that does the job

This is why things like MapReduce and BigTable came into existence. No off-the-shelf software was good enough, so they built it themselves.

It's also the motivation behind the Caffeine indexer, which is being slowly rolled out to its data centers. By their own admission, rankings don't shuffle that much, but the algorthms behind the indexer get their results more quickly, which has real value both to Google and searchers.

Although Google is arguably the 800 lb gorilla of search, and it has been remarkably adept at leaving its competition in the dust over the past decade or so, it also has to compete in a volatile marketplace.

The cost of migrating to a different search engine is miniscule compared to similar migrations in automobile makes or operating systems. Change a bookmark or download a new browser toolbar, and you're done. Google won't have the luxury of marketplace inertia like the Big Three automakers or Microsoft.

To me, Doug's theory would make a lot more sense if Google was a company that was counting on market inertia for survival. A company that has a lot of cash and is hellbent on staying ahead of the competition isn't about to sit on its laurels and let it's crawling algorithms stagnate. Google has an engineer's mindset, not a the mindset of a miserly accountant.

I think the more appropriate interpretation is this. If your job is to develop a system of algorithms that determine how useful a page is for someone who is interested in a set of concepts, one has to take into account the question, "In what ways does a site suck?"

Google has attacked the content problem relentlessly, trying its best to weed out sites which attempt to weasel in higher rankings without providing real usefulness to the user. Now Google is turning its eye toward presentation. In other words, is the payload for the content being delivered to the user in a way that doesn't require relatively large amounts of time? This approach is innovative because it places value on the web searcher's time.

Another place where I disagree with Doug is the question of cost improving speed. Achieving faster page load times doesn't necessarily require that you invest in high end technologies that are used by the big sites. The tools for measurement and remediation are out there, and in many cases they are free (as in beer).

For the case of measurement, Yahoo provides YSlow, and Google offers PageSpeed. These tools give you quickly produced report cards that can help you decide where to channel your efforts.

Some low hanging fruit include turning on HTTP compression on your web server and slimming down the content of a page to what's really necessary. Minfying JavaScript with tools from Yahoo or Google is easy to do and helps with load times as well.

The next steps usually involve reducing the number of HTTP requests by doing things like asset rollups, where JavaScript and CSS files are bundled together, and using CSS sprites, which combine several frequently used graphics into a single image that are then displayed via CSS properties.

Moving your static assets to a content delivery network isn't all that astronomical anymore. You can use low cost CDNs like SimpleCDN or Amazon's CloudFront. If you have fine-grained control over your web server, take a look at how your server uses HTTP caching headers to ensure browsers are making the best use of their caches.

My advice to worried webmasters would be this:

Don't panic now! This is something that hasn't been made official yet. It's not going to kill your site right away, but it should give you pause as to whether your site is the best it could be.
Don't panic later! By its own admission, Google takes into account hundreds of factors. Your page's speed is just one of them. You don't have to be the fastest page out there. You just have to be faster than pages of similar content and quality.
Use the free profile tools to find out where your site's bandwidth usage is suboptimal.
Use common sense to make sure that the bad metrics truly are relevant to your site. For more information on this, take a look at Jeff Atwood's critique of YSlow from a couple years ago.
Spend some time looking over your page templates to identify what can be fixed.
Fix the things you can.

With this advice, not only will you weather the change, if it does come along, your visitors will have a much better experience with your site.

Gen Y women. What influences their brand discovery?

Friday, November 13, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Can I buy stock in eMarketer?   Every day they send me this great email with relevant content to my business....and yours.

Like this report for example.   Clearly this blog is about education, and persuasion that we offer best blogging software for Business.   Our firm belief is that that Social Media helps a company serve two masters. One is the search engine, and two is the need to humanize your business.

When you see a chart like this, it really helps make the case that if you just look at the responses related to search, online profile, and the two blog mentions (blog written by someone like me and professional or subject experts), you can clearly see that Corporate blogging is the critical hub of todays marketing strategy.

Blogs drive search traffic better than almost anything else...and it's a lot easier and legitmate to simply write often about how you help customers and solve problems than a lot of other SEO tools you might be tempted with.

I also love the phrase: "someone like me".   Obviously, you have people in your organization who fit the professional/subject expert catagory.    But think about it.   Among your employees and your current customers you also have lots of people who can be classified as "someone like me".

Now either Gen X or Gen Y women represents an extremely large catagory.   If you had to make a persona around everyone who could be slotted into these groups you would struggle.   But tactics like triggered emails to existing customers are amazing ways to solicit relevant blog content and engage the long tail of this diverse yet consistant audience.

'Simple' is better in business blogging

Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Brian Millis

Have you ever stumbled across a blog and thought, wow, that is an amazing looking blog? But as you navigate the page, you get lost because there is so much going on? Here are some great examples of incredible blogs that will inspire any digital artist out there. There is no argument that these blogs are beautiful and creative. But if you're a business, and the goal of your corporate blog is to drive visibility through better organic search marketing, is MORE always a good thing?

I think not. What is great about Compendium Clients, is that their blogging has a true purpose. As you can see from that link, we have some great looking templates as well. But everything is focused at the ROI of business blogging. It's simple:

Write useful content
Get found in search by the right people
Convert that traffic to a lead with a clear Call-To-Action
Make more money

Now of course I understand that interaction, engagement, subscriptions, etc. are all wonderful as well. But for a business, what is most important? Therefore, next time you find a company blog, take a hard look at all the widgets and gadgets that consume the page. Are they really helping? Take a note from unrelated businesses on simplicity. Simple can be better!

Calls to action drive the success of AirFlow's blog

Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Compendium Client Reviews

AirFlow's blogging success driven by its calls to action - which are great ways to drive traffic. Last month the company strove to develop stronger calls to action. By replacing their two original calls to action with three new specific calls to action, they saw a 987.5% increase in conversions by following Compendium's CTA best practices. Compendium is constantly providing feedback and insight on how to make your blog as successful as possible.

Name: Stephanie West
Company: Compendium Blogware
BlogURL:

BizSurvey is sold on the value of Compendium's blog platform

Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Compendium Client Reviews

BizSurvey wasn't sure of the benefits of blogging. After further research, they were sold on the benefits of blogging with Compendium blogging platform. An employee at BizSurvey, Matt Braun, made the following statement about Compendium's software: "Had to convince my boss of the value of blogging, but once I got him to look at Compendium's solution, he saw the light - and within weeks we saw the results in our SEO improvement." The results don't lie - SEO improvement is just one of the many benefits of blogging with Compendium.

Name: Stephanie West
Company: Compendium Blogware
BlogURL:

What's your claim to fame?

Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Stephanie West

Companies have found their claim to fame in various ways. Some companies are fortunate enough to have found a big break, but most companies aren't that fortunate.

http://thecowhideglobe.blogspot.com/2008_12_01_archive.html

I'm not a company - I am just an intern, so I'm always looking for my big break. I think my big break came at the Indiana Pacers game tonight. For the first time ever, I was on the kiss cam. It was a scene straight out of the movie, "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days." It was classic. My claim to fame was in Conseco Fieldhouse on a jumbo screen in front of 10,000 people. I got lucky.

But not everyone gets a big break like I did.

Most companies need to work toward whatever their "claim to fame" may be. A company's "claim to fame" is generally its service or product.

So how do you get noticed?? One way is to BLOG!

Corporate blogging is a great way to share your success with internet searchers - or anyone that is looking for what you have to offer. By using Compendium's simple blogging software, you can have your fame just by blogging for your business.

I got lucky by getting on the kiss cam - it's not always that easy though! The best way to get found is sharing your service or product with others - so start by using Compendium's corporate blog software!

Disclaimer: I really was on the kiss cam last night but it's not my claim to fame. It was used as an example for this blog post...

Finding New Ways to Market Your Business

Friday, October 16, 2009 by Chandra Chaves

Each week I am overwhelmed by the amount of mail that I continue to receive from various company who want my business. Coupons, sales ads, etc. I am always throwing them away and thinking how much money do these companies spend on these thick paper advertisements and coupons? Then I think, if they are spending the money to send these advertisements and coupons to consumers, then they are spending way to much money on marketing their business.

In today's world most of us use the computer to find what we need. Why should companies spend money on such marketing ads, when we can find that information ourselves with a few clicks?

Companies should invest their money into new strategies for the ever changing market. Compendium has that solution. Compendium sells affordable blogging software that will save consumers money as well as put money into their pockets. The easy to use blog software enables the client to put the power into their hands by blogging about the company and its experiences and customer experiences. It adds that human element to marketing that gets lost in the shuffle. Why not blog for business? Blogging about your business allows consumers to find your business just by providing certain keywords that pertain to your business. So when searchers are looking for a certain brand or a specific type of product, you want to be blogging! Save consumers time and money by getting rid of the needless paper advertisements and go green. Let people search for you on the net, but of course, you need to always blog about your business!!!