Blog Authoring Software

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"

More Great Keyword Usage Tips

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 by P.J. Hinton

Yesterday, I blogged about Compendium's Keyword Strength Meter, touching on the dos and don'ts of keyword phrase usage. It turns out that Indy online marketing authority Doug Karr was thinking along the same lines and posted a very useful article on keyword usage and SEO on the Marketing Technology Blog that expands on this topic. If smart and non-spammy SEO is your goal, his post is definitely a must-read.

Keyword Strength Meter: What it Does and What it Does not Do

Monday, November 9, 2009 by P.J. Hinton

Compendium Blogware's post editor features a small widget known as the Keyword Strength Meter (referred to by the development team simply as the "KSM"). It's a display that gives the author a quick indication of the current keyword usage in your post. Starting at a bright red, the appearance will transition to green as keyword phrases are added to the post.

I wrote an introductory post about the KSM soon after it went live in the summer of 2008, and since then it has gone through many changes.

There were revisions to make sure that it was able to compute the score on the fly without imposing too much overhead the host browser.
When we switched editor technologies at the beginning of 2009, we made the code more modular so that it wouldn't be as tightly coupled to the editor that it was monitoring.
Also during the editor revamp, we changed the display to emphasize that the meter is a qualitative measure.
This past summer, after introducing a new moderation dashboard for network administrators, we added a keyword strength meter to the post preview so that network administrators could view the value.

One thing that hasn't changed as our user base has grown is the intense affinity that users have had for the widget. From Sales and Client Success, I have heard stories of users who endured great frustration because they couldn't make their posts turn the right shade of green. I've also heard of network administrators who have rejected posts because they weren't green enough.

As the developer of the original implementation of the KSM and the designer of its scoring algorithm, I think it's important for content authors and network administrators to have an awareness of what the meter measures so that it can be used effectively. I'll also talk about what it can't do for you.

The meter looks at three things in determining its score:

Does the post contain any keyword phrases?
Are the same phrases being used over and over, or is there a variety of keywords being chosen?
Are too many keywords being used relative to the length of the post?

These measures are combined in a way that simultaneously rewards keyword usage and penalizes keyword stuffing, a practice that Compendium discourages because it runs counter to what we are trying to help our clients achieve.

Keyword usage is but one piece of a successful corporate blogging program. Other significant factors include:

Creating Content Steadily -- The primary axis of content organization within a single blog is time. Newer content appears on the lead pages. Older content takes more mouse clicks to reach via pagination. Assuming that search ranking algorithms place greater emphasis pages closer to the root of a URL hierarchy, the new content is what gets the greatest weight. A steady stream of new content ensures that indexers know you're alive and relevant.
Choosing Topics Relevant to the Customer -- If sales of your products fluctuate over time and change of season, you'll probably want to adjust the emphasis of your posts accordingly. Sometimes the keywords you chose initially for your blogging program don't take these topics into account. If you focus too narrowly on the original keywords, you'll wind up creating posts that miss opportunities to convert.
Being Real by Letting the Rank and File be Themselves -- Our application makes it easy for organizations to add new user accounts for blogging. We do this to encourage our clients to a wide variety of employees blogging. Packing the blogging team with people exclusively from the Public Relations team runs the risk of making blog content read like those newsletter inserts that come with utility bills. Do you read those things? I didn't think so. Overemphasis on using exact keyword phrases in every post also runs the danger of making their usage look forced, which can be spammy looking.

What's common to all of these points? They cannot be measured by the KSM.

The content creation time line graphs on the network administrator's dashboard can help keep an eye on frequency. The content ideas panel on the user dashboard can provide timely reading for new ideas. Producing real content requires human beings with inspiration and knowledge of the customer's needs. No computer can replace that.

The bottom line? Use the KSM as part of a comprehensive strategy to make sure that keywords are being used in reasonable measure. Treat it as a rough guide, not an all-knowing oracle.

Steps To Add Your Blog To Facebook

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 by Jess Wehner

Doug has a post on adding your blog to facebook, but I realized it doesn't go in to detail on the step by step process, so I thought I'd create a post outlining the steps. Publishing your blog to your facebook page is an easy way to promote your business blog. While posting is important, it's also important to get inbound links to your blog and getting the word out about your new website is a great way to do this. By following the below steps, your facebook page will automatically be updated every time you write a new blog post.

Step 1: Login to Facebook and go to the networked blog page: http://apps.facebook.com/blognetworks/index.php

Step 2: Enter your blog's information

Step 3: Verify you are the author of the blog - you can do this by supplying us HTML code to put on your blog, or by getting 9 friends to approve that you are the author of the blog.

Step 4: If you choose to use the widget to verify ownership, send Compendium the below HTML code, and once we have placed the widget in your sidebar, you can hit the "verify widget" button. The widget can be removed once you have verified your blog.

Blogging for Business - Success Story from Taiga Company

Wednesday, October 14, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

As we like to consider ourselves partners rather than vendors of our clients, we frequently touch base with blog program owners to touch base, address questions, and provide guidance and feedback on their blog marketing strategy.

This past week I had the pleasure of speaking with Julie Urlaub from Taiga Company, who consults on business sustainability. Julie has seen not only great success from search traffic and click through rates, but also due to the blog, has been establishing herself as a thought leader in her industry.

During the recent meeting with Julie, she shared that a reporter from a well published news corporation had found her blog and is now interested in an interview. The interview will be re-purposed across LOTS of mediums and will drive "ungodly amounts of traffic and eyes to her company/blog" This interview would set them up for the entire year of 2010 by establishing them as credible and an authority in their field - which is a huge opportunity for for this small business!

This success story goes to show that no matter the size of your company, as any type of business it is always important to keep an eye on the return on your investments, whether they be monetary or other. Utilizing a simple blogging software such as Compendium, helps take the stress off of the you, and allow you to focus on the bigger picture - growing your company and bringing in leads.

If your interested in finding out more about our clients and their success stories, check out one of our case studies.

Easy to use blog software

Thursday, September 24, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

Sure there are several types of blog platforms available for use out there, but choosing which one is right for your business doesn't have to be difficult. Compendium's unique blog software allows your business to more efficiently manage your online marketing strategy by taking all the hard work out of it for you. The only thing your team has to focus on, is writing blogs!

Our powerful blogging software will manage your posts by sorting them into "keyword blogs" that allow your content to be focused and deliver a more relevant result to the searchers that are your potential customers. This allows your company to show that you are an authority in your vertical and can constantly be providing answers, because you are consistently creating new content!

On top of having a simple blog platform to use, we also have a team of individuals that are dedicated to assisting with your blog marketing strategy. The Client Success Manager's are here to help with coaching and strategic planning with your program so that you can focus on whats important to your business - bringing in more leads!

For more information on our easy to use blog software, schedule a demo today.

Blogger Keys to Success #1 (of 3)

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

The volume and diversity of your content is very important to search engines. Frequency of content plays an important role to search engine marketing because it:

Conditions the search engines to repeatedly return to your blog.
Builds authority and reputation on specific keywords associated with your domain.
Presents similar content in different ways to attract different audiences.

Don't worry about presenting the same topics in different ways, one of the great advantages of a corporate blog is that your visitors are expecting you to speak on topic! Here are 14 different types of blog posts to get you thinking!

Post Idea:
Write a blog post on a topic you've already written - but present it as a different type of post using one of the 14 types of blog posts. Create your corporate blog content now!

Why you should be blogging

Tuesday, September 8, 2009 by james litton

This might be the most pertinent reason for blogging. A blog simply is the best way to bring traffic to your Web site. This is especially the case if you are rolling out a new Web site that needs to establish its presence.

Blog administrators who consistently add valuable content over time will find their stock rising (and their Google PageRank heading north). Search engines like Google consider three major factors when returning search results:

Authority: Do other people consider your Web site to be important?
Longevity: How long has your Web site been around?
Relevance: How relevant is your Web site to the search terms entered

Once you have a general understanding of the process that goes into search results, you can more efficiently dissect each point. Authority is primarily based on links, creating links to other important sites and having important sites link to you. For example, the higher the PageRank, the more valuable the link will prove. (Domain names ending in .edu and .gov typically provide stronger results.) Unfortunately, you can’t do anything about longevity, unless you’re buying a blog that has been around for a while – this element requires patience and a consistent effort. Relevance is based on the keywords and links used in your blog. Researching and implementing a keyword strategy is an essential step in beginning any blog. The average blogger can positively increase both their authority and relevance, thereby increasing his or her organic search ranking on certain keywords.

- MT

Blog design Inspiration post: Gary Fisher 29er blog

Wednesday, August 12, 2009 by mikey mioduski

beatufiul business blog header design from the crew at gary fisher

Abeautifullyy designed business blog from the makers of my favorite mountain bikes, Gary Fisher. This blog, http://29ercrew.com, is specifically a blog for and by the company's 29ers, or bikes with big ol' 29 inch tires. (mtn bikes traditionally ride 26" wheels).

The main element that I really dig about the design of the 29er blog is the big fat header graphic. It's beautiful and it really sets the mood for the blog. While I think the blog might be kind of tricky to navigate, you never have a problem getting back to the homepage, that's for sure. Just click that massive header!

This isn't to say that every blog should have an enormous header or banner. You have to do what the brand and the content call for. For the case of Gary Fisher, a brand that has always had stellar graphics, it's cool. Plus, the blog is about bikes with huge tires, so why not have a huge header?

I'm here, now what?

Once they get you to the 29er blog, Fisher has one call-to-action on the sidebar directing you to the company's website where you can get more details about the 29 inch bikes, locate a dealer, and more. Nice integration. A succesful business blog will not only draw in traffic, but will send that traffic to a conversion point where they can be turned from a visitor to a lead or buyer.

How to improve the blog?

We tend to think that the goal of a business blog should be to get found in organic search. This particular blog would certainly benefit from our proprietary Compending process in terms of leveraging the content in the search engines. Our platform organizes content around specific keywords that potential searchers are looking for, as opposed to organizing by month, or by author, etc. By organizing content around these very specific keywords, which our software does automatically, the content goes much further in search because it is much more specific to a searcher's needs.

Don't get what I'm talking about? View a demo to see our advantage for yourself, and we'll even send you a $50 Starbucks Gift Card just for your time.

Blogs and the Business World

Monday, August 3, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

Social media and blogging are popping up everywhere in today's business world, as more and more companies start Facebook pages and Twitter accounts. The market is going online, and so are your potential customers. So what is your company doing to stay with the times and up to date with marketing?

This is where having a corporate blog allows your company to stay current, but also allow you to provide a human voice to your organization, that isn't just a sales pitch being thrown at customers. Individuals are going online, to search engines, to find the "answer" to their "problem", so make sure your company has a presence online in order to be found by those potential customers.

We here at Compendium obviously believe in the power of blogs, and the most important aspect to figure out when deciding on a blogging program for your company is the goal that you are trying to achieve. In a recent article on CNN, the author states:

"A blog can be useful for countless reasons, so it's best to decide for yourself what your purpose in starting it is," .......... "It's certainly fantastic for both visibility and staying current in today's market, but how you position it is ultimately going to determine how it works for you."

We couldn't agree more. The goal that you set for your corporate blog is ultimately what is going to drive results. If the goal is to simply have a place to write and win thought leadership, then the content requirement is going to be much less, than if the goal is to rank in the top 10 of the search results - which would require a much higher content creation level. The staff of Compendium is invested in our clients programs, and will help provide them the information and tools needed in order to accomplish their individual blog goals.

For more information on how to make your blog program successful, please contact our Client Success Team and we'd be happy to set up a blog review.

Does blogging for search make sense for B2B Marketers?

Thursday, July 23, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Blogging for B2B Search Engine Marketing, Blog software

I get a lot of questions from B2B marketers especially from old line companies who wonder if their customers use search.   A meeting I attended a couple of days ago featured a room full of these people.   "We sell precision drill parts for manufacturing....guessing our prospects and customers don't use search. (this is usually where they sit back and cross their arms)

Here is the thing.   First of all, never forget these people are really smart. They know their businesniess forwards and backwards. They understand their products and services and the needs of their customers (actually this is one of the reasons B2B salespeople make such great business blog authors)

But of course before you can become great at blog marketing and SEO, you have to accept the reality that your customers and prospects actually use search.... a lot. But of course you have to prove it and that's where Keyword research comes in.

My point is that you don't need to even discuss this, it's not a debate when you have irefutable facts in front of you.   Like the gentleman in the precision drill parts business, I asked for the name of one item "Collet" (whatever that is)   Go to Adwords and type it in..

"Huh....what do you think of that Bob?"   246,000 monthly searches just on that one term. There are thousands of other terms that include the term collet and would be relevant and valuable for this company to show up.   Suddenly the idea of Business Blog Software makes a lot more sense...

Links for 2009-07-20

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 by Blake Matheny

Links for 2009-07-20

Cracking the Code: Breaking Down the Software Development Roles - Software development is done differently at every organization, and in every home office throughout the world. The process that one organization or person uses to develop software may work for their specific environment and situation but may fail miserably in another set of circumstances. It is, in part, the differences in environments which make it so difficult to quantify the process of software development in a single set of terms that all practitioners can agree to. As newer approaches appear on the scene, such as extreme programming and agile development the perspective of the world on what the process should look like changes slightly or dramatically.
The Amazing Blog : Your Web Service Might Not Be RESTful If… - I like this article because for the most part it confirms good design on the Compendium Blogware API.
Study Hacks » Blog Archive » The Pyramid Method: A Simple Strategy For Becoming Exceptionally Good - My answer reflects an observation that plays an increasingly important role in my understanding of the world: if you want to do something interesting and rewarding — be it writing a novel, becoming a professor, or growing a successful business — you have to first become exceptional. As Study Hacks readers know, I think Steve Martin put it best when he noted that the key to breaking into a competitive and desirable field is to “become so good, they can’t ignore you.”
xkcd - A Webcomic - Estimation - Oh how I love XKCD. In this episode, the author of the windows file copy dialog visits some friends.

This is a collection of links I have bookmarked on del.icio.us for the date 2009-07-20

Destination CRM recognizes ExactTarget and their B2B blogging program

Monday, July 20, 2009 by Chris Baggott

I wanted to point out the great article that highlighted ExactTarget's use of Compendium Blogware. ExactTarget leverages their corporate blogging not only for the typical thought leadership aspects (where they excel) but as a primary means to engage their employees and as a B2B lead generation tool. Thanks to Jessica Tsai for a really educational piece. Keep in mind also that ET uses Compendium to power hundreds of blogs. This really is thought leadership and demand generation at it's finest.

A Blog Takes Aim at an Exact Target

With Compendium Blogware, email marketing software provider ExactTarget has turned its blog into a robust marketing strategy.

When ExactTarget began its corporate blog, the company started out using TypePad, the popular blogging software from Six Apart. At the time, only four people—the chief executive officer, two vice presidents, and a director—were regular contributors, But ExactTarget envisioned a greater role for its blog, and eventually looked to Compendium Blogware.

The software now organizes blogposts into “pages” based on content rather than author, explains Chris Baggott, Compendium’s cofounder and chief executive officer. What’s more, the title of each “page” matches a specific keyword phrase that improves search engine results. Since implementing Compendium in June 2008, ExactTarget’s keyword-focused blogs have increased blog traffic tenfold—and the number of unique visitors between mid-March and mid-April 2009 topped 8,000, according to Jeffrey K. Rohrs, ExactTarget’s vice president of marketing. The original quartet of corporate bloggers has expanded to more than 25 employees, and the designers, developers, and marketers involved have made the blog a place where, as Rohrs puts it, the “strategic and tactical, promotional and practical commingle.” And because bloggers write in their own styles, the blog matches real-world consumer phraseology. For instance, bloggers may use “email” or “e-mail,” which reflects searchers’ own inconsistencies.

Internally, the blog has generated a stronger corporate spirit as more employees get involved in creating relevant and useful content. “We’re actually seeing blogger-employees become more self-assured and assertive within the organization,” Rohrs says. In elevating these formerly “untapped voices,” he says, ExactTarget anticipates continued growth from a content and marketing perspective, with additional plans to enhance the look and feel of the blog and to bring in Web analytics to better mine the data.

iMedia Article - 5 Outstanding Business Blogging Programs

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 by Meghan Manning

Recently an article was released on iMedia Connection authored by Compendium's CEO/CoFounder Chris Baggott.

The article outlines 5 outstanding business blogging programs, check out the complete article here.

So you might be asking yourself - what constitutes as an outstanding blogging program? Well, the answer is simple - Chris addresses this question by stating the following:

"When contemplating this article, the first question I had to address was what exactly qualifies a corporate blog as being "outstanding." To me, an outstanding corporate blogging program is one that accomplishes the clearly articulated goals of the organization."

If you're thinking of starting a business blogging program of your own, review this article and see how easy it can be to fit blogging into your hectic schedule, and you never know, you might be able to run an outstanding blogging program and be featured in the next issue!

A case for employee powered blogging

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 by mikey mioduski

This is an interesting post by Rohit Bhargavaat Fast Company, "Newslfash: No One Cares About your Blog." As more and more companies and big brands are scrambling to grab onto the newest gadgets and technologies in social media, the expectation is that if you build it, they will come. Bhargavaat corrects us,

"Ironically, the thing that most brands have to worry about isn't negativity (as they often fear), it is indifference. The most common "backlash" against company sponsored social media initiatives are the embarrassing sounds of crickets. No one visits and no one cares."

Ring a bell? If it doesn't, it's because you are one of the majority who has better things to do than play with Brand XYZ's exciting new facebook app, despite their expecations that developing such a gadget would prove their relevance, importance or hipness in this rapidly changing marketing world.

Our CEO and Cofounder Chris Baggott often reminds us that our blogs aren't going to get followed as much as they are going to get picked up in a one-time search. The overwhelming majority of our blog traffic are first time visits, which tell us that searchers find what they're looking for in a post that was relevant to their search. We don't expect them to follow us everyday and join some sort of community around our business blogging software, they just happened to find our post in search. And that is our goal in our search marketing efforts, to get found.

Bhargavaat goes on, "Find the individuals who will be interacting on behalf of your brand in social media, and then give them the tools and support to do it well." This is something that a multi-author blogging platform enables, and when you allow your employees to generate content for you and "interact on your behalf," you are creating more and more outlets for your blog to be found. Maybe not "followed" regularly, but surely, found.

Low Authority and Cigars

Wednesday, July 8, 2009 by Douglas Karr

Search engines like Google place a lot of emphasis on a site's authority. What's authority?

Authority is a combination of backlinks, popularity and history associated with a domain.

For a customer who has no authority, that's an uphill battle to gain significant search engine traffic. We've got one such customer, Your Gift Baskets.

Not only does the domain not have authority, the vendor who runs the clients' site won't let him assign a subdomain off of his core site... so he's unable to even piggyback off of his core domain's history and had to set up a different domain for his blog.

Although it's a challenge, this is also where blog marketing is a perfect path to a successful search marketing strategy. As we continue to teach Dale, their blogger, how to write content and he writes it frequently... he'll begin to rank better on key terms. He's already showing up in search results - he just needs to generate some additional links to build on that ranking and generate a lot of authority.

When Dale's blog establishes that authority, there will be a lot more Cigar Gift Baskets for sale! Check out Dale's blog on unique gift baskets, he's got some great products!

10 Ways to Promote Your Corporate Blog

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Douglas Karr

Online marketing and search marketing requires some off-site promotion as well as on-site promotion.

Promote your corporate blog on your website. A link is great, aggregating your feed is even better!
Promote your corporate blog in your email signatures.
Promote your corporate blog in your business cards.
Promote your corporate blog posts via Twitter using HootSuite.
Publish your corporate blog on Facebook using Simplaris Blogcast or the Blog RSS Reader.
Promote your corporate blog posts along with other industry-specific posts using StumbleUpon.
Save your corporate blog posts with specific keyword-driven tags to Delicious. I recommend the Delicious Firefox add-on to make this easier!
Comment on other industry blogs and be sure to use your corporate blog address in the URL field of the comments, not your website url. People like to follow a blog from a great content!
Offer other industry bloggers a trade to guest post on each others' blog. This will expose your readers to their readers... and their readers to you!
Mention industry thought leaders in your corporate blog posts. Folks in the industry pay attention to who is talking about them. If you write a post worthy of mentioning, you'll get their attention, their audience, and if they link - some great authority.

Don't just leave it up to search engines only to find your content - promoting your content can drive traffic and backlinks to your blog. When you grow backlinks to your blog, search engine traffic will increase, too!

Links: Why they matter to your blog program

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Jess Wehner

As a Client Success Manager, one of my main goals is to ensure that the clients that are putting effort towards their business blog program are getting search marketing results (and those that aren't putting effort in - start to!). Every once in a while our team will come across a client that has been writing frequent, relevant content but is not seeing the search engine results they would expect. While there are many areas we trouble shoot and look through in order to understand what's happening, one area that always seems to stand out is having links.

No matter how much great content your business blog might have, if you don't have any links pointing back to your site, it's hard for Google to recognize your site as an authority and consequently rank it. Links can happen naturally, for example, as you write better and better people will begin to link to you naturally. But in order maximize your search marketing efforts you can build links too. Here are a couple easy ways to get links out to your blog.

Put a link to your blog...
1. On your website
2. On your social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)
3. On your partner's websites

Additionally, SEOBook has a list of 101 ways to build links - starting with having good content that people naturally want to link.

Links for 2009-06-24

Thursday, June 25, 2009 by Blake Matheny

Links for 2009-06-24

MetaWeblog - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - The MetaWeblog API is an application programming interface created by software developer Dave Winer that enables weblog entries to be written, edited, and deleted using web services. The API is implemented as an XML-RPC web service with three methods whose names describe their function: metaweblog.newPost(), metaweblog.getPost() and metaweblog.editPost(). These methods take arguments that specify the blog author's username and password along with information related to an individual weblog entry.
UIzard - Web Based Ajax Development Tool - uizard is an in-browser web application development tool.
Let's make the web faster - Google Code - From building data centers in different parts of the world to designing highly efficient user interfaces, we at Google always strive to make our services faster. We focus on speed as a key requirement in product and infrastructure development, because our research indicates that people prefer faster, more responsive apps. Over the years, through continuous experimentation, we've identified some performance best practices that we'd like to share with the web community on code.google.com/speed, a new site for web developers, with tutorials, tips and performance tools.
Face detection in pure PHP (without OpenCV) - Maurice Bloggue - Some PHP sample code that can do face detection.

This is a collection of links I have bookmarked on del.icio.us for the date 2009-06-24

Blog Marketing Tip #3 - do your research

Monday, June 22, 2009 by Brett Fritz

Some great tips for helping you market your blog for business. Tip #3 - do your research.

When companies set up a blog for business, many times one of the goals they have is to become known as a resource site for expert analysis and insight. A business blog is a great way to achieve this goal but you have to do your research.

Make sure that you keep up with all the current news and updates in the industry that you are talking about. Feel free to reference other new sources but remember what you were taught in high school English class... REFERENCE your work! If you take a snippet of a news article posted on a major news website, be sure to reference where you got that information from. The same holds true for other blogs. If you you like reading someones blog and one of their topics relates to your current blog post, mention the authors name. Link your post to his blog.

Doing your research will help your audience build that sense of trust that you really do have the expert knowledge in your industry. Build that trust but continually give good results back!

Blog Marketing Tip #3 - do your research