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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?

Where's your call-to-action?

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Stephanie West
http://www.dreamstime.com/stock-photos-picture-frame-gold-path-included--image432413Picture 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. 

Put Your Blog on Steroids...

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 by Meghan Manning
That's right - you read my title correctly! If you aren't currently using business blogging as your search marketing startegy, now is the time to get started.  If you are currently using blogs to help you get found in search, now is the time to step it up and put your blogs on steroids!

To learn how - attend the upcoming Webinar presented by Target Marketing featuring Chris Baggott CEO/CoFounder of Compendium Blogware.

During this informative Webinar, you'll learn:

  • Develop SEO-friendly content
  • Determine the optimal posting frequency
  • Measure the value of your investment
  • Engage customers and prospects

Be sure to register now to attend - the Webinar is getting close and you'll want to reserve your spot today!

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.



Don't be THAT Business!

Monday, November 16, 2009 by P.J. Hinton
Businesses come in all kinds of aspirations, sales figures, and revenue.  Some businesses are comprised of teams which include tech savvy staff, and then there are others who don't.  There's nothing necessarily wrong with that.  There are some fields where it just doesn't make sense to pay the salary of a full-time tech guru.

Regardless of your orgainzation's technical savvy, chances are there is a substantial number of  potential customers who are looking for what you have to offer via search engines.  If you're not showing high up on the rankings for the keywords they're using, then you are as good as nonexistent to these people.

Buying into the growing marketing wisdom of the age, you decide to line up a corporate blogging initiative.  When it comes time to pick a platform, you ask around.  Some point you to free hosted services.  Others tell you to use this or that particular open source package on your own servers.  Chances are, you'll opt for the open source package that a large number of businesses are using.

Then the fun begins.  Suppose you're one of those businesses whose technical skill on the low end of the spectrum.  You'll be faced with a sea of arcane knowledge that will be confusing at worst.  Is setup that hard for non-techincal people?  Look no further than a blog post published today by Kit O'Toole over at BlogCritics.  In setting up a WordPress blog for herself, she ran into a steep learning curve with PHP and CSS, and she learned the hard way what damage can be done when the database gets corrputed.

So then you plonk down a few grand to bring in a social media expert, or you roll the dice and put up an ad on craigslist's computer gigs section offering some amount of money for someone who knows what they're doing.  That will cost you maybe a few hundred to a couple thousand dollars just to get up to speed.

Once you've gone live and started creating content, you'll face the challenge of ongoing maintenance.  When your blogging platform choice ships a new upgrade, or when there is an advisory about security that needs patching (see Tech Crunch story from June 2008 and Robert Scoble's blog post from September 2009 for some good examples), chances are you'll need to track down that guy who did the original setup (you did keep his contact information, didn't you?) or expend effort getting someone to help you out.

This problem is one of the core value propositions of Compendium.  Not only are you buying into a platform for your SEO efforts, you're also getting the backing of a multitenancy application. There are no more installs or upgrades for you to fret about.  In fact, new code releases occurring ruing the middle of the week ensure that you'll always have the latest and greatest version of our platform.  We worry about uptime, maintenance, and backups, so you don't have to!



Gen Y women. What influences their brand discovery?

Friday, November 13, 2009 by Chris Baggott
search, social media and Gen YCan 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.

Steering the Titanic

Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Lee Jorgenson
How does your company adapt to change?  Does it move like a gazelle, or is it like steering the Titanic?  If your business is trying to be competitive in search marketing, it better not be the latter.

The search marketing industry is ever-changing, and if your business plans to hang with the pack, it better be ready to handle change.  Watch out for red tape and processes that will keep you from being able to make quick decisions.  The SEO tools you were using three years ago may not be the best tools available to you today, and the moment you realize that there is a better opportunity, you need to be ready to act.

BizSurvey is sold on the value of Compendium's blog platform

Thursday, November 12, 2009 by Compendium Client Reviews
BizSurvey wasn't sure of the benefits of blogging. After further research, they were sold on the benefits of blogging with Compendium blogging platform. An employee at BizSurvey, Matt Braun, made the following statement about Compendium's software: "Had to convince my boss of the value of blogging, but once I got him to look at Compendium's solution, he saw the light - and within weeks we saw the results in our SEO improvement." The results don't lie - SEO improvement is just one of the many benefits of blogging with Compendium.

Name: Stephanie West
Company: Compendium Blogware
BlogURL:

2010 Marketing Plans

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 by Clayton Stobbs
A colleague of mine forwarded an interesting excerpt from an article today that struck a chord with me regarding large enterprise marketing efforts:

To most huge corporations, search engine optimization is often a very small piece of an enormous puzzle - and it is a piece they have been doing without for years. The necessary steps required to fully embrace the channel are often enough to stop any well-intentioned initiative in its tracks. As most search engine optimization experts will tell you, some of the most egregious search engine mistakes are consistently made by household name companies - leaving their smaller, leaner competitors the opportunity to take full advantage.  Source here.
 
 
In any case, good for for thought as companies are ramping up their 2010 marketing plans. I would also highly recommend an interesting read today from eMarketer about Digital Out-of-Home spending (article here).

Blogs and Online Marketing

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry
Join in the Blog ConversationSeveral years ago (we're talking like 2004), if someone was talking about a blog the typical reaction was "huh - whats that?". 

In today's world, as we start thinking about entering the year 2010 - blogs are everywhere and are increasingly becoming a leading online marketing tool, even Presidential candidates have blogs. 

This type of online marketing has changed how things work - consumers now know, and look for a way into a company to see the true side.  They don't buy the hype of PR and Marketing ads, they want to know what the person they are going to be buying from really has to say.  Blogs allow this conversation and potential customers are listening in.

To quote the master himself, Self Godin:

"It is now common and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about, with the world"


At Compendium we have been in the front row seats to see this first hand.  We have over 400 clients of all shapes, sizes, and industries that are embracing a business blog platform and adding it to their SEO tools.  Our clients are allowing the human voice of their company resonate with potential customers in order to generate sales and increase profit. 

Richard Edelman, President and CEO of Edelman stated it best when he said:

" Blogs represent the best chance for companies to inform the conversation"


Is your company in on the conversation?  To find out more on how to get started, check out our whitepaper on "Considering Blogging" or schedule a demo today.



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.

Improving a Call to Action

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry
Compelling Calls to ActionOne of the most important pieces of information to have when measuring the success of any marketing or SEO tools is the number of conversions, leads generated, or data captured to put into nurturing campaigns.  All of this data will eventually lead to a larger pipeline and more sales!

A corporate blogging software, such as Compendium Blogware, allows a company to increase their online marketing efforts, as it is a platform built for search engine optimization.  Our powerful blogging software takes on all of the heavy lifting and allows the user to focus solely on creating content.

Another piece that makes our our blogging solution so easy is that we incorporate CTA's (Calls To Action) on every blog network with us, to help track visitors that come to the blog then click through to the company wanting more information or to take that next step towards conversion.

Recently Compendium held a Client Only webinar focused on understanding and improving the calls to action (CTA's) on your corporate blogging network.  This webinar allows you to get a better understanding of what makes a great CTA, and how to incorporate best practices to draw more leads into your sales pipeline.

For a replay of this webinar, contact your dedicated Client Success Manager or our Product Support Team at help@compendium.com.





The path of successful business blogging

Monday, November 9, 2009 by Michael Burton
The purpose and success within Compendium's powerful blogging software breaks down into three simple steps...

Blogging --> SEO Opportunities --> Customer Conversion Opportunities

Obviously, the goal for anyone reaching out to customers online is customer conversion.  It is not enough for visitors to spend time looking at your blogs; you want them to find your website, find your products/services and make the purchase!  All of this comes most easily through strong SEO Tools.

SEO Opportunities are the best way for a searcher to find your blog.  Nearly every searcher ends up clicking on the top few listings in a Google or Bing search and having your blog listed at the top will lead to visitors finding your page.  And this all comes from consistent, relevant blog postings.

Blogging is the obvious starting point.  Without a strong base to begin your online marketing campaign, you'll have no potential to see changes.  Blogging gets those key phrases you care about listed high on Google and other search engines so searchers can find you.  Compendium's affordable blogging software will help get this system underway!

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.  :-)


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.  

Common Mistakes in Blogging (#4)

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry
(4th in a series of 5)

Common Mistake #4:

The reason blogs are successful SEO tools is because they allow you to update them as frequently as you want.  This is what the Search Engines love!  They will send their web crawlers to your site looking for new content, and if they continue to find new content every time, they will come back more often and more frequently.

On the same hand, if the web crawler does not find new content, it will be trained to not come back as often or as frequently.  Allowing your competition to surpass you.  

Your business blog will not be very successful if the web crawlers aren't able to find new content.  Make it discoverable and both the web crawlers and your readers/potential new customers will be able to find you.

Answer:

There are a few ways to make a blog more easily discovered by web crawlers, but the #1 way is to always be creating new content, and posting it frequently (on average a blog network should be generating at least 25 posts per month).

Other ways include:
  • Adding a link on your company home page to the blog.
  • Publicize the blog in newsletters, email signatures, and marketing collateral.
  • Integrate the blog with other social media, such as Facebook and Twitter.
  • Optimize content for search engines by always using at least one exact keyword phrase in your blog post and post title.  (do not keyword stuff though - its spam!)


Common Mistake #1

Common Mistake #2
Common Mistake #3

Happy Birthday to ME!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 by Allison Bowen
Today I officially feel old.  Okay, okay, I know 23 is not very old...  But STILL!  23 is one of those ages that I've always considered to be "old."  And now here it is, already!  Wow does time fly by!

One thing I know for sure is that birthday wishes today are nothing like they used to be.  When I was a kid, I might have a few friends at school tell me happy birthday if they happened to remember the right day.  I might even get a birthday cake on our class calendar with my name on it.  

But at age 23 I can officially say that I've received the most birthday wishes I have ever received.  Is this because I now have so many more friends?  Well, maybe in part.  However, the more likely scenario is that there are now so many more social media avenues in which friends can offer me well wishes.  Facebook provides everyone with my exact birth date; meaning it's just after 4pm and I've already received 56 wall posts.  One friend Twitters "Happy Birthday @alliebb44" and all the sudden all my Twitter followers are retweeting the sentiments.  Times have certainly changed!

Is your company up to date with this new world of social media?  One great place to start is with a corporate blog.  With Compendium's easy to use blog software you can quickly and easily write a post that relates to your clients and gives them an insight to your company, which can in turn lead to search engine optimization and sales.

So why not give it a try?  Give us a call here at Compendium today! 



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!

You Don't Peak In High School

Monday, October 19, 2009 by Chris Baggott
You don't peak in high school.Seth had a great post the other day talking about the goal of High School being basically to draw as much attention to yourself as possible. 

The point being that most of the time this attention getting is short lived and without any real long term goal.  As my wife says to our kids all the time: "You don't want to peak in High School!"

We see this a lot with the business people we talk to who are enamored with social networks without having any real goals.  Like high school, the goal is to be popular with no other objective.  This was perfectly manifested in the eMarketer story we talked about the other day.  Their survey said that marketers had a goal of being Thought Leaders?

Seth's brilliance is that we have all seen this in our own lives.  Popularity for the sake of popularity..."If I'm popular lots of good things will happen".  Now some people are naturally going to be popular while most are going find themselves doing lots of compromising activity in a desperate attempt to be popular.....as you remember I'm sure, that popularity didn't last long and the memory is probably pretty bitter for all associated.

Then you have your ten or twenty year reunion and you find out who is really successful in life.  Almost always, it's not the people who peaked in high school.  The successful people are the ones who focused on the fundamentals and had a vision of the future.

How does this tie to Corporate Blogging?  Widespread employee blogging is an investment in the future.   The goal isn't popularity, followers or fans.  The goal is to lay a foundation of stories about the problems you solve.  That content will target search traffic.  SEO is better for everyone...it's scalable,  sustainable and puts you in front of people (prospects) who have problems you can solve.   Corporate Blogging is real life, not high school.

Free Webinar

Using Blogs to Generate and Nurture Demand into Closed Business.

Hosted by Richard Cunningham, VP Marketing of Right On Interactive and Chris Baggott Co-founder, CEO of Compendium Blogware. Thursday, December 3rd 2009.
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