We have a webinar coming up this month that is sure to be interesting for clients and prospective clients alike.
If you are a current client, this will be a great time to learn about what some of Compendium's most successful customers are doing on their business blog, how they incorporate blogging best practices, and what success really means to them. Come see how you can make improvements to your current blog program.
If you are new to Compendium, come learn about how blogging for search can lead to an increase in traffic to your site, generate leads, and increase sales from people that have actually experienced these results.
As a snapshot, you'll hear from the following types of companies who blog for business:
eCommerce Gymnastics Apparel Company:
Over $100,000 closed business within a year, directly from blog traffic.
$10,000 in sales within the first two months of blogging with cheer uniform network.
SaaS Event Management and Web Survey Company:
500% increase in keyword reach, compared to the number of paid keywords targeted.
Happy Halloween from Compendium! That cutie over there is my sweet little cousin Carter dressed up in his astronaut costume. He is my motivation for my Halloween post of the day. 5 spooky ideas for your next 5 blog posts that follow blogging best practices:
1. Tell a spooky story. Testimonials are a great way to allow your prospects to hear from your current clients.
2. Creepy Statistics - Your prospects want numbers. Numbers showing clear ROI from your product are great ideas for blog posts.
3. Show a Scary Video! Videos embedded right into your blog post will give your readers a different way to connect with your product.
4. Report on an evil story. Sharing a story where your company is highlighted is a great way to talk about your company's success from another angle.
5. Happy Halloween - blogging about timely holidays and events are great for search. Show your personal side and share how your company celebrates holidays and events.
New clients coming on board with Compendium are always wondering if they can see some of our best-looking templates . Obviously, "best" is a relative term - and when I say best I mean a template that has great calls-to-action, high conversion rates and high read times. Here are some of the templates that I send new clients to:
Each of these blogs has a great design that follows blogging best practice and makes it easy for the searcher to take the next step with the company. A blog for business should highlight the company's' brand and give the searcher in each stage of the buying process a possible next step. If you'd like to learn more about how to update your blog software template, email us at help@compendium.com!
If there is one thing that makes a powerful blogging software even more powerful its a great blogging administrator. The main job of a blogging administrator is to approve and decline the blog content submitted by the company bloggers. But a great blogging administrator does much more. A great blogging administrator typically does the following as well:
1.) motivates the team of bloggers daily with new ideas 2.) develops incentive programs for the bloggers 3.) understands exactly how to track the success of the blog program back to a clear ROI 4.) is also a blogger and contributes daily to the blog 5.) is personally excited and motivated by the blog program 6.) understands blogging best practices and enforces those with the bloggers.
A great blogging administrator can be the difference between a good and a great blog for search engine optimization.
As the main manager of our help@compendium.com e-mail, I often see many different cases come in to our queue. Sometimes clients are requesting blogging best practice tips. Other times clients are looking to have a call-to-action changed or have a question about how to best blog for search results. No two cases are ever the same; it keeps my life exciting!
I've had the opportunity to learn so much about our simple blogging software and every day I'm more and more amazed at how complex it is. Only our amazing engineering team can figure out how to make everything work together! Maybe they should take a break from our software and try their hand at an invention like the one in the video below!
Webinars are a great way to get information about a particular topic. At Compendium, our webinars are focused on blogging - corporate blogging in particular.
There are numerous benefits of blogging for your business. Chris Baggott, Compendium's Co-founder and CEO, has spoke about many issues around corporate blogging. But now has come the time for YOU to let us know what you'd like to hear about. What type of blogging best practices would you like to hear about? We want your opinion and suggestions because webinars are designed for YOUR benefit!
Some informative Webinar topics previously discussed include:
Calling all Compendium Clients! Last Chance! Last Chance!
This afternoon at 2:00 PM EST the Client Success team will be talking about Calls-to-Actions on your Compendium blog. Call-to-Action, or CTAs, are the lead generation gateway to your business. A blog with great search rankings, great content and no CTAs would be useless as you aren't giving your prospect any reason to continue the conversation with you. CTAs are a trackable way to ensure that the folks who are finding your blog are engaged enough to take the next step.
This afternoon, Chantelle Flannery will be discussing blogging best practices for what makes a good call to action. She will go through Compendium's guidelines for CTAs and even highlight several client CTAs that are working well.
To join the webinar just register HERE (or click on the Call to Action in this blog post).
Every time I meet with a client who is having a hard time keeping their bloggers motivated, I always refer to one of the best strategies I have heard thus far: Smiley Faces.
ExactTarget, a long time user of Compendium, had a tough time motivating the 300+ plus employees to blog. They tried contests, games, prizes, etc - and it would produce a bit more content, but they needed more. A constant reminder for the bloggers. A few months back they came up with a brilliant idea that has worked really well for their company. Each week the marketing team counts up the posts written during the previous week and throughout the month for each of the bloggers. Then, leveraging their email marketing program they send a personalized email to each and every blogger letting them know where they stand. Included on this email is the Team goal, blogging best practices, tips and tricks as well as a few blog posts ideas for the coming week. However, the big motivation on this blog comes from a simple "smiley face" in the top right hand corner. If a blogger created enough content they receive a "smiley face". If they have a couple posts but didn't reach their goal - a "neutral/straight face". And if you didn't blog at all.... a "frowny face". This simply weekly reminder that you either helped the company drive results or that you let them down has kept the bloggers pumping out content each and every week.
Compendium's Client Success Team is here to help your company leverage powerful blogging software. We will work with your company to find out what motivates your bloggers, what drives results and how can your company win search through a blogging strategy.
One of our client's who just joined compendium is North American Bancard. North American Bancard is a payment solutions provider that has hit the ground running with blogging! They have been up for just a couple weeks now, and already have 30 plus posts on their blog! Many clients are constantly asking what else they can be doing to make their blog more successful, but the answer is simple - write more content and you will get more traffic. North American Bancard is proof of this, as they were indexed and started receiving search engine traffic within the first few weeks of writing content.
They are also doing a great job of incorporating blogging best practices by posting consistently, incorporating their keywords, and using white space to engage and entice readers. If you want to see an example of a client that does a good job writing frequent, relevant content, check out the North American Bancard Blog.
You may know that Compendium hosts a new Webinar featuring our CEO/CoFounder Chris Baggott once a month - if you didn't know that, check out some of our Webinar replays so you can catch up on what you've missed. They're jam packed with knowledge on search marketing strategies and blogging best practices that you won't find anywhere else!
For the month of November, we're trying something different - instead of us deciding what topic we're centering our next Webinar around - we want to hear from you! Tell us what topics you would like to have Chris cover next month.
Making sure that you recieve the information that you want is most important to us. So leave your ideas in the comment section below, you never know, it may be the next Webinar topic!
We are excited to announce that Compendium Blogware now offers blogger and administrator training for our clients! So if you're a new blogger or just need to brush up on some blog best practices, sign up to attend one of our weekly training sessions.
There are separate times depending on which access you have to the company's blog network, so be sure to contact your Client Success Manager to let them know which one you'll be attending, and they'll be able to send you the log in information (note - all times are Eastern).
Although the Compendium blog software is very easy to use, many of our clients appreciate some sort of training just to learn all the in's and out's of the system. This is where I come in! I have been working to develop a training webinar for both users and administrators. So far I've compiled a PowerPoint, developed wording and even presented the webinar to our Client Success team and my parents. Everyone gave me a thumbs up!
However, the trust test came today. Early this afternoon I presented both the user and admin training webinars to a few clients who have just begun using our power blogging software.
I began with the user training session. I kicked off the webinar with an introduction and showed users how to complete the four-step set-up process. I then demonstrated how to create a sticky post and how to add pictures, hyperlinks and video. I also pointed out a few other little-known features of the Compendium software.
During the administrator session, I demonstrated how to add users and select target keywords. I then took the clients through the process of reviewing and approving/declining posts from their users as well as comments from readers. At the end of the webinar, I went over a few blogging best practices that admins should ensure their users follow.
Overall the trainings received awesome reviews! I am now working to develop a way to share these trainings with all of our clients. Watch for a link soon!
You can go ahead and mark your calendars now. The user trainings will take place Tuesdays at 2:00pm and Thursdays at 10:00am. Admin trainings will take place at 2:30pm on Tuesdays and at 10:30am on Thursdays. More details to come!
As we continue to grow here at Compendium we are constantly seeing the need for new programs, product features and more. Once such thing we've seen a huge demand for has been Administrator and User Training! Well, guess who they decided should be responsible for developing this program?! That's right... ME!
Although our system is a software as a service product and fairly self-explanatory, we do want to give our clients every opportunity to learn as much about our blogging solution as possible. If you don't know how to user the system, how will you even begin to write the best blog for search engine optimization?
I began thinking about exactly what this training should include and how it should be presented to our clients. The final verdict? A webinar! I'll be bringing live admin and user training to you each and every Tuesday and Thursday. Anyone can attend!
I've been working hard to develop the best content for this training program. I'll be demonstrating our simple blogging software and will even offer some blogging best practice tips at the end of the webinar. For now, I'm working to practice presenting this webinar so it will be a success. Watch for future posts from me regarding how the program is coming along and when you can sign up to be a part of the webinar!
Writing a blog post does not have to long, drawn out process. You can write a very powerful, successful post in less than five minutes if you wanted. The good thing about blogs is that people aren't necessarily going to them for the most in depth detail you can provide. Businesses should use blogs as a bounce pad to the company website
If potential customers land on your company website researching products and services that you provide after finding the links through your blogs, the blog is successful.
You can provide information in your blog that customers would be searching for, like upcoming events and promotions, but the best blogging practices include writing about relevant information.
Writing about the things that customers are searching for is the best form of search marketing. Think of the power that comes from showing up at the top of a Google search for your products and services...
Here at Compendium, we want to make sure that the commitment level of blog marketing doesn't scare you away. Blogging is a successful way to increase your marketing campaign.
And blogging is quick: This post clocked in at 5 minutes and 42 seconds...
It's easy, just contact Compendium today and we'll tell you how blogging fits your company.
If you've never seen the Target Lady SNL skit, check it out below (enjoy a good belly laugh) and then allow me to explain how this situation relates to search marketing.
The Target lady has a drastic business downfall... she yells the benefits of her products at the customers and scares them away. For your marketing initiatives, instead of always yelling into your prospective clients' ears, why don't you allow for them to search for you online and pursue your business offerings?
Compendium's affordable blogging software allows for you to get found online organically in search by your potential clients.
For more blogging best practices, check out the Compendium website.
That's right, Blog World is happening again and Compendium Blogware is going to be there. Come on by and visit us. We will be talking about blogging best practices and are more than willing to walk you through how a simple blogging software like Compendium can get you in front of those who drive your bottom line.
We are excited to be out there for the second year in a row and are looking forward to visiting with all of our Friends of Compendium from last year....that means you Southwest.
Chris will be speaking on Thursday as well at 11 am so if you are going to be there, make sure you get to listen to him. It is always a productive use of time.
Have you ever wondered what the difference between a productive person and unproductive person is?
Think about how much an unproductive person talks about and complains about the amount of work they have to do. I will admit - I do this too! But what good does it do?
Consider the amount of time you would save if you stopped talking about all the work you need to accomplish and just did it. I know I would save hours a week!
So what would I do with those extra hours?
I'd BLOG, of course!
People have the misconception that blogging takes a strenuous amount of time and that they have to be extremely creative. Well, they are wrong. Blogging can be done in 10 minutes. That's it. It won't cut into your "to-do" list any further then that.
Compendium offers many tools that help you follow blogging best practices in order to finish your blog post in 10 minutes. All you need is simple blogging software and a competitive blogging platform (like Compendium's) in order to generate blog content and see results.
So I challenge you - stop THINKING about blogging and just BLOG! Compendium's blog experts will reassure you that blogging CAN (and SHOULD) be done in 10 minutes a day. Start to blog for business today!
I was reading another blog post regarding blogging best practices. The blogger suggested to "dress it up," referring to your blog post.
So what if you took that phrase (almost) literally? If you dressed your blog post, what would it look like?
Doesn't your own style (at least) somewhat reflect you and your personality?? If so, don't you think your blog should reflect your company?
I challenge you to think of what dressing your blog post would look like... I think mine would look something like this:
It would have green eyes, because Compendium's signature color is green... and "green means go" when it comes to corporate blogging.
It would have a magnifying glass handy to examine blog content.
It would wear a hat/cap... and I'd call it a "thinking cap." Compendium's blogs are always generating new content with fresh ideas.
It would wear boots - because people wear boots when they are searching in the woods. A blog needs boots to search on the internet... boots help the blog get optimized in search engines.
So that's what my blog would look like if you wore clothes. What would YOURS look like??
Give your blog personality - and let each post reflect your company. My blog post is wearing clothes - what does that tell you about Compendium?!
Re-purposing is awesome for writing a quick post. I recently compiled a high level list of blogging best practices related to writing a great post. Here were my thoughts: Tips and tricks to writing a great blog post:
1. Use your keywords in the post title and in the first sentence of your post
2. Make sure you are covering timely and relevant topics in your post
3. Keep to a single, central theme that utilizes a few keywords that are relevant to the content
4. Use white space; people scan, they don't read. Write short paragraphs and bold important words Make sure you leave space around your images
5. Dress it up: pictures, data, and video all work great to differentiate your content
6. Numbered and ordered lists stand out and are simple to digest, use them often
7. Utilizing keywords effectively in your image descriptions will drive search results
8. Talk about new products and services
9. Keep your post engaging and creative; start with a great title
10. While we are not writing novels, keep your posts grammatically correct; blogs are casual, but they still need to be professional
11. Keep your posts to a couple of paragraphs in length
There are certain aspects of blogging that are necessary for each blog post.
These aspects can be considered "blogging best practices" and things to keep in mind for each blog post. They include:
Titles
Keywords
Recent/Frequency
Links
Blog Volume
Relevance
Notice the first bullet point of the list - the blog TITLE.
This is the first thing that internet searchers see - as well as what drives them to read further into your blog.
So what's in a title?
The blog title should give searchers an idea of the content within your blog post. There should also be an element of curiosity - don't leave the reader feeling like they already know what your blog post will say before they read its actual content. Make them WANT to read further.
More importantly, the title should contain a keyword that encompasses your blog post. This helps your blog be identified in organic search. Those keywords are what the searcher is looking for. Having the keyword in your blog title is identifiable to a searcher.
For more information on blogging best practices, check out Compendium's free Webinar:Why Blogs Are Your #1 Search Marketing Tool. You'll learn how these aspects of your blog will help you maximize the benefits of search marketing.
Hosted by Richard Cunningham, VP Marketing of Right On Interactive and Chris Baggott Co-founder, CEO of Compendium Blogware. Thursday, December 3rd 2009. Sign up here »
Happy Halloween from Compendium! That cutie over there is my sweet little cousin Carter dressed up in his astronaut costume. He is my motivation for my Halloween post of the day. 5 spooky ideas for your next 5 blog posts that follow blogging best practices: 
New clients coming on board with Compendium are always wondering if they can see some of our best-looking templates . Obviously, "best" is a relative term - and when I say best I mean a template that has great calls-to-action, high conversion rates and high read times. Here are some of the templates that I send new clients to: 
blogging administrator. The main job of a blogging administrator is to approve and decline the blog content submitted by the company bloggers. But a great blogging administrator does much more. A great blogging administrator typically does the following as well:
er to one of the best strategies I have heard thus far: Smiley Faces. 
now where they stand. Included on this email is the Team goal, blogging best practices, tips and tricks as well as a few blog posts ideas for the coming week. However, the big motivation on this blog comes from a simple "smiley face" in the top right hand corner. If a blogger created enough content they receive a "smiley face". If they have a couple posts but didn't reach their goal - a "neutral/straight face". And if you didn't blog at all.... a "frowny face". This simply weekly reminder that you either helped the company drive results or that you let them down has kept the bloggers pumping out content each and every week. 
One of our client's who just joined compendium is 
There are separate times depending on which access you have to the company's blog network, so be sure to contact your Client Success Manager to let them know which one you'll be attending, and they'll be able to send you the log in information (note - all times are Eastern).
That's right, Blog World is happening again and Compendium Blogware is going to be there. Come on by and visit us. We will be talking about blogging best practices and are more than willing to walk you through how a simple blogging software like Compendium can get you in front of those who drive your bottom line. 
So what would I do with those extra hours?
These aspects can be considered "blogging best practices" and things to keep in mind for each blog post. They include:
