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Blogging for Visibility

Friday, March 19, 2010 by Ford McAlexander
I cannot believe it is already slightly past the middle of March and I have learned so much during my internship here at Compendium Blogware. The company is growing fast and it seems like I have already been here for awhile because I am no longer one of the super new people here. Everybody has had a hand in teaching me about the corporate blogging solutions and how our software is one of the best ways to build a social media strategy around business blogging.

With that said, I know there is much more for me to learn about. Blogging is one of the simplest ways to build your online search visiblity which can be more valuable than taking a risk with paying to optimize your website. Check out a demonstration today of our software to view the best blogging software available!

"ROI, ROI, ROI" for Engineering!!!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 by Maureen McNamara
SCRUMToday is an exciting day here at Compendium for me.  We meet with the Engineering Team who is responsible for making Compendium's powerful blogging software --- simple blogging software. 

The Compendium Engineering Team, led by P.J. Hinton is responsible for the development, testing, deployment, and operation of Compendium Blogware.  The group uses SCRUM (not an acronym - think rugby), an agile software development methodology to manage the planning, development and deployment life cycle.  Emphasis is place on short development cycles and frequent releases.  Progress on commitments are measured on a daily basis to ensure any obstacles are resolved asap.

I am a Business Development Manager.  I sell the best blogging software on the planet and I am certainly not a techie --- but I love attending these meetings.  The Engineering Team's vernacular includes exciting stuff like "sprint planning," "strategic sprint," "burndown chart," "agile,"disciplined transparency,"and of course the "scrum" and the powerful "scrum master".  

Today, we learn how easy to use blogging software becomes even more robust when it comes to my favorite bottom line --- ROI analytics --- so I'll be sharing more in the days to come.  Thanks engineering.  Okay, okay, RAH, RAH, RAH!!!

SEO is a matter of opinion

Thursday, March 11, 2010 by Julie Murphy
Who do you listen to when it comes to leveraging SEO tools?  In today's world everyone is speaking about blogging for search.  Blog for business with the most effective easy to use blog software that allows you to concentrate on a content management system built to populate landing pages that in turn create keyword rich pages.

Leverage the very words that searchers are using to find you, get found and get results.  Everyone wins!  You are served a top result and the searcher finds what they are looking for.

Blogs are fantastic SEO tools, just make certain you are using the best blogging solution!

Content management that makes sense

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by Julie Murphy
As a business, have you ever thought an SEO strategy could be made easier with an easy to use blog software?  Simple blogging software allows your company to concentrate on marketing your business, not worrying about SEO tools and how you leverage to win search results.

Compendium  is a powerful blogging software built with the primary purpose for winning SEO.  Compendium is the only SaaS available today that provides a platform to win search results and significantly increase unique search traffic.

You tell the searcher about your business and let the software organize your content to keyword rich pages that are set to win search results.

Check out the website www.compendium.com

Return On Time Investment... priceless

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 by Maureen McNamara

At Compendium we drink the Kool-Aid.  We're all busy but we all are tasked to blog.  I am in sales and blogging is a lead gen tool for us.   That is a great motivator for me and that is why I appreciate the best blogging software, the only corporate blogging software on the planet.   The user interface is so simple, so fast and the compending feature is priceless --- to coin an overused campaign sound bite.

If you can't take my word for it, and why should you, check out this internal email sent last week from Heather in the Compendium Marketing Dept. to see what I mean...

"Just wanted to share some inspiring information about our internal blogging program:

Since the start of our blogging efforts (November 2007) to today, Compendium employees have created 3,226 blog posts.

With the compending process, those 3,226 posts were multiplied a little over 117 times generating 377,683 total posts in our keyword blogs.

So, the 2 years and 3 months time to generate 377,683 combined keyword blog posts would have taken 263 years to create without the compending process!!

Have a great weekend!"


WOW!  I can't tell you how many leads we generated from those posts but let's just say we're all EXTREMELY busy and leave it at that.

Should your organization be blogging? If you don't think you have the time to make an impact on your SEO, customer acquistion and lead gen goals, check out the Compendium blogging solution and let it do all the heavy lifting for you.  Trust me on this one... it works!

Avoid Being Passed Over

Thursday, March 4, 2010 by Ford McAlexander
If people haven't heard of what ChatRoulette is yet, it is an online chat site that allows you to pair with a complete stranger and see where any conversation can take you. However, if you are not offering interesting information to a potential stranger, people move on. So is your business blog making people stay?

The author of ProBlogger developed an experiment in ChatRoulette. He first sits normally as himself and gets ignored, but then after putting on a clown suit, people started to pay attention to him since he was interesting by looking ridiculous. Check out his article here.

He was taught a few lessons about online people. They want to move fast and will only stop if it is something that intrigues them or is relevant to them. So the point is try to write compelling content with the best blogging software you can buy. The two of them together can keep people on your site and generate what your company is looking to get out of their social media strategy.

Trusting Joel on Software? Yes. On Corporate Blogging? Not as much.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 by P.J. Hinton

Joel Spolsky, one of the biggest names in software development blogging, has written a column for Inc. wherein he announces that he's giving up blogging. In his valedictory statement, he talks about how blogging companies aren't doing it right, and that while his business, Fog Creek Software, reaped benefits from his blog, he can't bring himself to recommend it to others because he thinks the value proposition just isn't there.

I've read Spolsky for a long time, and his blog posts have powered a lot of big discussions within the software development community. His writings on interviewing form the basis of our department's own candidate screening process. I count myself as one of his admirers, both for his ability to make good points and build a successful business, but this latest essay left me both agreeing and disagreeing.

Where He Gets it Right

Spolsky asserts that a lot of businesses get it wrong with respect to blogging, making the blog about the company's culture and internal activities rather than the customer's needs. In a misguided rush to "humanize" the company's image, marketing teams use their blogs as self-promotional life streams that mimic individual social media.

Citing remarks by game developer Kathy Sierra as inspiration, he says it's wrong to make the blog all about your company. Quoting Spolsky's column (emphasis mine):

If you make superior, single-source chocolate, don't write about that great trip you took to the Dominican Republic to source cocoa beans. That's all about you. Instead, write the definitive article about making chocolate-covered strawberries. For the next 10 years, whenever a gourmand or a baker searches Google for a recipe on how to make chocolate-covered strawberries, he or she will find your post. Helping your users make awesome chocolate-based confections is likely to attract readers who might buy fancy chocolate, and that's the point of a successful blog. Writing about trips to the Dominican Republic is going to attract only people who might want to travel to the Dominican Republic. Unless you're selling that, you shouldn't be blogging about it.

Long before there was Compendium, Spolsky was leveraging his blog in a way that Compendium advocates -- using the blog as stream of relevant, targeted content that persists over time and draws potential customers in to your product.

In retrospect, Joel on Software was essentially a small, perfectly targeted magazine for programmers with a certain pragmatic philosophy toward software development. It was also free advertising for my company, but the advertising actually looked a lot more like editorial content than anything else...
Once I had built an audience among programmers, enough of them turned into customers that I was able to get my bootstrapped company off the ground. The audience was so precisely defined that products we tried to make that weren't specifically for programmers pretty much flopped.
Where He Gets it Wrong

In the latter part of his column, Spolsky is skeptical of blogging's effectiveness for growing your business. He cites the time requirements of building a good blog and a series of corporate counterexamples that he says show that you can achieve marketing success without blogging.

This is where I start to disagree. He lists three of the big net successes -- Twitter, Facebook, and Google, all of which he says have horrible blogs, and Apple, which has virtually no blogging presence.

Holding up services that cost nothing to use doesn't make a strong case. These are things that people could try out for themselves and quickly decide whether they would stick with them.

When dollars and cents are involved, people will look around and do research before opening their wallets. They will depend on the advice of trusted friends. They will use search to locate possible solution providers. A blog which speaks to the potential customer's concerns goes a long way toward building that trust.

Apple is certainly an outlier. It's been around a long time, longer than the mainstream adoption of the net. It's customers tend to be fiercely loyal, and the rock-star status of Steve Jobs allows the company to get away with closedness moreso than the average business. The secretive nature of new product development fuels the mystique. You can't get away with this as easily if you're a new company with nary a reputation.

After reading this essay, I can't help but feel that Spolsky is throwing a baby out with the bathwater by abandoning blogging. Early on in the essay he writes that when the responsibility of blogging is distributed throughout the organization, the program runs out of steam from infrequent updates.

However, we know from our own experiences that when there is a program owner who oversees team motivation, momentum can be sustained over time. It also helps when the authors get fresh feedback over how their efforts contribute to the bottom line. Yes, it takes time, but it's probably not nearly as much as Spolsky envisions. You just have to hire people who are smart and get things done, something that he has written a time or two about. :-)

Customers like ME!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010 by Kaila Woodside
... in my world, it is clearly all about me. So whenGK ELITE BLOG - Web to Post Submission I am looking to purchase a product, I want to see people like me using that product.

This past week I was up in South Bend visiting one of our clients, Tire Rack , and I started talking with their online marketing manager about how I had purchased a dress from my FAVORITE store, anthropolgie, and couldn't figure out what to wear with it. And instead of trying on multiple combinations of accessories, I turned to the Internet and googled the dress and found multiple blogs with various women wearing the same dress and mixing it up with tights and hats and scarves and sweaters. It was the best experience for me - and thought, well if I am doing this while looking for something to wear - others have to be doing this for what tires look good on their car or what pair of scrubs is the best for a particular body type or what gymnasts leotard is best for a beginner.

One of the things that makes compendium the best blogging solution is now we don't only offer a great way to organize content, but we also give you the tools and ability to leverage content from your clients who will tell their story about your product. Its brilliant.

Check out the GK Elite Blog to see how they are soliciting stories from gymnasts around the world! 

Don't Miss Out; Refer Today

Tuesday, February 16, 2010 by Compendium Client Marketing
If you haven't already taken the time to submit a referral to Compendium for our February referral program - now is the time!

Don't forget - our current referral program is offering you a $25 Amazon Gift Card for every referral you send our way - limit 10 per person. Also, if that referral you send starts blogging with Compendium within 30 days - we'll send you a brand new Amazon Kindle!

It can't get much better than enjoying a FREE $25 Amazon gift card or Kindle AND introducing a friend to the best blogging software available! Send your referrals today - this offer is only valid until February 28th.

140 Characters v. 140 Words

Thursday, February 11, 2010 by Brittan Bright
Those of us who have adopted and embraced social media usually don't have a problem sharing.  Twitter, Facebook, and even LinkedIn, encourage us to micro-blog in about 140 characters.  We tell our business contacts about projects we are working on, we share links to interesting/funny videos, we make recommendations, we vent, we uplift and we seek information. 

Compendium offers such easy to use blog software that blogging is now as simple as announcing my loyalty to the Colts, my frustration with my commute in the snowpacalypse, and Compendium's next exciting webinar.

3 Tips When Designing your Blog

Tuesday, February 9, 2010 by Megan Glover
Let's face it, there aren't a lot of resources available when designing your blog template for business. And, what resources do exist are hardly relevant to business objectives.

At Compendium, we know that over 65% of our client base chose our blogging software for: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and lead generation. In order to facilitate these goals, we help our clients design their blogs for maximum demand generation and return.

Here are 3 (simple) tips to consider when designing your template:

1. Get to know your audience.  Do me a favor... look at your analytics, and I would be willing to bet that 75-100% of your visitors are BRAND NEW. When designing your template always, always keep your audience in the forefront of your offers.

2. Use referring keywords to develop Calls-to-Action. Now that you understand who is visiting your site, you must understand why. Looking at your referring keywords will allow you to understand what your visitors were searching when they found your blogs. For instance... at Compendium, corporate blogging software and blog content creation software continue to be leading keywords that drive our content and calls-to-action.

3. Get Analytics. If I lost  you at Tip 1 because you have zero idea how to measure or track this info... then you should probably re-think your blogging strategy.

By default we install Google Analytics tracking on every single client template. That allows us to help and nurture our client's success to ensure we are delivering the measurement they sought our help for in the first place.

For more template tips, check out my colleague Mikey Mioduski's blog post about improving conversion.


Business to Business People Can Blog Too!

Friday, February 5, 2010 by Ford McAlexander
I know so far in my blog I've only written about business to consumer case studies that Compendium Blogware offers as evidence of the reason why our software works. Compendium Blogware also serves business to business clients as well and they have used the best blogging software to drive organic search results which equate to more conversions.

One of Compendium's clients is Widen Enterprises, who sells premedia/prepress software, has seen huge results from their blogging efforts. They have purchased 15 more blogs from Compendium since the beginning of their blog in December of 2007 and now they rank in Google's top searches. If you're a business to business type, then you really should check out this case study here.

Why you need an Enterprise Social Media Platform

Monday, February 1, 2010 by Chris Baggott
Do you use Corporate Blogging Software?  Twitter, Facebook?  It's been well reported here and pretty much everywhere else that spending by business on Social Media efforts are exploding. Are you keeping up with the best tools for business?    What's shocking is the rapid adoption of free or consumer oriented Social Media tools by business with very little diligence into the very real risks posed by incorporating these tools. 

Most hopefully remember the well publicized security breach exposed by Robert Scoble in his blog last September where he reported:

Anyway, this time (hackers) they also put some malicious code on my archive pages. Google sent me an email saying they had removed my blog from its index. That got a whole team to look into how they broke in. Now thanks to TechCrunch and Mashable you know there was a vulnerability in Wordpress which let them break in.

Corporate blogging securityToday ZDNet reported on a new release of the annual Sophos Securtity Threat Report 2010 which outlines the results of their survey sharing the current thoughts on Social Media Security.

Here is a great observation by Sam Diaz, senior editor at ZDNet:

"Here’s something that struck me as interesting: 72 percent of the firms surveyed said they’re concerned that employee behavior on these sites puts their infrastructures and sensitive data at risk. Yet, 49 percent of these firms allow their staff unfettered access to Facebook..."

There is no question that there are amazing opportunities for businesses leveraging social media.   But, like  all other business software, we have to use the right tools that maximize the rewards, while minimizing the risks.  Businesses can't afford the free-for-all that all this openess has bred.

The best blogging software is SaaS based, incorporates workflows for control and compliance and integrates sharing to other social networks.   

The iPad and Social Media

Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Allison Bowen
Okay, so I'll admit it - I'm often very bad at turning on the evening news or even picking up a daily newspaper to see what is going on in the world.  I used to feel bad about this and promised myself that when I got into the "real world" I would be better at staying connected with the world.  Little did I know that the outside world would actually connect itself with me...
iPad

Take for example the new Apple iPad.  I have an iPhone, but that's about the extent of my Apple knowledge.  Unless there is a big, exciting update coming out for my phone, I really can't say I follow the products. 

These days though, I can't get away from recent news.  On the day of the big iPad release, I woke up, checked my Twitter and saw a number of tweets regarding the new product.  On Facebook, people were talking about what it would be like.  Blog posts on Mashable were all about the new item.  So of course, what did I do?  I did a Google search to see what all the hype was about.  And what do you know -- without ever watching the news, suddenly I was up to date on the day's happenings!

The same thing can happen for your company.  There are all sorts of way to drum up excitement for a new product release.  First, start with the best blogging software - Compendium's of course!  By writing a blog for search engine optimization, you already have a leg up on your competition.  You can then highlight your blog posts on Twitter and Facebook and go from there.  Start today -- who knows, your new product might be the next big thing I see on Twitter!

Blogging Gets Results

Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Allison Bowen
Quite a few months back I wrote a blog post about our new Orr Fellowship blog.  In that post, I promised to keep you updated on the result of our efforts to blog for search engine optimization.  Well unfortunately, I have failed miserably with the commitment.  But trust me, it's not because we're not seeing results!
Orr Fellowship

In fact, I have been blown away by the results that we have seen just by using Compendium's simple blogging software.  Since I am a Compendium employee, I know how amazing our product is, but even I was surprised!

With just around twenty posts, we have already risen to the top of Google's search results for the following words:

Distinguished Post Grad Jobs
Entrepreneurial Jobs Indianapolis
High Growth Companies Hiring New Grads
Post Graduate Networking Indianapolis
Indiana Small Company Jobs

There are also a number of other keywords for which we are rising to the top.  Amazing!  Not only does our blog allow us Fellows to connect with each other, it also allows us to reach potential Fellows.  As undergraduates begin searching online for jobs after graduation, they'll come across the Orr Fellowship blog.  

Blogging is quickly becoming a powerful recruitment tool for the Fellowship.  What could it do for your company?  Every company is looking to recruit someone -- buyers, clients, you name it.  Compendium provides the best blogging software that will allow you to engage with your clients while still obtaining the search results you are looking for.  Give us a call today!


Ask an SEO Expert...Again.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 by Heather Benfield
Last week SEO Guru, Stephan Spencer, teamed up with Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott on a highly successful webinar, "Ask an SEO Expert: Stephan Spencer" (Watch the Replay here).

While I was typing up some blog posts about the Best Blogging Software Ever (Okay, I might be a little biased), I tuned in to hear what Stephan had to say - and was extremely glad I did!

I really learned a lot about SEO such as:

-How to use keyword research tools to see which search terms are more important than others and targeting those keywords into the content I write.

-How to get Google, Yahoo and Bing to consider my blog as important, trustworthy and authoritative material.

-The difference between anchor text and metadata and their role in SEO.

Webinar attendees were able to submit their SEO questions to Stephan before and during the Webinar for him to answer. Since there were so many questions, Stephan didn't have time to answer them all so he agreed to come back and hold another Q&A session!

Becuase I learned so much during the first one, I'm definitely planning on attending the second one...and you should too!

To register, click on the GoToWebinar Link below:

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/808383930





Trade Links With Your Customers

Friday, January 15, 2010 by Jess Wehner
We all know links are important for growing traffic on your business blog, but what a lot of people don't know is how to get links.  There are lots of great ways to get links: blog directories, forums, other industry blogs, etc.  But one easy way to get links that I wanted to focus on in this post is trading links with partners/customers.  This strategy works really well because:
  1. It benefits both parties - each website gets an inbound link
  2. The links are relevant - instead of just putting links anywhere on the web, why not put them in practical places that make sense to the end user
One easy way to do this is if your customer/vendor has a blog.  For example, I was speaking with one of our newer clients today, iGoDigital, and noticed that they talk a lot about the work they have done on different client's websites.  When I dug a bit deeper, I also noticed that many of these clients have blog (some even use Compendium's corporate blogging software!)  A blog post about a client is not only a great place to showcase your work to potential customers, it's also a great place to get some link-love.  If you are linking out to someone, don't just give it away for free!  Ask them to link back to you!

For more linking help or information on boosting your blog software reach out to your client success manager today.  Not a client?  View a demo today and learn how you can start turning your blog into search traffic

Blog Resources Over the Holidays

Wednesday, December 23, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry
Happy Holidays from Compendium Blogware!With the holidays fast approaching, we recognize that many individuals will be out of the office, and several offices closed.  We wanted to inform everyone that our offices will be closed the following days:
  • December 24
  • December 25
  • December 31
  • January 1
Should you need assistance during one of these days, please visit our Online Knowledge Base which houses our FAQ page, best blogging practices, and previously recorded client webinars.  If you need assistance before then, please contact your Client Success Manager directly.

Also of note, our development team will not have their normally scheduled weekly releases until after the holidays.  We have several exciting plans for development of our blogging solution for the coming year

We look forward to what 2010 holds and wish everyone a splendid holiday season!

the best blogging software for business

Thursday, December 10, 2009 by mikey mioduski
best blog software for business

Many companies have realized by now that corporate blogging offers many benefits, namely improved search presence. Our cofounders realized this a long time ago, and saw that through blogging, a company can create a huge net of keyword rich blog pages that serve as landing pages for a range of targeted keywords-- ones helpful to potential searchers.

In other words, business blogging helps you get found. Compendium, I feel, is the best blogging software for businesses because our software as a service enables them to get up and writing on a fully scalable level devoid of the hassles, plugins, downloads and security issues that come along with most popular freeware blogging platforms. Because of this, companies using Compendium to drive their search marketing efforts will find measurable success with tangible return on their investment.

Another reason to go with Compendium? Because we are a software-as-a-service blogging platform, that means we have a vested interest in our clients' success. We consult with SEO experts to constantly improve our product, we continue to develop new features and improvements, and advise our clients on how to best incorporate them.

That's what makes Compendium Blogware such a great option to get organizations of any size up and blogging, worry free and fully focused on driving keyword results.

Tips & Tricks - #4 "Setting Your Timezone"

Monday, November 30, 2009 by Allison Bowen
As you sit down to use the world's best blogging software (Compendium's of course!), you may wonder what in the world the red bar at the top of your template editor is telling you to do.  Set your timezone?  Where?  Why would you want to do that?

Setting your timezone is actually an important step to complete when preparing to write your posts.  If you would ever choose to schedule a post for a future release, it would be crucial that your timezone is set correctly. 

The process of setting your timezone is extremely simple!  When logged in to your user or admin account, simply click on the "Account" button in the upper right hand corner of your screen.  From there, you have the option to set your timezone.  Select "US" and then choose your region.  From within this account screen you can also choose to modify your name, e-mail, blog title, description and more.  Click at the bottom to "Save Changes" and your timezone will be set!  The red bar will no longer appear at the top of your template editor.  

ADMINS - From within the admin moderation panel, you may notice that all times show up in the "UTC" timezone.  UTC is an international time scale which is commonly used in astronomical and aviation publications and more.  Local timezones can be expressed as an offset from UTC, e.g. Indianapolis is UTC-5 that is, 5 hours behind UTC.  Our blog software uses servers that run on this timezone, hence why this time appears in your admin screen. 

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