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.
A recent article by
Advertising Age titled,
Digital Marketing: The State of Search Marketing: 2009, has reported that search marketing is continuing to grow. In addition, about 9 out of 10 marketers are practicing organic search optimization. That's a large percentage of marketers that are going organic to get found in search!
The benefits of leveraging your online marketing strategy by organic search are limitless. Since many people are clicking on organic search results, they are attracting viewers to their blog, which can, in turn, draw potential customers into their website.
If you want to acquire new customers and then convert those customers -
corporate blogging might be your answer because blogging humanizes your marketing strategy.
Compendium's corporate blogging software is designed to help leverage your blog in organic search - with a humanized approach. Nine out of 10 marketers are trying to position themselves in organic search - which mean
YOU (as the customer) are likely to come into contact with one of these marketer's organic search strategies.
For more information on blogging for organic search and how it pertains to you -
click here to speak with a blogging expert. They will explain the benefits of using Compendium's blog software to you!
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.
Are you currently blogging as a search marketing strategy for your business? Or, do you have maybe 5-6 different blog pages at an attempt to blog as an SEO tool? If so, what type of results are you seeing with this strategy?
The reason I ask is because I speak with many companies each day who are blogging for their businesses as a way to increase their inbound traffic organically online, but they aren't using the
best blogging software that's available, so they aren't getting the best results that are available.
Are you using a specific corporate blogging software designed to help drive your blogs high in organic search results? If you aren't working with Compendium, then you are using blogging platforms and tools designed more specifically for first and second generation blogging (citizen journalism, and to create community). In order for you to maximize the results you are wanting to see, you need to be using the best tool designed to help you blog for search engine optimization. If you are looking to do any of the following:
- Increase inbound organic traffic
- Be found in search for more keywords than you are currently found for
- Convert the new traffic into inbound leads
- See a return on your blogging investment
Then please
request to see a demo to learn more about how we can help you achieve your online marketing goals, and show you how to use the best blogging and SEO tools, to achieve the best results.
It's amazing to me how many companies will put up a beautiful website without thinking about the very people who will be visiting it - the marketing team loves the design, the president thinks it's a huge improvement, but the visitors have NO IDEA what they're supposed to do after they find the website.
There's no big, round, inviting "Contact us now!" button or "Start your free demo" call-to-action, there's no phone number jumping off the page, and the visitors take the information they need and....leave. They don't start the relationship with the company because they have no idea how to do so.
Sigh. Talk about lost opportunity!
If you want someone to be able to start a relationship with you, you must make it obvious how they can do it. Even better, you have to give them several different ways that correspond to where they are in the buying cycle. This goes for both your website and corporate blogs.
For example, on our business blogs we're currently featuring:
1. A
free whitepaper all about Blogging and SEO. This is perfect people who are early in the buying cyle and looking for general education - but notice that we require their information (so that we can start that relationship!) in order for them to get access to the document.
2. A
customized demo offer and $50 Starbucks card.
3. An
ROI Toolkit that's ideal for marketers who have some blogging and search engine optimization education but want to hone in on return on investment.
And that's just for starters...we're giving each visitor the opportunity to read, learn a bit more, and then
take action.So take a look at your online marketing tools -- your website and your blogs -- and ask yourself if you're giving visitors a way to reach out to you or encouraging them to do nothing. The great thing about online marketing is that you can change this starting today.
For those that don't know about
Compendium Blogware, we are more of an organic search engine marketing tool than a traditional blog platform. Thus, I always find myself in SEO conversations. I was speaking to a potential partner the other day who said "we just don't have more than 10 keywords related to our business". They were referring to the fact that they only want to drive targeted traffic and don't want to attract unqualified leads. I say, "Amen to that".
However, I completely disagree that ANY business has less than 100 keyphrases related to their business that would still drive quality leads. Compendium for example, does not target the keyword "blog". Why? Because that person could be looking for a personal blog or travel blog. Not someone I would necessarily want to talk to because our software won't be a good fit. But we do target "
corporate blogging software" , "
SEO for blogs", and literally hundreds of other variations of business blogging related keywords.
Obviously, these long-tail keywords have a lower search volume, but because our solution gives us and our clients the ability to easily target
ALL of those keywords, we are able to drive lots of very targeted, qualified leads. The more, the better in this case.
Over the next few days, I am going to be posting some great steps to help you post better content on your blog for business. These steps are meant to be encouraging, inspiring, and motivating for you and your organization!
I will be posting one step each day and I encourage you to take each step to heart and implement it into your current blogging for SEO strategy.
So here we go...
STEP 1: Make Time for Blogging!
I have written about this before but it is a very important step so I wanted to write about it again. Be sure that you put time in your schedule to write blog content as often as possible. I encourage people to put a slot on their calendar and call it "blog content creation time". Having this time set aside everyday will help you formulate your ideas and ultimately get you to write more content online.
Having a lot of content online will help your search marketing strategies. This is even more true when you use a corporate blogging software (like Compendium Blogware) as your business blogging software provider!
Sure, at first, it might take you a few extra minutes to get used to writing content on your blog so your "blogging time" might be a bit longer than you want but, before you know it, you will be a pro blog writer!
So, recap of STEP 1 - be sure to schedule time to write blog content. Maybe this is once a week or once everyday...whatever it is, be sure to stick to your schedule and write that content for your blog for business!
BtoB Magazine just released a study by Sam Sebastian, Director-local and b to b markets at Google, that reveals that C level executives are leveraging search and social media far more than most think. This has been great news to btob companies leveraging blogs to win search.
This is the quote that hit me the most:“They’re not delegating,” he said. “They prefer to do a lot of this stuff on their own.” Among the findings from the research, which will be formally released in the coming weeks include: 64% of C-level execs conduct six or more searches per day to locate business information. (Read entire article)64% of C-level execs conduct six or more searches per day to locate business information! There is a case for leveraging online tools to drive C-level leads inbound to your company. This is what we've been discussing when it comes to meeting qualified prospects at the moment they are searching to solve a problem or accomplish a goal.
For those that blog for SEO and leverage a blog to generate meaningful humanized content to earn search traffic, this becomes additional support for the time and effort you've invested in organic search marketing.
If you are a marketer looking to reach a C-level prospect, you can use corporate blogging software to accomplish that goal.
Blogging for SEO is like finding a great wine or the best beer. Remember when you first explored these landscapes? You made your selection by white or red for wine or light and dark for beer. As you became more educated about the differences and all the varieties available searching for what you were looking for was easier. The differences in a Shiraz and a Pinot Noir are significant. A Munich Helles and an American Lager are worlds apart, literally.
When your potential clients are searching for what you offer they have the same knowledge and are searching on terms that are specific, IE glossy four color printing. When I go to the liquor store I know that I want an Imperial IPA, I am going to ask for exactly that. This is going to narrow down all the other beer styles available and get me to only the Imperial IPA choices.
Blogging as a tool for SEO allows you to help your clients find you and narrow down all the other choices. They have to wade through the sea of other companies out their who may offer the same or similar products or services. They know what they want and you can convert them at a higher rate IF they find you. Help them find YOU! So go grab your favorite Cabernet or IPA and find out how to start a business blog! CHEERS!
I was talking with a small business owner this weekend about the plethora of marketing options. He made the comment their are plenty of people waiting in line to spend your money but no one wants to be accountable for results.
He really hadn't thought about starting a blog for his business. I shared my experience as a business owner and why creating a marketing plan that has measurable results is the only way to make good business decisions. Leaving your marketing to chance will lead to frustration and lost revenue.
The on line tools available for businesses today are very measurable and give owners the data they need to hold their marketing partners accountable for results. If there is no return and revenue is not being generated then resources can be directed else where. No guessing just data that tells the real story.
Business blogging for SEO is a great way to get the benefits of social media and generate leads. You can track results and know how much traffic and conversion is being generated. Don't be shy give it a try!
Prior to renting a movie the other night I decided to do some of the usual research on length, reviews, etc. just so I had some idea of what to expect. Aside from the usual spots to check out movie reviews (IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes...) I was pleased to find that Redbox, where I rent most of my movies, had their corporate blog talking all about the movies they rent.
Not only did they have some relevant content, but they had some decent content about older movies and current debates in the space (
best movie title?). Given that Rexbox is already blogging, maybe they should considering
blogging for SEO with Compendium and really making that great content a part of their search strategy (and dominate what remains of Blockbuster in the space).
Leveraging blogging as a tool for SEO can be compared to hosting a college house party. Come on, you remember these parties from your college days. The first time you set up your rented place for a BIG party, only 6 of your closest friends show up. The next 3 or 4 parties you attempt to host only draw a meager crowd. You and your roommates ask yourselves, "what are we doing wrong here?"
Then, miraculously, on the 5th attempt at hosting a world class house party, the doors are busting at the seams with people from Econ 101, the football team, and a lot of people that you never knew went to your school. You're party rocked the campus, and you are now on everyone's "must attend" list on Friday nights.
Now, how is this related to blogging best practices? Here we go. You start your business blog and begin putting up posts, and then you wait for traffic. Only a few business collegues and family show up. A few weeks past, a handful of posts are created, and still only a meager showing of friends and family. Alright, it's been a month, you've generated 30 posts, where is the traffic?
Again, miraculously, after the first month, with a business blog that has all of the content topically organized under a critical mass of targeted keywords, the traffic arrives. And, it doesn't stop coming.
Qualified prospects are now being funneled in by the case load from Google, Yahoo, and MSN search engines. Congratulations, you have successfully executed a Blogging for SEO strategy. Now, keep the quality content coming to fuel the machine.
Now, when setting your Blogging goals you can think about how you earned your first successful house party in college. The second part of this equation is maybe more difficult. "What to do with all these people when they get here?"
As you continue your research into Blogging Best Practices or Blogging for SEO, it all comes down to the keywords that you choose to target on the major search engines. You tell me, "I need to run this by my SEO consultant, or I need to do more keyword research before I start a business blog." Wrong. Here is the secret that SEO's and consultant throughout the world do not want you to know... All in 2 seconds:
YOU ARE ALREADY AN EXPERT
Thank you, I'll send my bill in the mail... You're not impressed? You're dissappointed? What?!
That's right, you are already a keyword expert in what matters: YOUR BUSINESS. Who know's more than you do about your profession, your company, your career? The answer is, no one.
If you run a paint store, run an eCommerce portal, sell picture frames, run an advertising agency, manage a pet store, train horses, etc. etc. etc... you know how to determine if someone is in need (or more importantly) in want of your services. Right?
Over the years you have become a keyword expert beyond any consultant, in understanding your customer, and profiling those who SHOULD already be customers, but don't know it yet. Unfortunately, as you head to Google to punch in those valuable questions and phrases that your customers have come to ask, your company does not show up. Anywhere. That is the golden opportunity that you are missing, with the weak excuse of not knowing your keywords. Well, thanks to this blog post, you can now move forward and start getting in front of prospects that already need your services and have the money to spend on those services RIGHT NOW.
If you are ever interested in testing me on this,
call Compendium Blogware and ask for the VP of Sales.
What does it take to win? What does winning even mean?
As we continue the conversation about blogging best practices, and leveraging SEO to drive qualified leads to your business, we have to take a step back and ask, how this will help me win?
1. Know What a Win Is
It's important to know what winning means to you. Is winning a target revenue number, number of clients, number of cases solved? Or is winning a lifestyle, consistency, or freedom? When we set out to accomplish something, it's important to know when we've got there.
The SEO opportunity here, is to know if the goal you've set is achievable with the budget you've allocated and the manpower you've planned to invest. When you are defining what a "Win" is, know that it can be reached.
2. Leverage Weakness
We've all heard some variation of this before, but when you find weakness in an industry, or in a competitor, leverage it within the value of your own products and services. I'm not promoting a smear campaign, what I am promoting is if a competitor has proven ineffective in a retaining clients, you can tout that you have an extraordinarily high client retention rate and use customer testimonials to add depth and credibility to your message.
Blog about it, and be proud of the areas that you've paid attention to and can leverage as a serious point of difference.
3. Pick a Fight with the Bully
Very few times have ambitious companies been worse off for stepping up to the plate against a seemingly indestructable opponent. Why? Because this isn't Sparta; your life is not on the line. In the business world significant lessons can be learned from competing a few levels above your wieght class. The next time you compete at the traditional level of competition you will have the confidence that you and your team are capable of much more.
No place is this more true than on the Internet. Where perception, often times, is reality. Think big, and never underestimate yourself or your team.
4. Generate More Content
By generating more content you gain a huge opportunity to win. This is not only relevant to Blogging for SEO, but to sales calls, conferences, and any other place where content is created. What is content? It is any messaging that comes from the keyboard of an employee at your company or from their mouth in a sales call, speaking event, or conference. How you choose to leverage that content creation becomes the opportunity to win. (secret: most company are aweful at it)
5. Don't Fear what you Don't Know
This is the biggest opportunity when it comes to SEO and earning a the win online. The illusion that you don't know enough to make a play in search, Internet marketing, and driving real business through the web. This is not rocket science, regardless of what the "experts" say. The same rules of business apply to the web, and it presents a relatively level playing field for a small company with a big idea to dominate.
To win in search is to understand what your core audience (or customer base) is looking for: Keywords. Keywords are currency, and knowing who you serve and how you serve them makes you a keyword expert in your industry.
Those are McKay's 5 Opportunities to Win in Search. Right now you have the power to leverage the Internet to drive revenue for your business. Take the next step by contact us at Compendium for a free Blogging consultation.
When positioning corporate Blogging software for your company, it's vital to marry this strategy to ROI. Not only that, but do so in a way that can be wieghted and measured against competing marketing & advertising channels within your company.
Starting off a Blogging for SEO conversation, with the word "Blog," is your first mistake. The word "Blog" carries with it connotations of widgets, social media, community, groups, and other product related ideals. All of those areas have their place within a strategy, but the core value proposition is lead generation and customer acquisition through organic search. That core value proposition must be realized by your company as a priority.
If you are going to make the case for Blogging, do so by first making the case for lead generation through organic search. The latter value proposition is the rock on which you build your justification for a robust and scalable strategy to implement corporate blogging software.
When you Blog for customer acquisition and to win search, the urge to over publish your content becomes a concern. Should I publish my Blog posts to Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and any other social media portal that I have membership in?
The answer may be a bit frustrating: It depends.
My friends get irritated by seeing that a large portion of my Tweets are published posts from my business Blog. However, my business Blog has recieved traffic from Twitter that has been business related. So, the question is, what is my motivation on Twitter?
Here is the comfortable solution that I feel best engages and entertains all parties. I am who I am whether at work, play, with my family, or anywhere else. My story and who I am is not conditional based upon what hat I have on. Work, play, father, husband, friend, teacher, student, etc. I will continue to publish my Blog posts to Twitter (and all other social media outposts that I am invovled with) while making the committment to produce updates/content outside of those posts.
I am passionate about my career and Compendium Blogware, so the industry knowledge about business blogging, Blogging for SEO, and developing robust customer acquisition strategies is relevant to those who follow me in any fashion throughout the Web 2.0 sphere. I am also passionate about my family, faith, sports, comedy, 3rd world philanthropy, and being witty. My content creation accross the board is a relfection of my character in any environment. Humanzing your marketing means being real. Even making mistakes.
If you want to see the flow of content from my Blog to Twitter feel free to follow me on Twitter.
No one has time to Blog, or market, or go to networking events, or do anything outside of the blocking and tackling involved in our day-to-day as business professionals. Yet, we must.
Think about all the waste that goes on day to day at the office. How much time is being wasted by excessive use of email? More than you think. What if 10 minutes per day could equal meaningful qualified search engine traffic to your business? What if by using simple blogging software 10 minutes per day your business could be generating qaulified leads through organic search?
That's what we do.
Blogging for SEO is less about rankings on Google, and more about bottomline return on investment. You don't have time for this right now. Two less refreshes on your work inbox per day... Now you have time, with real ROI.
If you are even considering Blogging don't make a decision till you've had a free Blogging consultation with an expert at Compendium Blogware. Social Medi
Our company has been working with another company recently that has about 20 times the employees that we have - most of them client-facing with a ton of experience and expertise. They trickled out their content for months and were spending a fortune on other inbound marketing techniques.
We challenged them to a corporate blogging "Blog Down" (and have been kicking their butt), but they initially rose to the occasion:
Sorry for the Chart quality, we're using Microsoft Access to bring in blog post productivity data, search traffic, and conversion data to better analyze our corporate blogging clients - and Access charting objects are very 1980.
Anyways, note the incredible leap as they joined in the battle and posted about 70 posts in one week! Now take a look at their search engine traffic:
Even with a trickle of traffic, they were continuing to add search traffic - but when they put out a ton of content that week, the search engines responded with a great growth surge.
Unfortunately, you'll also see that they've declined on post productivity recently. Are you kidding? After the incredible growth they're going to slack off and let the numbers flatten out again?
This is the kind of stats that make a corporate blogger go nuts! This is the difference between winners and losers when they're blogging for SEO. Relevant content wins search results! Recent content rules search results! Frequent content grows search results!
Take your corporate blogging strategy to the next level!
1
1 Blog post per day
This is the habit that will lead to a customer acquisition strategy that will take your words and turn them into massive net over organic search engine results. Google is inundated with 250 million plus requests everyday for everything under the sun. It only takes 1 to make a play in organic search with simple blogging software from Compendium Blogware.
1 conversion
Turn one of the unique visits to your Compendium Blog into a paying customer and you've experienced the power of organic search to your bottom line.
1 site visitor on your analytics from Compendium
is the equivalent of a visitor to your store, office, or networking interaction. That number 1 is a real live human being who has an interest in whatever keyword phrase they just typed to find you. Their money is the same as a person who hands you a check in your office. Don't discriminate!
1 opportunity to be a leader
Leaders are forward thinking and take meaningful risks with their time, resources, and dollars. Being a leader in winning organic search by Blogging for SEO has cash value today, but that will only increase in the days, weeks, months, and years ahead. If you know SEO you realize you can't fake age. So, waiting to get a start is setting you further and further behind.
1 is all it takes.
A
business week story this week told us that there is grim news in the display ad world. Increasing competition among Ad Networks is driving down prices while marketers are struggling with a model that is showing declining results.
This is bad news for the for both big properties like Yahoo or NYT as well as small bloggers who are focused on a publishing model.
Like so much of the web, it's broken by people and organizations that have tried to take a business model from the terrestrial world (
wrap content in interruption advertising) and apply it in the online world. Granted, 100 years of experience in the Publishing/Advertising complex create very hard habits to break, but as the Demise of the Rocky Mountain News this past week shows us, the world is changing and changing quickly.
The reality is that marketers should be more focused on driving organic search traffic from prospects who are telling you their INTENT instead of attempting to interrupt with offers simply because someone happens to be on a site and has certain data attributes.
The great news is, this is actually relativly easy to do by applying SEO Techniques to a Business Blog Strategy. The key to successful Corporate Blogging for SEO lies in specificity. Make blogs like you would make an email or direct mail piece...meaning targeted specifically to the narrow terms that your prospects are telling you they are interested in. Title your blog with the keyword phrase and make sure to use your keyword phrase in every post (the appropriate ratio is usually considerd 7 to 10% of your post content should be keywords) You don't want to be spammy. The more competitive the phrases, the more content you need to write in your corporate blog. Leverage your co-workers and constituents. Search is a volume driven activity.
On the subject of volume, the more keywords you are targeting, the more appropriatly titled blogs you need. Don't shy away from the idea of hundreds of corporate blogs. That's a blogging best practice when trying to get out of the ad game and into the search acquisition business.
