Blog for Traffic

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.

Corporate Blogging drives search better than social networking

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by Chris Baggott

HOORAY!!!! The truth is finally starting to come out! Last month we talked a lot about the most recent Gartner study talking about social media darlings like micro-blogging plunging down the trough of disillusionment. Corporate Blogging is rapidly moving up the slope of enlightenment. Why?

Simple ROI. Corporate blogging is a search marketing strategy that leverages social media...not a social media strategy for the sake of being "in" social media.

Today eMarketer gave me a huge gift with reporting on a fantastic study by the firm Chitika that is highlighted in the graph above, and more importantly in the following statement:

.....Still, social media sites are only sending a tiny fraction of traffic. An earlier Chitika Study concluded that “the overwhelming dominance of search engines is facing little, if any, threat from social networks.”

The company looked at the top sites sending traffic to the publishers in its network and found that Google alone accounted for 76.13% of referrals.

Taken together, search engines made almost 98% of all referrals, while social networking sites made up just 0.55%.

What else can I add? Most Corporate blogging traffic doesn't come from repeat 'readers' it comes from first time visitors. And most of those first time visitors come from search.

Why should your business blog? To target searchers and solve their problems.

Who views your blog?

Wednesday, October 21, 2009 by Stephanie West

About 70-80% of blog traffic comes from new visitors. Yes, 70-80% are new visitors which means that the content you generate is being viewed by many new perspective customers.

So who views your blog? People that are interested in what you have to say. Just think about how much you use search in your day-to-day life. Marketers understand that you're searching, which is why they opt for particular search marketing strategies.

One strategy includes blog marketing. Customers are drawn to your blog for a few reasons, including:

The content - how relevant are your keywords to viewers?
The humanized aspect of reading your blog - it's from YOU.
They found you in organic search (which is where most "clicks" occur).

Blog marketing is a great strategy to help your company get found in search. Traffic is constantly driving new visitors to your blog, which means new visitors are viewing your blog 70-80% of the time.

Start blogging today to generate these new visitors to your blog. Searchers are looking for information - and you (as a blogger) have the answer!

Top 10 Google Analytics Resources for Corporate Bloggers

Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

You can leverage your corporate blog analytics to gain insight into your blog including:

Where your business blog traffic is coming from
What visitors are most engaged with
The search keywords your traffic is finding you for
Guiding your visitors to take the next step

It is important that you listen to your analytics closely when your blogging for search. Don't worry everyone has questions about Google Analytics.

Here are the top ten resources I use to find answers to my Google Analytics questions.

Official Google Analytics Blog

Google Analytics Official YouTube Channel

Google Analytics Support Page

Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

A Guide to Google Analytics and Useful Tools

50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics

AnalyticsSearch: Search dozens of Google Analytics support websites with 1 click

EpikOne: Analytics Talk

Follow & Tweet with @Google Analytics on Twitter

Software as a Service Compendium Blogware's Product Support Team

I hope that these resources help you with your analytics questions. Do you use a resource not listed here? Please just add it to my list via comments.

business blog design and UX (User Experience Design)

Wednesday, September 16, 2009 by mikey mioduski

From the Fuel Your Blogging site, David Leggett gives us some good pointers
on some easy steps to make our blogs more user friendly, even if we aren't UX Designers ourselves. Check it out here, "Non-UX Designers Can Pay Attention to User Experience Too!"

I like Leggett's first point, to "walk a mile in the user's shoes." It's really easy to get caught up in what we do, in our company or industry's bubble, and to also assume that our blog visitors have been to our blog before, and are familiar with what we do, who we are, what we offer. That's not always the case.

Because blogs (especially-- ahem, blogs powered by Compendium) are so great tools for search marketing, a good amount of the traffic coming into a blog is there for the very first time. We use Google analytics to verify this for our own blog, which tells us that over 80% of our traffic falls into the "new visits" category, and the overwhelming majority of our entire blog traffic comes from search engines.

So try to remember that these visitors are new, they might not know as much about the industry or your product as you do, and if they found you through search, they are probably in research mode. Think of your own search habits, think of sites that you really like, some that you don't, and try to figure out what it is that makes some easier to visit than others. If your users hav a hard time finding what they were searching for (that's where the UX design comes in), they are likely to leave and find their solution elsewhere.

So, make it obvious and simple for them to find what they need. Easy, right?

The Content of Your Blog

Friday, August 28, 2009 by Stephanie West

Many of my friends are interested in that fact that I blog - but they don't quite understand what I blog about.

Ironically, I blog about blogging: blogging for business, blogging at Compendium, blog software, etc.

While all of these are different topics, they all have the same structure of their content. The content of your blog is crucial.

Here are some points to consider within the content of your blog:

The customer only cares about search - so talk about what they searched for!
Don't stuff your blog with unnecessary information.
Put links to other resources or your company website in your blog.
Focus on blog volume. More blogs = More blog traffic.
Lifetime of the blog program: more content within your blog = an increased number of search visits to your blog per month.

For more useful information like this - fill out Compendium's ROI Toolkit to get more information on how to start a business blog.

UGGH! Why are we making Social Media Marketing so &^%$* Hard!

Wednesday, August 26, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Sorry...I'm taking a deep breath....trying very hard not to rant. As Gary Vee says: "Don't be a hater"

But....ok start by taking a look at the following graph. More truly great insight from eMarketer (never shoot the messenger)

So let's start with the first point. Frankly we solve that one and almost every other argument here goes away.

"We Don't know where to begin"

You begin with a Corporate Blogging Strategy. So simple, the first step and the highest value social media online marketing strategy is to begin telling your stories with a human voice. Who are you? Why are you doing this? Who are your customers and why do they buy from you? What problems do you solve?

Look at Gartner's newest technology wave report. Corporate Blogging is growing in adoption faster than any other technology in marketing. It is the hub of every other social media strategy. Why?   Well that brings us to problem number two:

"There is no established way to measure the effectiveness of Social Media"

You measure the effectiveness of Social Media just like any other online marketing effort.   Effective blog marketing measurement starts with Traffic and for the most part this means search marketing. The vast majority of blog traffic comes from first time visitors and most of that comes from searchers.

This by the way is fantastic. Searchers are people with problems.   You are in the business of solving those problems....so by telling your stories and the stories of your customers, you win more search and begin more relationships. This starts with search traffic which is easily measured and easy to calculate the ROI. Compare your blog traffic to what it would cost on PPC and you have an instant ROI to show the boss.

Next, traffic isn't enough.   Is that traffic happy? That is calculated by looking at your bounce rates.   High bounce rates tell you point blank that you are not making your visitors happy.   Read times help too.

I can't tell you how many discussions I've had with "thought leader" purists that have 89% bounce rates when I can show other blogs that may appear "too commercial" with 30% bounce rates.   Which one is making the visitor happier?   It's not up to you it's the data that tell the truth (ok.....breath....starting to sound like a rant....)

The final measurement is the same one you use for every other marketing effort you engage in. Conversion. So many people in Social Media get wrapped up in Conversation that they forget about Conversion.    Now granted, some people like to talk. However, most of us online are either here to solve a problem for someone or to have a problem solved.    Only conversion rates can tell you if you are being successful.

Summary: Traffic, Bounce Rates, Conversion...that's how you measure Social Media ROI

As for the rest: Funding, Time, Legal.....amazing how they all melt away as objections once you start driving more business.

Business blogs win in search marketing

Friday, August 14, 2009 by Stephanie West

Fact: 80% of all web interactions begin with search

Translation: 80% of internet users do search first

So if 80% of internet users are doing search first, your # 1 goal is to win in that search.

In a previous Webinar provided by Compendium Blogware, these simple steps were provided to help make your business blog win in search marketing:

The title - your blog should have a keyword within the title, which helps it get found in search
Talk about what the viewer was searching for - remember: they just want answers to their problems
Don't stuff your blog with unnecessary information - short, sweet, and to the point works best
Include links - viewers will keep clicking until they find the answer they are looking for
Blog volume means that more blogs = more blog traffic
The more relevant content that your blog contains = increased # of search visits/month

To get more information on other resources to use to your advantage, sign up here for our upcoming Webinar:
Getting a Grip on Social Media,
featuring Chris Baggott and Kyle Lacy
Date: August 20, 2009
Time: 1-2 pm EST.

10 Harsh Truths About Corporate Blogging: Rebuttal

Tuesday, August 11, 2009 by Chris Baggott

So one quick disclaimer: I like Smashing Magazine...but this is just so wrong I really am kind of stunned.

Here is the opening quote of this article:

"A successful blog has a regular readership that is being constantly reminded of your brand and products. And yes, of course, building up a readership takes time."

From a Corporate Blogging standpoint, subscribers or regular readers is the most debunked myth in the business.   I've posted on this several times with the data to back it up.

Most blog traffic in business comes from first time visitors. That's the metric we should be focusing on.   We work with hundreds of business bloggers and I've been exposed to thousands.   I have yet to see even one that doesn't drive a least 65% of their traffic from first time visitors and most have a number somewhere in the mid-80's.

This is a good thing. The hardest job in marketing is to begin a new relationship. In that, the focus of your blogging efforts absolutely should be about acquisition....of helping new prospects find you when they have a problem. This is what make search so powerful...it's puts marketers in a position to be helpful instead of being interrupters.

Once you have that first contact, there are lots of ways to engage for the long term.   Remember email or catalogs or stores or salespeople or the telephone? Social media? Sure it works too.   But remember, nothing happens until you are found.   The biggest benefit of Corporate Blogging has always been and remains introducing yourself.

Search EGO

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 by Brian McKay

Sometimes I feel that the "E" in SEO stands for ego.

"I need to be number 1 in Google!"
"Guarantee me number 1 in Google SEO expert!"
"I'm already number 1 in Google."

Searching marketing is less about number 1, and more about quality and quantity of organic search traffic. Blog marketing operates under the same context. Leverage your content to win thousands of keywords, not just a handful. Win a volume of traffic that can be measured, scaled, and monetized.

When you are working to develop a search strategy that has teeth, avoid the ego, and focus on the end result: A critical mass of qualified traffic with a favorable ROI should be closer to the end we're looking for.

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.

Help your company maximize blogging ROI!

Thursday, July 16, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

Increase your corporate blog's conversion rate by writing content designed to improve bounce rate and read time. Attend this week's webinar to learn how you can positively impact your call to action conversion rate through engagement.

Improve Blog Engagement with
Bounce Rate & Read Time
Date: Thursday, July 16th
Time: 2pm EST

Three things you can do today to make an impact:

13 questions to ask to improve your next blog post.
Increase your corporate blog search traffic by using exact keyword phrases.
Register for this week's webinar.

Above all, the best way to improve your corporate blog's key metrics is to create quality relevant content. Write content now.

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.

Why is there so much bad Corporate Blogging Advice!??

Friday, June 19, 2009 by Chris Baggott

I saw a blog today, quoting a well-known social media expert talking about best practices in business blogging. According to the author the expert said:

“For example, airline mergers, fuel surcharges and the fate of low-cost carriers in recessionary times have all been newsworthy topics in the travel industry over the past 12 months, and this is what a company in the sector would have focused on to attract readers."

"On the other hand, it is advisable for companies in the real estate sector to use their blog as an opportunity to offer tips on how to overcome challenges such as falling property prices, or how to take advantage of historically low interest rates when applying for mortgages. These are useful tips that go far beyond simply advertising a product and can help companies build a loyal client base, as they offer valuable information to readers free of charge.”

Uggh! Contrast that with the simple and logical advice of the master: Seth Godin…..

“If you own a lot of acres but just have a few bags of seed, you might be tempted to spread out what you've got and cover as much territory as you can. Farmers tell me that this is wasteful and time consuming. You end up with less yield and more work.”

This is fantastic corporate blogging advice….Focus Focus Focus.

First of all, it's a myth that corporate blogs have regular readers. Most corporate blogs have 80-95% of their traffic coming from first time visitors. This puts the idea that you should be talking about big picture industry issues out the window. Even big time A-list business blogs have most of their traffic coming from first time visitors... And most of your corporate blog traffic is coming from search.   If you are in the travel business should you be talking about the macro-effects of fuel prices on the travel economy? (a few seeds on a big field) Of course not.

Great corporate blog topics start with knowing the keywords your traffic is using to find you...and talking about that. For every 10 people who care about fuel prices there are 10 million looking for info on trips to Florida. The only thing that a business should be blogging about is what their customers are interested in....those customers express their interest by the use of keywords in search engines or search boxes on your site.

Think again about the real estate example in this light. What gain can a single real estate agent get from blogging with advice on mortgage rates? Last month there were nearly 10,000 searches on '2 bedroom condo, chicago'   If I'm selling a two bedroom condo in Chicago, I should be blogging all day long about my condo's countertops, bathrooms, views, coffee shops nearby etc... My traffic wants me to help them solve their 2 bedroom condo problem, not the mortgage crisis.

Make sense?

Relevant content to based on what your prospects are searching for is what should drive your blogging goals.   Engagement comes from telling compelling stories about how you solve problems for the people who find you....finally, business bloggers need to focus on converting that traffic.   Win the search, win the credibility and win the conversion...That's what makes great corporate blogging.

Prove Your Blog Programs Success

Friday, June 12, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

To monitor your blog's impact, you need to be measuring it's success. At Compendium we apply Google Analytics on every blog so that we can monitor your blog's traffic and your return on investment.

Learn more about proving your blog's return on investment with analytics by watching the recorded webinar Understanding Your Google Analytics.

Blogging Exercise:
Take a quick tour of Google Analytics then log-in to your Google Analytics account and start tracking your progress today.

Can you skim your posts?

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

Most of your blog's traffic will be coming from search. Searchers expect to find answers to their question quickly and easily when they land on your post.

It's important that what you post about is relevant to the keywords that searchers are finding you for. If you stay on topic and use your keywords, you'll be delivering the answers they're looking for. There is a way to really stand out though! Good formatting.

The four things you can do today to improve your formatting:

Keep your paragraphs short and leave space between them. Make sure you leave space around your images. This is called whitespace.
Numbered and ordered lists stand out and are simple to digest, use them often!
Keep your posts pithy by talking about a single point in each post. If you have multiple points, use multiple posts!
Emphasize important elements of the post. Use bold, italics, and highlights. Bolded text stands out for search engines as well.

Post Idea:
Write a post using a bulleted list. Perhaps the top 3 customer compliments that your company gets. Or the top 5 reasons why prospects use your product or service.

Blogging as a list building strategy

Monday, June 8, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Fact.   The vast majority of traffic coming to any Corporate Blog is coming from first time visitors.   Our data here at Compendium Blogware show that between 70-95% of all blog traffic are from 'New' visitors.   This is great, but it really should cause the average business to rethink their blogging goals.

I've always said, the goal of marketing is to build relationships.   How do most people want to have a relationship with an organization?   Email.    Simple fact, Email is still the most popular online activity and in spite of all the noise associated with social media and engagement metrics. Your audience (customers and prospects) would still rather 'engage' with you through smart email marketing.

Your response to this simple fact should be a giant HOORAY! It's a really simple and obvious strategy. Get introduced to new people through your blog and then convert those people to a relationship with email.

I talk to so many business bloggers who lament the lack of comments when there is no evidence that comments do anything to drive the business or relationship forward. Trust me marketers, you would rather have new email permissions than comments. Embrace that simple reality...your blog draws new people, your blog earns the credibility to take the next step in the relationship and email is the best way to move that relationship forward.

Morgan Stewart of ExactTarget along with Ball State University has done the definitive work as it relates to List Growth Strategies.   As you can see from the chart below, Site Registration dominates when it comes to the best way to build quality.   Your blogs are sites! They are actually superior sites because they are visited by people who are trying to solve problems that you are very specifically talking about. This is what social media is all about: Humanize your marketing with real people talking about the problems you solve. Build credibility and convert that credibility into mutually beneficial relationships.

ExactTarget List Building Strategies Blogging as a email name capture tactic

Questions from this week's Compendium Blogware webinar #3

Friday, June 5, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Q: What is the best way to educate my employees about blogging - if they all don’t completely understand the benefits?

Wow what a great question.   What makes it great is that you are totally thinking about your blogging goals right up front. Blogging Best Practices start with widespread employee participation.   Employees are 5 times more credible than CEO's as corporate bloggers according to Richard Edelman, and that only makes sense.   Who better to tell the stories about your products and services in the context of your customer success?    If your goal is to convert your blog traffic into meaningful relationships then the best content is focused on the customers problems and how your business can solve them.

So how do you get the employees interested?   First of all, you have to open up blogging to everyone. If you let people talk on the phone then you should empower them to blog. You never know where your best bloggers are going to come from. And this is not something that can be necessarily appointed.   Bloggers are born not made.

Secondly you have to share your metrics with them. Since you are doing this with clear ROI objectives, you should be very public internally about how it's going and who's helping. Making hero's of the people who are doing a good job is the best way to get others to join the bandwagon.

For the most part people want to feel empowered and important. Marketing's job is to continually reinforce the importance and appreciation of those that participate.

Here at Compendium Blogware, we often have little contests. Small weekly prizes and a public recognition monthly for those that generate the most readers, are the most prolific bloggers. We also have funny Dunce caps for the three least productive bloggers. It's all fun and good natured but at the same time reinforces that this is an important part of being on the team.

The benefits are not only search engine optimization, but also conversion.   Call this out. We chart our monthly metrics in real obvious places so no one can miss that this activity is important to the success of the entire company. Blogging is our number one demand generation activity.

Questions from this week's Compendium Blogware webinar #2

Thursday, June 4, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Q: Do you think B2B blog promotion via social networks such as Twitter and Facebook is effective?

Yes. Now you may think this an inconsistent answer based on my previous post but let me explain. For almost every blog on the planet the vast majority of traffic comes from First Time Visitors. We talked on the "Corporate Blogging Myths" webinar this week and hopefully exposed this fact. Most blogs generate 65% to 95% of their traffic from first time visitors. Depending on the age of the blogs, this traffic comes from either searchers or referral sites. If your organization is newer to blogging, most of this traffic is going to come from search.

This is why I so strongly advocate that the search audience is the audience you need to serve first. From that base, then sharing your blog content with your social networks becomes a nice Add on strategy. This week I got a couple nice comments and two leads so far from my social networks that tracked back to my blog. As a company we brought in hundreds of leads through our blog network. Where should I be the most focused? Obviously on our corporate blogging network and SEO. From that base, reach out to your social networks.

Don't forget: Compendium has created the Business Blogging Survival Kit that's available for a free download.

Blogging for Traffic

Friday, April 3, 2009 by Jason Gergely

Ew.... Traffic

When we say the word traffic, everyone cringes. Rush hour, coming homefrom

work when all you want to do is get home and relax on your couch and watch some TV until dinner time. When you get cut off by that big SUV, and your foot hurts from holding the brake, and you smell the exhaust.
Can you imagine? When you walk out that door at close of business, you are going to experience this thing we all call Traffic.... ugh.

However, the word traffic actually does have a positive side. This side of traffic deals with the number of visits to your website, where the higher the traffic... the better. This means your website is getting more and more exposure to consumers.

So you may be asking yourself.. this is all good and well, but what can I do to to increase this traffic thing?

The answer is simple... Blogging!

By blogging for traffic, you are satisfying everything that Google and other search engines are looking for; recent, frequent, and relevent data.

Imagine... you have your employees each have a blog on the multi user blog service that Compendium offers. Each of them puts up two or three posts a week during downtime they have during the workday (it only takes a few minutes).

By posting regularly, and often... you have satisfied two of the search criteria for Google. The third just has to be fulfilled with quality posts. Make sure they are writing about your company, including several keywords in each post.

Increasing your traffic is as easy as that! If you're interested, check out Compendium Blogware to start blogging for traffic!