Blog for Ranking

Engage your readers

Friday, November 20, 2009 by Michael Burton

We probably all remember that teacher (or teachers) we had growing up who taught classes that seemed to drag on forever. They stood in front of the class, talking in a monotone voice, and they never engaged the class during the hour-long lecture. What was it about those teachers that turned us off so much?

A lot of it probably has to do with the fact we prefer to take part in teaching. The audience likes getting information in a give and take format. It's not just a one-sided thing.

Enter the world of PowerPoint, Youtube clips and other forms of multimedia! Today, many students claim that they focus on a presentation much better if there is multimedia involved.

This same philosophy can carry over to blog posts. It is great if you have a ton of things you want to say in your blog, but it is important to make it easy on readers. Including things like pictures, videos, and links can make blogging for search more fun on the writers and more engaging on readers.

Compendium's business blogging philosophy makes blogging easy and effective for any kind of writer. The important thing to keep in mind for any blogger is to have a way to keep your reader reading. A 500 word paragraph can come across as intimidating and time consuming and cause readers to leave your page.

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.

Compendium Makes Top Indiana Blogs List

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Jess Wehner

A few of our clients, coworkers, and friends were ranked last week as having some of Indianas top blogs! These blogs were voted in the top 50 based on content, comments, and visibility in Indiana and Indianapolis:

Compendium Business Blogs:

MediaTile: Digital Signage Solutions Blog
Fuseworks Studios

Compendium Employees:

Mikey Mioduski: Our Indiana Wedding
Megan Glover: Blog Content, Marketing And SEO

Friends of Compendium

Doug Karr: Marketing Technology Blog
Craig Lile: My Old Kentucky Blog

Checkout these blogs and more to see what's blogs are hot right now!

The power of the post for a business

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Julie Murphy

The power of the donut in the American office is amazing. We were given an opportunity to earn a free breakfast by each of us posting on our blog. The benefit for Compendium is we leverage our blogging for business to win organic search, if full participation is accomplished...everyone fills their tummy's Friday morning.

Personally, the donut is not a motivator for me personally but blogging for search with easy to use blog software is. Being the team player, I have been shamed in to blogging so that my comrades can stuff themselves in the morning.

You are welcome Clayton Blogware!

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.

Don't wait for the case study

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Jim Hyslop

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

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

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

How are you integrating your blog?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Stephanie West

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

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

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

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

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

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.

CPG Online Marketing Spends

Tuesday, November 17, 2009 by Clayton Stobbs

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

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

Gen Y women. What influences their brand discovery?

Friday, November 13, 2009 by Chris Baggott

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

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

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

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

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

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

New Study: Twitter drives search

Monday, November 9, 2009 by Chris Baggott

"Being in a social network is like going to someone's barbecue. People are talking about the experiences of their lives. The sharing experience that happens in the physical world also happens in the social." 48% of people who saw a brand's name on Twitter went to a search engine to look for the product.

Thats just one of the interesting findings by a new study out of Performics and ROI Research released last week. I also like this quote: "Thirty-two percent or respondents said messages about printable coupons on social sites resonate with them."

I've often talked about how companies should feature their coupons as part of their Business blogging strategy...especially when leveraging a blog for search engine optimization. The data clearly show a path from Twitter to Search. To me a better path is to make your blogs the anchor of your social media strategy and use a sharing tool to push that content out to Twitter with a tinyurl that will lead them back to the blog and the coupon. I'm not a Twitter expert like my collegue Kyle Lacey is. Kyle just released Twitter Marketing for Dummies and I'm looking forward to pick his brain about some of these Twitter and Corporate Blogging tactics.

Paula Berg: "Blogs are Central"

Monday, November 9, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Bobby Stark the President of Parthenon Publishing in Nashville posted the other day about a talk Southwests Paula Berg gave in October. I pulled this key insight from his comments:

"Blogs are Central" – As Berg put it, the blog is the anchor for all of Southwest’s social media efforts. In addition to the search engine benefits of fresh, relevant content, the blog allows Southwest to lead the conversation. And, while Southwest has some 30 employees who contribute to the Nuts about Southwest blog, it’s direction to them is a model for all potential bloggers: write about things you’re passionate about, make it personal and write when you want to.

The key takeaways from this simple statement and the video are that one of the primary benefits they get is by focusing the blog for search engine optimization and that all other social media efforts lead back to the anchor...the blogs.

I also like that she highlights widespread employee blogging and that this doesn't have to be a job or hard....if you care about what you do, blog about it with the real passion you feel. When you spread the load among many this becomes a whole lot easier.

If you watch the entire video, at the end, Paula talks about the benefits of this from an ROI standpoint.....They sell plane tickets. This in no way takes away from the other 'soft' benefits they get which also have huge value, but clearly they make money too. :-)

Don't forget to design your blogs for conversion

Monday, November 9, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Blog Design: Someone on a linked in group I follow mentioned blog design. This is critical, but not for the reason you might think. This specific discussion was focused on Blogging as a Search Marketing tool. This means that the majority of your blog visitors are going to be first timers...and more importantly finding you because they are trying to solve a problem.

In that light, you have to consider your calls to action. What are the CTA's that can turn that prospect into a customer?

So many bloggers focus the most valuable real estate on their blogs to CTA's like "follow me on twitter" or "RSS My Blog" and forget about the actions that actually drive business right now.

Think about these blogs as organic landing pages....akin to a PPC landing page. How does your PPC page convert traffic to leads and customers and apply that same design on your blogs.

Roto Rooter is a great example of this. People find these blogs by searching things like "Plumber Detroit" or "24 Hour Plumber". They are not that interested in being followers right now...right now they are trying to solve a plumbing problem. Help them by using clear Calls to Action on your business blogs.

Blog Template CTA Corporate Blogging software

Applying more SG to business blogging

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Brian Millis

Ok, so I try not to do double Seth Godin references but he seems to be so timely for what I'm doing. His most recent blog post begins with this quote:

"The problem with "everyone" is that in order to reach everyone or teach everyone or sell to everyone, you need to so water down what you've got you end up with almost nothing."

This is what I find so hilarious about most of the corporate blogs I read. Often time these busy business men and women spend time manually tagging or categorizing their freeware blog for things like: social media, agency, advice, technology, etc. etc.

These are such general topics for organization. Most of these people tell me that they spend time blogging for SEO and do this organization so they will be found in the search engine by qualified prospects. If you are a branding agency, why would someone search just "branding" or "agency"?! They wouldn't. They would search something like "branding agency in charlotte".

Seth's advice is great to heed when thinking about corporate blogging. If you try and make your blog about EVERYTHING or appealing to EVERYONE . . . . almost NO ONE will find you. Or you could look at it this way: A company that creates one blog and fills it with info ranging from industry news to product information simply waters down the blog, trying to make it about EVERYTHING. This means it will not be found by ANYONE or be a useful vehicle for getting found in search and driving traffic.

And this is why Compendium's structure is brilliant. Blog about EVERYTHING and let the software take care of the organization that actually makes it relevant to the searcher and the search engine.

Another Data Point In Why Search Leads Online Marketing

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Chris Baggott

People don't click on online display ads

Seth's Blog pointed me to some great data out this week from Jack Loechner of MediaPost. Read the story, but here is the punchline in the very first paragraph:

"The results of an update to the comScore highly publicized "Natural Born Clickers" research, conducted two years ago with Starcom USA and Tacoda, indicate that the number of people who click on display ads in a month has fallen from 32% of Internet users in July 2007 to only 16% in March 2009, with an even smaller core of people (representing 8% of the Internet user base) accounting for 85% of all clicks."

What does this have to do with blogging for search? Everything really. Online display ads are not that much different than offline display ads. Most of their value comes from branding, not from direct action. Search marketing on the other hand is almost entirely about intent. Searchers want to solve problems. You are in business to solve those problems. When you show up, everyone wins.

Blog software allows you to go directly to your audience. Display advertising online or off depends on some intermediary to deliver your message right? Typically that adds a cost and layer of friction that doesn't exist when you can simply get in front people who are expressing a need for your products or services.

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.

Empathy In Blogging & Search Is Natural

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Jenni Edwards

Empathy doesn't come to natural to most of us. Potentially it is a lacking quality across my seemingly selfish generation, but I have to make a conscious effort towards empathy in any given situation.

Our friend, Seth Godin, recently wrote about empathy in marketing noting that marketers and the fact that as marketers we can try as we might to be empathetic and we may think we understand the hopes and dreams along with the woes of any given demographic, but we really don't. And when we think we do, we are likely making broad, incorrect generalizations.

What can we do about this? And how does empathy really work? I consider empathy to be very close to the idea of a "similar situation" sales approach (i.e. - I'm just like you; let me solve your problem like I did for someone just like you, etc.). The truest form of empathy is truly being in the same situation...not faking it or making assumptions. How do you create this feeling of empathy through blogging? You enable multiple individuals throughout your organization to create content. It's amazing even within a small company the socioeconomic, life stage and other diversity that exists and opening this up can be a powerful marketing tool.

Another way in which empathy is natural from a search perspective is through known data. Although I can agree as Seth warns that mixing empathy in marketing is rather dangerous --- the fact that through search and tracking tools we are able to tie back the search terms that an eventual buyer or "conversion" came to our website or blog from, therefore, as we learn more about the individual we can begin to make these somewhat dangerous assumptions such as "Stay at home moms generally search with terms such as XYZ where as working mothers usually search on terms such as ABC" and using these data backed assumptions to create better custom landing pages, blog templates, calls to action within a blog and so forth.

It might be a stretch and empathy may never be a natural quality in many of our everyday lives, but I believe that some of the benefits of empathy in marketing can be found through blogging and search.

Alerding Castor Hewitt receives results

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Stephanie West

This firm is a great example of why a business should blog. They dedicate about 2 hours a week to blogging. That's right: 2 HOURS PER WEEK. Wrap your head around that. In addition to their two hour per week blogging dedication, they have seen 500% blogging ROI... 500%!

Those numbers (alone) should convince you that corporate blogging has something great going for it. But if those numbers don't convince you, consider this additional information about Alerding Castor Hewitt.

This case study is an excellent reason of why you should blog for business. Compendium's blogging platform structures SEO tools that help maximize your search engine optimization results. Blogging for search, just as Alerding Castor Hewitt does, is a way for potential customers to find you on the internet. Online marketing is a means of reaching those potential customers that are searching for something on the internet. By blogging (for as little as 2 hours per week!), you are helping position your company to get found in search.

Click here to view this Alerding Castor Hewitt case study and read about their blogging success!

DEFINE: Click Through Rate

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

How can you measure the level of your corporate blog visitors engagement?

One of the best measurements of engagement is looking at the number of visitors who interact with your Calls To Action. But how can you measure engagement with your CTAs?

Click Through Rate: The number of visitors who click on your CTAs / Total Visitors to the site.

What is a good CTR? There is no ‘magic’ CTR, all industries and companies can have wide variance. We advice our clients to:

Understand the ROI of your program. In other words, for the effort you are putting in and the investment that you’ve made, are you getting the value out?

Watch the trend. Comparing CTR trends to see if they are increasing or decreasing when changes are made.

When blogging for search remember to continuously measure and test the CTAs that you use on your corporate blog. Need help with your CTA strategy - reach out to your Compendium Client Success Manager.

Two different methods; One common goal

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Stephanie West

When you give two different people the task of preparing dinner - they will (most likely) come up with two different meals.

For example: Say you give two people a can of crescent rolls each. They are each told to prepare a meal that incorporates the can of crescent rolls.

http://auntypolknowsitall.blogspot.com/2009/07/hungry-hungry-hippo.html

The first person makes a meal that we'll call: Chicken Crescents. It involves about an hour and a half of preparation, a lot of slicing, dicing, stirring and stuffing. The meal then has to cook for another 30 minutes. So, after 2 hours the meal is ready to be eaten.

http://saucytart.typepad.com/eat_drink_memory/2009/04/pigs-in-a-blanket-day-contest-kicks-off.html

Then there's the second person who makes a meal we'll call: Pigs in a Blanket. It involves about 10 minutes of preparation, i.e. stuffing a hotdog with cheese, then rolling it in a crescent roll. This meal has to cook for 20 minutes. So, after 30 minutes the meal is ready to be eaten.

Let me tie this all together for you. Two different methods; One common goal. The goal? To eat.

Just like eating, there are two different methods for preparing a blog.

One method involves a platform that allows you to set up multiple blogs. After you write a blog post, there are multiple steps and actions that you have to take for search engine optimization. This method requires a lot of manual work.

The next method involves writing a blog post (which takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes), then clicking "Submit." Because of the platform, the blog post is automatically optimized. You blog for search engine optimization - but the blog platform optimizes it for you!

Two different methods; One common goal. The goal is for your blog to be maximized in search engine optimization.

If you were blogging, which method would you choose? I would go with the second method, because all I have to do is blog. The platform does the rest.

Want to know more about this platform? Schedule a demo with a blogging expert at Compendium to learn more about how your blog can maximize its search engine optimization.

Go with the Pigs in a Blanket approach - you'll reach your goal more quickly!