Best Practice Blogging

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.

I'm a Blog Admin! Now What?!

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Allison Bowen

As an employee for Compendium Blogware, my job every day is to help our clients with our blog software. This often means that I find myself updating calls-to-action, explaining how clients can add users and answering other various questions that our users and admins might have.

But recently, the tables have turned. I have now become a blog admin myself! Now what do I do?!

Both Amber Mohling and I are fellows with the Orr Fellowship program. The Orr Fellowship program provides a unique opportunity for undergraduate students searching for their first salaried, full-time position following graduation. It's been a great opportunity for both of us!

Well wouldn't you know it, we recently were able to set up an Orr Fellowship blog. And I'm the new blog admin! Check it out -- http://blog.orrfellowship.org. I now find myself actually performing some of the duties that we discuss with clients each day. So as a new blog admin, what have I done? Followed Compendium's blogging best practice tips, of course!

Updated our calls-to-action
Added ShareThis to our blog (visit here and send the code to help@compendium.com)
Encouraged my bloggers to blog frequently and consistently
Made sure each blogger has a sticky post set up
Monitored my Google Analytics statistics (admins should get them each Monday by e-mail)

It has definitely been an adventure, but I'm really enjoying being a blog admin. When I saw the number of click-throughs from our blog and our most recent search results, I was thrilled. Compendium really does provide the best blogging software!

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?

Great Blog Template Re-Designs

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Kaila Woodside

Over the past few weeks I have been working with a few clients to re-design their blog. The re-designs are happening for a few different reasons - but the #1 reason is always to increase conversions. A blog for business that brings in 1500 visits a day - but doesn't convert a single

on to a lead is problematic. Check out a few great new blog re-designs:

blog.widen.com
survey.cvent.com
blog.hhgregg.com

Blogging Best Practices push for a stand out Call to Action on your blog that will easily allow visitors to take the next step with your business. Take a look at the widen blog (pictured right) the nice eye-catching image with an easy to locate call to action to "TAKE THE TOUR" immediately grab the attention of the searchers.

These re-designs have been in place for only a short period of time and have already generated more leads and/or more qualified leads on average.

Know Your Audience - and the Difference Between an Oven and Range

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Tyler Bender

This morning, while I was editing some blog content, I ran across something I had never seen before.

(preface: before you make any judgments on me or my lack of knowledge, please understand that I am a 26 year-old guy who isn't that far removed from dormlife in college and has never done the following:

bought a house
bought an oven
shopped for either a house or an oven
used an oven for anything more than a place to see what time it is in the kitchen.
been so intrigued by the names of various components on an oven that I felt the urge to ask the nearest person in my vicinity. )

This blog was about outfitting a new home with new appliances. Particularly a new oven. Only they didn't call it an oven anywhere in their text. Ever. They called it a "range." But I saw the picture in the post! It looks like an oven to me!

When I think "range," my mind immediately goes to golf or guns. Not ovens. Actually, there's only one oven-looking device on the first two google image search pages when you type in "range." So it's not at the top of other peoples' minds either.

I thought to myself, "ok maybe this writer isn't writing to me. Maybe they're writing to a different demographic. Maybe since I've never seen the backend of a kitchen, I should ask someone else if "range" was appropriate and common appliance-speak among regulars."

I asked the people around me (all female coworkers). They told me that "range" is part of an oven, and commonly referred to as "oven range," but most people probably don't exclusively call it a "range" without the "oven" preceeding it - and they certainly don't go tell a salesman "I'm in the market to buy a new range...show me what you got!"

(note: And after doing a little research, I learned that a range is the combination of an oven and a stove-top. Who knew?)

So if I'm not their target audience, and these women aren't their target audience, who IS their target audience? Are they even writing to their target audience at all? If I'm confused by the content in question, who else will be?

Point is - we need to know who our audience is when we're trying to blog for business. Sometimes when we're blogging we're so focused on hitting target keywords, learning blogging best practices, repeatedly having something to write about each day, it can be easy to lose what might be most important - the connection with our audience.

When you're blogging for search, put yourself in your audience's shoes. Use the most common language ("oven" or "oven range" - not "range") that anyone can understand. Don't expect people to know everything you know.

The great thing about blogs is that people can find you even when they don't exactly know what they're searching for. So don't lose them because your content is unclear and not directed toward an audience.

The upside of this morning: at least now I know what a range is. Just wish I didn't have to spend this long learning it.

Click here to learn more about Compendium Blogware and how blogging can help your business.

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.

Where's your call-to-action?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Stephanie West

http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-picture-frame-gold-path-included--image432413

Picture this: You have written a great blog post. It is well-written and full of substantial content. You may even have included relevant pictures in order to capture your reader's eye.

But here is where the problem is: After the reader/viewer reads your post, there is nothing left to do. Maybe they are really interested in what you had to say, but if you need to have something for them to click on to get more information. That's where call-to-actions (CTAs) come into play.

Having a link within your blog post allows the reader to seek further information if they are interested. Having CTAs embedded in your blog is also a great way for readers to learn about your product or service.

CTAs on the top and side bars of your blog that contain links to additional resources are very beneficial to the reader, as well as the marketer. Marketers are able to track the effectiveness of blogs by these CTAs and the leads that are generated.

When you blog for search engine optimization - great! But you need a way to convert those leads into prospects - which is where your CTAs come into play. Incorporating these CTAs as a part of your blogging best practices will make your blog a better SEO tool. Compendium provides a great blogging platform, and the Client Success team at Compendium will help incorporate your CTAs so that they provide the most benefit.

November Webinar: Finding Business Blogging Success, Real-Life Stories

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Jess Wehner

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.
Receive over 50,000 keyword referrals each month.

Concrete and Services Company in Minneapolis:

Customer was searching for “spancrete”.
Found the company’s blog and called.
$3000 job complete within 48 hours of search.

Happy Halloween from Compendium!

Sunday, November 1, 2009 by Kaila Woodside

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.

Great Blogging Templates

Sunday, November 1, 2009 by Kaila Woodside

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:

CVENT Web Survey Software
CVENT Event Management
Lydia's Uniforms
Roto Rooter
ExactTarget
Widen

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!

The Backbone to a Corporate Blogging Strategy

Saturday, October 31, 2009 by Kaila Woodside

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.

Compendium's Complexity

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Allison Bowen

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!

We want your suggestions!

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Stephanie West

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:

What else you would like to hear about?? Please submit suggestions in the comment section of this blog.

Taking Action with Great Calls-to-Action

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Kaila Woodside

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).

Some Blogging Motivation and Email Marketing

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Kaila Woodside

Every time I meet with a client who is having a hard time keeping their bloggers motivated, I always ref

er 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 k

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.

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.

Business Blog Spotlight: North American Bancard

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Jess Wehner

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.

We Want Your Ideas...

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 by Meghan Manning

drdeclutterblog.com/.../2009/09/lightbulb-3.jpg

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!

Blog Training Available!

Monday, October 26, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

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).

Tuesdays:
- User Training - 2:00 pm
- Admin Training - 2:30 pm

Thursdays:
- User Training - 10:00 am
- Admin Training - 10:30 am

Happy blogging!

Real Clients, Real Training!

Friday, October 23, 2009 by Allison Bowen

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!

Administrator and User Training is on its way!!

Thursday, October 22, 2009 by Allison Bowen

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!