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More marketers are practicing organic search optimization

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Stephanie West

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!

http://2medschool.blogspot.com/2007/10/organic-chemistry-alkyl-halides-part-ii.html

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!

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.

Health Blogging, Online Health Education

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Jenni Edwards

I am admittedly an online hypochondriac; I feel as if the readily available medical information has resulted in many of us "self diagnosing" ourselves with a multitude of conditions and syndromes --- not to mention the amount of worry that results when you have a simple ailment and the Symptom Checker on WebMD lists a plethora of debilitating illnesses that could be the root cause of your headache, back ache or dizziness.

However, medical information is a positive powerful tool online as it educates the newly diagnosed, can provide a support group of sorts and allows for suffers to be aware of the newest treatments. One example that Compendium has of a client that is playing in this space of "Health Blogging" is Simplex Healthcare, better known as Diabetes Care Club. They are one of the leading suppliers of direct diabetes supplies and their blog has recently kicked off and provided some great information for diabetes patients.

So while we do focus on all companies on providing an ROI from their business blogging efforts, it's important to occasionally take a step back and look at the great resources that online health blogs and tools can provide at no cost and hopefully help someone through their own medical struggles.

Be smarter about how you market online

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Brian Millis

Here is a great post from Seth Godin about online ad clicks. My favorite quote is:

"It's okay to make an ad that isn't easy to measure. If it works, that's enough."

Essentially, this is what every business blog post can be. What other form or online marketing allows you to tell your story from a very human level? As Seth says, the 84% of non-clickers online are looking to make a connection. So use the corporate blog as a way to build familiarity and attention.

This is why we have clients who enjoy over a 10% conversion rate on their Call to Action off of their blog page! People like to buy from people and a blog marketing strategy allows you to take advantage of this MAJORITY of searchers. The stats that Seth discusses in his post also point to why winning organic traffic is so much more valuable (in the majority of cases) than paid search.

Of course, we feel your blog SHOULD be optimized for clicks, but the human nature of a blog works much better for those 84% of non-clickers. Our corporate blogging software makes content creation easy and maximizes its visibility online. With Compendium, you can get in front of that majority of search and use good content to increase conversion.

How to use your Corporate Blog for inbound links

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Corporate Blogging is all about credibility and search marketing. By organizing relevant content that is frequently updated you are essentially building targeted organic landing pages. Content drives this strategy, but don't forget ever that inbound links are really valuable too. Generally I fall into the camp that if your company bloggers create great content and that content targeting search, then you will dramatically increase the reach of your blogs and links will come naturally.

Sometimes however you might need to 'Prime the Pump' and engage in some strategies to legitimately go out and get some links.

This particular tactic is not my original idea but one I've been working on after a post by Rand Fishkin. The idea is sort of back to the Zig Ziglar quote that has been around forever:

"You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."

There is really nothing new conceptually with Social Media. The ideas are the same as they were before brand corruption, now we just have the tools to actually execute.

Rand's idea is to target people you know and write a testimonial about them. The key is not to put this testimonial on your blog, but offer it up for them to put on their own blog.

Another spin on this is the offer to be a guest blogger. I use Google alerts to keep track of who's blogging in my industry, that gives me a steady stream of fellow advocates to reach out to.

Get Tracking - Measure Your Business Blog ROI

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Jess Wehner

In order to make sure your investment with Compendium is worth the dollars you put into the program, it is important to track and measure the ROI of your business blog. While not all marketing teams have the resources to do this, ideally you should have an exact or specific way to measure how much revenue you can attribute back to the blog. This can be done by setting up unique landing pages for your CTAs or putting in tracking codes on all of your blog links.

One new customer that has done this from the beginning is Memolink. Memolink is an online rewards program that allows you to earn points for completing surveys and shopping online. Once you've earned enough points, you can redeem those points for gift cards, cash, or make a donation to a charitable organization.

Check out the Memolink Blog and you will see that every call to action and link on their site leads you to a page that has a unique URL. The Memolink team can then see how many members they are getting signed up directly from the blog, so they won't have to question at the end of the year if the blog was or was not a succesful investment. It will all be in the numbers.

If you'd like to set up a business blog program like Memolink, contact our business development team today and learn how to start generating leads and making sales from your corporate blog.

Proof that brick and mortar purchases begin online.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Megan Glover

Our refrigerator went kaputs last week. After debating whether to fix or toss we decided to purchase a new one.

So, into a cooler all of our food went and our appliance shopping began. But, before we even stepped foot into an appliance store, I searched. I knew I wanted, a stainless steel refrigerator no larger than 20.6 cu ft,and 33 inches wide. (Small spaces in a house built in 1938!) I also wanted a good deal.

My search returned some great qualified results and I was really pleased to see a Compendium client, HHGregg, among the contenders. HH Gregg is a home appliance store that uses our blogging software to target keyword in organic search.

After an hour or so of "window" shopping online we'd identified a handful of refrigerators we wanted to see in person. We jumped in the car, went to the store, and within 45 minutes we had our brand new refrigerator paid for and scheduled for delivery the next morning.

While it was painful to incur an unexpected cost of a new refrigerator, my buying experience (thanks to search) was absolutely not. I'm just one "real-life" example as to how consumers are using search engines to find solutions to their problems. As a marketer... please make sure you follow HHGregg's lead, and be the solution I find.

Demonstrating your point

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Stephanie West

The best way to know how something works is to just listen and learn about it. Professors do this all the time. They stand in from of a classroom and lecture. How effective is lecturing though? Personally, I don't respond well to lectures. I just don't comprehend everything that's being said when a professor stands in from of a classroom and talks.

I need professors to show me what they're talking about. I need a professor to demonstrate his/her point to me.

Demonstrate your point.

It's one of the most effective ways to get the other party to comprehend and fully understand what is being discussed. Both audio and visual aids are the components that make your point most effectively communicated.

Compendium understands this - we offer demonstrations of our product so that you can better understand the software that we offer. Compendium's demos are designed with visual aids that you can view on your computer screen as a blogging expert is talking to you on the phone.

In the demonstrations, the blogging experts at Compendium outline how our blogging software will help you leverage your company in search marketing.

So don't hesitate - schedule a demo today to get a better understanding of what Compendium has to offer, and how your company will benefit!

Exciting Product Release to Preview your Blog Post within Your Template

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Abby Brosmer

This morning, Compendium proudly released the ability to preview your blog post within your live blog template. Prior to today,when creating post as a user the options available were to save as a draft, submit my post to the administrator for moderation or preview the post in new window to ensure video worked properly.

Today, when a user selects preview post, they will now view their content as it would appear live on the web. A nice enhancement to our easy to use blogging software which allows users an extra reassurance that their content will represent the company well on the corporate blog.

As a member of the product support team, we are always working to request enhancements to the product that will enhance each users experience and provide the best blogging software to our clients.

If you have a suggestion, fill our the web form and we will add it to our product log for enhancements. Yes, these enhancements are prioritized by customer request, so every vote matters.

Finding Business Blogging Success

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Amber Mohling

Are you considering starting a blog program at your company?
Or are you looking for ways to improve your current blog's ROI?

If you answered Yes to either of these questions then you'll want to tune into Compendium's upcoming free webinar:

Finding Business Blogging Success: Real-Life Stories
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 from 2-3pm EST
Hosted by award winning marketer, Chris Baggott

During the webinar, Chris will discuss the best practices for ROI driven business blogging, real-life examples of successful blogging strategies, and how to set up a blogging strategy built for success.

Pros and Cons of Compendium Substance Abuse Training 2K9

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by mikey mioduski

When I first heard that Compendium employees were undergoing a mandatory Substance Abuse Training session, I was initially filled with rage. Maybe not rage. Maybe fury. No, fury's probably an exaggeration too. How about this, I was slightly distraught.

I was initially slightly distraught because I'm 26 years into my life. While today is the oldest I've ever been, tomorrow I will be one day closer to my late twenties, which is daringly close to what I call the point of no return. Sure I tested my limits in college, and grad school, but how am I supposed to know the effects of substance abuse on my professional life if I can't bring them to work with me?

Having said that, I believe in the power of optimism. My scotch glass is always half full, so I tried to keep an open and limber mind, and yesterday, when the nice woman from Management 2000 came and explained why Substance Abuse at the work place sucks, I really tried to give her the benefit of the doubt.

The training session changed my whole perspective. It turns out substance abuse at work is not cool at all. Plus, Compendium is growing like crazy. Our simple blogging software is helping tons of clients get found in organic search. In fact, we are doing such a good job that we won a very large grant. And part of keeping that grant means that we must abide by certain concessions, ie we can't be hammered all day at work.

So here's my list of Pros and Cons in regards to Compendium becoming a Drug and Alcohol free workplace. You will see that my initial rage / fury / distress can be quelled, because the pro's seem to outnumber the cons.

Cons:

no in house blogging for liquor incentives. ask Megan Manning who is our blogging czar... it works.
no more kegerator.
no more of Brian Graham's home brewed beer
no pregaming for the bus ride home

Pros:

no drunken sales calls to the clients that "got away."
turns out a lot of work related deaths are attributed to substance abuse. we will have none of that.
the elevators here are pretty old. not sure how substance abuse plays into that, but if you happened to be on crack or acid, and an elevator got stuck, your bruce willis-like instincts might betray you.
not everyone drinks alcohol, so these non drinkers wont feel left out of anything
kanye west
we get to keep that awesome grant. come on!
we get to make more field trips for any substance induced fun.
more fridge space for... food?
research indicates that that people have to make up for colleagues who abuse drugs and booze, and we have enough work to do as it is.
we don't want an *asterisk next to our name in the SAAS hall of fame as the best business blogging software, or best search marketing tool with aid of Captain Morgan, or heroin. no way. we did this the right way.
nobody really drank out of the kegerator anyway. can i take that home?

The pro's have it. Downtown Indy won't be the same, but overall it's a change for the best. And congrats again to Compendium for winning the grant, truly awesome news.

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.

Google Software Engineer Discusses Rankings

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Amber Mohling

What's the main focus of your company's blog marketing program and search marketing program?

Recently Matt Cutts, a Google Sofware Engineer, posted a youtube video disucssing ranking, and he challenged companies that they should be more focused on converting better instead of getting obsessed with ranking.

In the Client Success department at Compendium, we do focus a lot of time on helping our clients receive great search results on numerous keywords related to their business. However, we believe that the success of a blog program is looking at tangible ROI results, i.e. online leads developed and then ultimately conversion.

To learn more about the success of our clients' blog programs, check out some of their case studies by clicking here.

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!

Don't Be Scared of Keywords

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Tyler Bender

I've been writing for years. I have a background in Journalism and was beat over the head with APA format writing in college. I have written websites, press releases, brochures, video scripts. I thought I'd seen the in's and out's of this "web 2.0" movement. The basic principles for writing for the web: keep it simple, put yourself in the shoes of your audience, tell them what you want them to do. Don't screw up gramatically, and don't have typos.

Got it.

Now, I've only been a part of Compendium's team for about three weeks as an internal content writer, and one of the things I have seen multiple times in some of our client keyword lists look something like this: (I'll use Compendium as my example)

Compendium Blogware
Compendium
Blogging Software
Corporate Blogs
Compendiums
Comppendium
Compendiam
Compendium Blog Ware

Notice something odd? The name of the company is misspelled. more than once.

And I'm expected to throw those keywords into my content like that? Whhhhattt? This concept takes some catching on. And for someone who has spent the greater part of his life trying to edit and perfect his writing so that it never has a typo, learning how to include typos into content on purpose is like telling Peyton Manning that it's ok to throw passes to the other team. At first, it was like nails on a chalkboard, only the nails were buckets of acid and the chalkboard was my eyes.

But it makes sense.

People don't check Webster's Dictionary or the phonebook before they visit search engines to search for your company's keywords. Sometimes they're going to misspell their searches and you want to win those searches - even if they're "wrong." Right?

When you're bloging for search, you should always account for the searches that aren't perfect. It's okay. Wouldn't you rather have someone find your blog even though they mistakenly typed in "Acmes Solution" instead of "Acme Solutions," than someone completely miss your content because you weren't comfortable including the misspelling in your content?

Part of the beauty of blogging is that it's not perfect. Actually, I think some imperfections in corporate blogs make the writers more "relatable" to their audience. If I saw a typo in a brochure, I'd think that the company was lazy, didn't care enough to edit their material and all-around not very professional. If I see a typo in a blog, it's easier to remind myself that an actual human being is on the other end of the blog, constantly updating their content, and it was probably a simple oversight.

So don't be scared of your keywords just because they're mispelled. They'll still work, and strategically, it makes sense to use them. The goal is to reach your audience - even if they're not sure how to spell your company name.

You Don't Peak In High School

Monday, October 19, 2009 by Chris Baggott

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.

Communicating with Your Blog

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 by Stephanie West

Corporate blogging is a great way to update your clients (or perspective clients) on what is going on within your company.

Corporate blogging is a great search marketing tool. It also helps businesses get found in search. Blogging is also a great way to generate leads. And it humanizes your business.

But another great aspect of blogging is communication.

Simply communicating what is going on within your company is equally as important as getting found in search or generating leads.

So as the marketing intern, I'm here to tell you what's going on within the marketing department at Compendium.

This month, the Marketing department is hosting a blogging competition amongst the 5 departments at Compendium. Our Marketing Manager, Meghan, assigned each department weekly blogging goals to reach. The Client Success department won two weeks in a row. No one has caught them yet!
The Marketing department hosted a successful Webinar last week! Look for the replay on Compendium's website soon.
We're preparing for another Webinar and follow-up this Thursday, Sept. 17 from 2-3PM, Third Generation Business Blogging. Click on the link to sign up for this FREE webinar!

These are just a few of the fun things going on at Compendium - particularly within the Marketing department. From now on, look for more regular updates from me on what's going on at Compendium in the Marketing department!