Blog Post Software

March Madness

Friday, March 19, 2010 by Jason Harvoth

As the clock gets closer to midnight, Cinderella has to turn into a pumpkin. There are still some very capable teams playing for glory in this year's NCAA tournament. Ohio University, who is coached by John Groce, gave it to Georgetown last night to move into to 32 status. Many games went into overtime, and many more first round games have yet to be played so stay tuned for more exciting drama during the 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball Championship.

While the story unfolds during the tournament, Compendium Blogware is having a tournament of our own. Our EQB (Executive Queen of Blogging) and Gas City native, Heather Benfield, has tasked us with writing posts to maximize the tool we sell. Each and every week during the month of March the divisions of the company battle for blogging supremacy. We're down to the final 3, and next week will pit the final two teams against one another.

The drama is building, and the Sales Department is poised to be crowned blogging champion.

Consumer Experiences make for great Blog Posts

Thursday, March 18, 2010 by Isaac Pellerin

This week I (along with Mikey) have been working through conceptualizing Compendium's Web-to-Post functionality. Compendium is a blogging platform that is optimized for social media and search. It's a very flexible platform and we can extend it's functionality to allow it to become a robust platform for Marketers.

Web-to-post allows you to set up a web page with a form for a user to fill out. The content then goes through the admin layer (for approval or edits) and then goes through the compending process.

The benefit of this process is that it leverages the power of user generated content.

Last week I bought a new Sony Bravia 40" LCD TV from hhgregg. They could use this functionality in this way:

They could send me an email asking me to review the tv (offering me some incentive to do so)
I would go to the form and share my story and some pictures of me watching Modern Family
This story would be submitted, approved, and compended to hhgregg's keyword blogs.
I see my review on their site and I share that facebook and twitter.

Not only will I be sharing my story that will drive traffic to hhgregg's site, but my story is now optimized and may show up in organic search.

So when another consumer goes to Google to search for a Sony tv, they may land on my story hosted on hhgregg's blog which could make them a customer.

If they buy a product the cycle will start all over and they can share their story on a web-to-post form.

It's a feature loaded with potential! Compendium is an enterprise platform and we strive to make our product the platform of choice for marketers!

Universities should all be blogging

Tuesday, March 16, 2010 by Brian Millis

Below you will find a recent email I sent following a great conversation with a private university in New York. As a former Admissions Officer, I have a certain soft spot for helping schools realize the power of strategic blogging to better establish a school brand, culture, and communication with prospective students. Hopefully others will find this helpful as well.

Email:

Hi Current Prospect,

Thank you so much for your time yesterday as I certainly enjoyed the conversation. I wanted to provide you a few take-aways and example links for your internal conversations.

Here are a few examples of current higher education clients who are doing a great job!:

http://blog.granite.edu/blog/granite-state-college

http://blog.uindy.edu/blog/university-of-indianapolis

http://blogging.depauw.edu/blog/top-50-liberal-arts-colleges

Key Take-Aways Regarding Compendium:

Who we are: Compendium is an on demand, enterprise level search and social media platform. We provide a secure and scalable solution that leverages blogging for SEO, human engagement, and online customer acquisition.

Automation: We automate the organization of blog content to deliver the highest search engine ranking/traffic results possible.
Security: We use NO open source plug-ins developed by third parties, which require maintenance and update.
Scalable: Can have unlimited bloggers and can scale the number of strategically targeted online marketing search phrases.
Administration/Control: Admissions can easily manage the messages going out in blog posts and incoming comments from searchers.

Please let me know how I can continue to be a resource for you as you make decisions on the future of your blog program.

Best,

Brian Millis 317-777-6254

Using website analytics to measure blogging program success

Monday, March 15, 2010 by Heather Benfield

Often times when trying to explain Compendium Blogware and our software-as-a-service to others, I get a reaction that tells me I've completely lost the person I'm talking to...yep, you guess it...the smile and nod. I know you've seen it a million times and have probably done it yourself a few times here and there.

I've discoverd the easiest (and most effective) way to educate others about Compendium Blogware and the benefits we provide companies is to tell a story about one of our client's that has seen great success with our enterprise level blogging platform. This helps people relate to the client's situation and visualize how their company would use blogging for search.

With that being said, I'd love to share this latest success story about one of our newer clients, Raxco Software:

For over 30 years, B2B Company Raxco Software has developed award-winning defragmentation solutions and performance utilities that improve hard drive and server performance. But in 2009, the company was looking to improve some of their own levels of performance regarding their freeware blogging program.

Raxco noticed they were able to win a few keyword search phrases throughout the two years of their free blogging program, but were unable to maintain their ranking for long periods of time. They were looking for a solution that not only helps them win more keyword searches, but also provides automatic content distribution and blog scalability. Raxco found these features in Compendium Blogware’s enterprise level software, along with its ability to provide real-time knowledge of key phrase density.

After only four short months with Compendium, Raxco’s primary goal – to generate enough business from the blogs to cover the product’s expense – was well on its way.

By producing an avg. 4 posts/week distributed to 100 targeted keyword blogs, 36% rank in the top 10 Google search results and 70% in the top 50 – driving a total 23,555 visits from blogs to website.

With website analytics, Raxco is able to report a 10% conversion rate on blog Calls-to-Action (CTA’s). Although the company chooses not to disclose profit numbers, they are just getting started with their program and the blogs are already their 3rd highest lead source.

For more information about Compendium Blogware and how we can help your company, schedule a free, live demo today!

Tracking Results

Monday, March 15, 2010 by Ford McAlexander

One of the aspects that makes blogging a winning online marketing strategy is that there are easy ways to track your return on investment. You can use tools like Google Analytics to track things like the percentage of 1st time visitors to your site. You can also track how many people click on links that lead to future orders. Those are just the basics of how you can track an investment in blogging.

One company that tracked their blogging efforts was one of our clients, Fairtytale Brownies. Within the first six months of blogging with Compendium's affordable blogging software, the company had 110 orders for their premium brownies. That was just a small percentage of the 10,000 plus visits the website received. Since Fairytale tracked their blogs, they can create more refined blog posts that can segment more customers and gain more business! For some fun reading, check out their case study here. Again, there are many more benefits of business blogging, but having the ability to track your ROI is very important!

Blogging Best Practices - Call-to-Action Checklist

Monday, March 15, 2010 by Sarah Sedberry

With all the hype around social media, twitter this, and Facebook that, the end goal sometimes gets lost. The motivation behind all of this social strategy for a business is to gain more leads, build a brand, generate more sales and revenue.

So how is the best way to accomplish that on your company's business blog? When individuals are searching the web they know exactly what they want and what they are looking for. It is no accident when a visitor arrives at your site, as something they were searching for brought them there. Utilizing the right words will drive those visitors to take action.

With Compendium, you can direct that traffic to take the next step via Calls to Action (CTA's for short). Here is a quick check list to make sure your CTA is following best practices:

Does your CTA have a purpose?
Does your CTA have a benefit for the visitor?
Are you directing your traffic via a command?
Is there an obvious place for a reader to click?
Do you have a unique landing page available for this CTA?
Have you put the proper tracking measurements in place?

For prime examples, look to the right of this post to see Compendium's sidebar and our calls to action. We try to use images that draw your attention, and make it obvious that its a button. You'll also see that our landing pages are specific to our CTA's and are very simple. That's because we don't want to distract a visitor to do anything else than focus on that landing page (fill out a form, download a whitepaper, view a demo, etc).

Think about the end goal for your blogging program and set up your CTA's accordingly. Remember to capture the visitors that come to your site, and direct them to the next appropriate step.

Outgoing Email on Overdrive

Monday, March 15, 2010 by Tyler Bender

After taking a quick look at my "sent" folder last week, I could swear that my out-of-office reply was turned on. Every outgoing email looked like a carbon copy of the one sent before it. It seemed like I found about 100 different ways to say "that's an approvable post" to both writers and customers.

As a writer, I can understand aiming for perfection. I can also understand taking feedback too personally. So when a writer submits a post to one of our clients that gets declined with feedback attached and they feel like the world is caving in on them, it's sometimes interesting to me how we're determining the middle ground between "this is a blogging masterpiece" and "this is a blogging trainwreck."

We're not launching rockets here, we're blogging for search.

If you're an admin in a Compendium account, consider these things when you're reviewing your submitted posts.

does the post hit your keywords? - obviously the easiest way to determine this is whether or not your keyword strength bar is green. But analyze how the keywords are used. Are they injected seamlessly into the writer's content? Or are they just kind of tossed into some sentences that may or may not make sense?
does the post have a point? - we often preach here that blog posts can be about anything. If a writer can talk about what they did today, they can write a post. As long as the post addresses something that can be tied back into your business, it's approvable. If the post tries to solve the problems of the world, you might want to consider breaking that up and spreading the love in multiple posts.
does the post mis-represent your brand? - obviously if your writers are talking about things that contradict your best practices or business identity in their post, then it should be declined. But if the post mixes with your brand and can connect with your audience, then it's approvable.

This is a good place to start. There are plenty more items to check off when you're going through your blog posts to decline or approve them (spelling, photos, links, etc), but even if a post doesn't have some/all of those things, it's still probably approvable.

Save yourself some time and save your writers some anxiety. Approving posts that, at the bare minimum, follow these three guidelines will still positively impact your blogging strategy.

First Compendium Baby On the Way!

Friday, March 12, 2010 by Jess Wehner

Just thought I'd do one last post on my blog before becoming a mom! Today is my last day in the Compendium Blogware office for a couple months, I'll be taking 3 months off to welcome and spend time with my first daughter.

Today is my official due day, but as anyone who has been pregnant can testify, the due date is merely a guideline for when the baby will come - only she will know the official timing! I've enjoyed spending the last 40 weeks of my pregnancy at the Compendium office. Everyone at our company has been extremely supportive and has helped me feel normal despite my growing stomach, ankles and feet.

I have also enjoyed sharing the news with all of my clients! I've gotten some great advise and even had the opportunity to use one of our client's products, the BabyPlus Prenatal Education System. Check out their Compendium blog to not only see a great business blog, but also if you're interested in learning more about the monitor they offer that pregnant women can use to help develop their baby in the womb.

I'll try to get a picture of our daughter up on the blog after she is born!

Study Shows 80% of Blog Traffic Comes from First-Time Visitors

Friday, March 12, 2010 by Heather Benfield

Since working at Compendium (a total of 2 months now), I'm beginning to see several common themes, questions, debates, misconceptions and conversations between the social media world and the seo world. One of the most common discussions I've heard between the two sides is the notion of "the repeat visitor".

What I mean by this is social media lovers often believe that the majority of business blog readers are loyal fans who keep coming back for more - a repeat visitor. However, here at Compendium Blogware we track metrics for over 400 client blogs and notice that the majority of traffic to a blog is from new, unique visitors.

In order to clear up the myth, Compendium partnered with a few social media and SEO gurus, Jason Falls, Debbie Weil and Jay Baer and conducted a survey with 266 companies addressing various questions about their social media usage and visitors.

The results?

Two-thirds of respondents reported over 80% of blog traffic comes from first-time visitors.

So what does this mean? Well, from a writer's perspective it definitely means that you can't assume your readers know who you are, what your business provides, or will understand any references you make from earlier posts or previous topics you've written about. You need to make sure you are writing your content in a way that would answer the questions a searcher was looking for when running across your blog in the search engine results. This also means you can re-use content! If you had a great post last year about the benefits of your product that you were able to see great traffic from, don't be afraid to re-use it since most of your readers will be seeing it for the first time.

This is a great best practice to use when writing a post. After a post is complete, ask yourself the following four questions:

1. Did I use relevant keywords or phrases that my target audience would type in a search querry if they had a question about my product or service
2. Did I establish who I am, what company I worked for or the product or solution I provide?
3. Based on the keywords I chose to focus on in my post, did I provide answers to the questions my reader was searching for?
4. Did I provide next steps for the reader to take action in order to learn more or even purchase the product or service I provide that solves their problems?

By asking these questions, you'll be able to cover your bases when making sure you are not assuming that the people reading your blog are long-time followers. You will in fact, be providing the needed information a new visitor would need in order to make a decision as to weather or not they would like to become a loyal customer.

Read the full Compendium Survey Results.

Real time search

Thursday, March 11, 2010 by Clayton Stobbs

As Google continues to roll out new search enhancements (personalization, real time search etc.) it is truly interesting to see how much value is created for the end user. For instance, Salesforce was creeping along this morning so I decided to search "is Salesforce down?". Naturally, salesforcewatch.com and downornot.com won the top two organic search results (Salesforce.com had the only PPC ad) but I found it very valuable to see that right below the main organic results, Google was pulling Twitter results directly applicable to the search.

In this instance, several results were also being pulled back from recent blog posts and this was quite valuable. If your company is using your blog as the hub of your social media strategy, you can truly begin to dominate a space simply because you're present in so many arenas. For instance, if someone searches "affordable blogging software", our corporate blog wins that search and in some cases, real time Twitter results have shown up related to the topic. Naturally then, it is important to first, win the organic results and give searchers what they want, but also to utilize other strategies capable of making the searcher happy through other social mediums.

For additional information, I would highly suggest watching the replay of our webinar with Jay Baer on blogging as the hub of your social media strategy.

Large-Scale Long-Tail Organic Search Strategy

Thursday, March 11, 2010 by Lee Jorgenson

This post is for all of the SEO gurus who are still dreaming of an SEO tool that is scalable and built for targeting thousands of long-tail keywords. Your day has come!

Compendium's search marketing tool (yes, it is a blog platform) allows businesses to target an unlimited number of keywords organically. How is this possible? What will my IT support need to look like? How long does it take to implement?

Check out a demo to see how the platform works. As for the answers to the next two questions: no IT support (they have enough to do already) and we typically have you up and running in about 10 business days.

Give us a call, and start dominating your long-tail keyword list!

The New Wave of User Generated Content

Thursday, March 11, 2010 by jennifer buscher

This week, I've learned of several new and what I think are "game-changing" developments on the Compendium front. If you are in the online marketing world and have not lived in a hole over the last year, you've probably heard of something called "user generated content" and how important it is for SEO and online marketing now and in the future.

We all know that people like human, relevant content... People love reviews and testimonials, but your potential customer still have to find you first before they can get to your wonderful customer reviews. So, how do you use that human content for acquistion and to drive new visitors? This is exactly what Compendium is helping clients do through two features:

Web-to-Post: This is a feature that allows a visitor on your blog to share their story about your product or service, which then goes through an approval layer, and automatically distributed across your blog network to help you get found on the search engines. This content is often collected through a call to action which directs the visitor to a webform where they can share their story and even upload a picture. For example, Lydia's Uniforms collects customer stories through a webform that is accessed on their blog. With our business blogging platform, they are using this content to win search and engage new customers.
Email-to-Post: Similar to web-to-post, email-to-post allows companies to tap into their email database to solicit content. Let's stick with Lydia's Uniform's to paint a picture. Once my purchase is complete, I would receive a triggered email from them saying "Thank you for your purchase... we'd love to feature you on our blog.... click here (web form link attached) to tell us your nursing story." That story would also then be sent into an approval layer and once approved, automatically syndicated across the Lydia's blog network. That nurse who submitted her/his story would likely want to tell all their friends via facebook, twitter... you can see where this is going. People love user generated content and now there is actually a system that gives companies a seamless way to leverage that content to drive new business.

I firmly believe that these two features are going to change business blogs as we know them today. To learn more about web-to-post or email-to-post, please feel free to reach out to me directly at jbuscher@compendium.com or 317.777.6121.

Enhancement Requests

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by Abby Warner

As a part of my release Wednesday series that I have been writing, I thought I would reach out to you the client and get your thoughts. If you are interested, feel free to complete the form below. We will add these enhancement requests to our list of enhancements and work to prioritize for development.

Thank you in advance for your feedback!


	Enhancement Request Please complete the form below detailing your idea. We encourage our clients to submit enhancement requests by emailing help@compendium.com . However, for the purpose of this blog post, I wanted to collect ideas through an alternate method.
	Your Name* First Name Last Name
	Company*
	Email*
	Phone
	Request Details*

FormSpring Online Forms

Blogging Can Be Your Marketing Oscar

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by Ford McAlexander

Hopefully everybody has noticed that the Oscars happened last Sunday with "The Hurt Locker" winning best picture because of its compelling acting and emotion. So I decided that I was going to go and see this movie since watching movies is one of my favorite things to do. The Academy had it right, the movie definitely is compelling and makes you feel a connection with the character.

So while pondering about what to write about for this post, it came to me. Movies and marketing campaigns are very similar because they are only successful if they are compelling enough for people to do something. Unfortunately, many companies are not getting an Oscar for their marketing campaigns.

Although, there are solutions for your company to improve its online marketing strategy. Compendium Blogware has powerful blogging software that can help your business right now with proven results. Sign up for a demonstration today!

Social Marketing is Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by Kyle McGrath

The other day I had the opportunity to sit and listen to our co-founder Chris Baggott speak about his views on social media marketing and how blogging fit into the picture. After listening to him, there was a light bulb that went off in my head that clarified the power of what blogging can do for a company.

Prior to the days of million dollar Superbowl commercials and radio advertisements, companies relied on their value being spread by word-of-mouth from one customer to another. This form of advertising had the most value to a company, but as the target audience grew so did the methods used in order to reach them.

Think about how you look to experience something new today. What would you do in order to find a new restaurant to eat at? TV to buy? Or place to vacation? Research shows that 82% of people are using search engines like Google in order to look for answers to these questions. How does social marketing fit into this picture? It brings customers together from all over the world in order to share experiences through word-of-mouth advertising.

Blogging is the vehicle that gives your customers the best avenue to share their stories through words and pictures. Compendium's corporate blogging software allows customers to share their stories through web-to-post. This positive review of your company's service or product creates more value to an on-line searcher than any print ad ever would.

Blogging now empowers customers to re-initiate the value of word-of-mouth advertising on a global scale.

Don't Bug...Blog!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010 by Brittan Bright

For every sales and marketing professional out there who has even been reduced to a stalker, spammer or pain-in-the... you know what I am talking about, this post is dedicated to you.

The longer I work for Compendium, the more fun returns to sales for me. Being a rockstar salesperson in this economy, particularly in new business, has been anything but fun for most of us. Budgets have gotten tighter, targets have become unreachable and departments are shrinking. Some of my former colleagues have gone back to school, started new businesses or prayed for a lay-off with a decent severance package rather than endure one more day of feeling like a desperate and unsuccessful stalker. Most of our egos have been annihilated, our bank accounts are smaller and our spirits are broken.

And then there are those that cling to their unsuccessful tactics, shamelessly begging for business, reduced to the dreaded status of the Bug-a-Boo.

Why do sales people press on? Because we live for the thrill, for the new and exciting product/service/idea. We are by nature, competitive and wired to win. Good sales reps are always on the quest for the perfect client, the success story, for the satisfied customer, and of course, that lucrative paycheck. Somewhere in the DNA of a great sales professional is the love of solutions, the desire to solve problems, to fill a void. We love to connect, to tell a great story. This is why blogging for search marketing and ultimately, as a new client acquisition strategy, is so powerful from a sales aspect of an organization.

Most companies are realizing that Social Media is here to stay. Compendium offers a way to be more strategic, measurable and effective with that strategy so that your sales department can return to the glory days. Instead of bugging people and making it easy to ignore you, why not blog just make it easy to find you?

Think of Your Favorite Enterprise Blogging Solution

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 by Jason Harvoth

The more prospects I talk to about Compendium, the more I begin to understand the magnitude of our product.

When you think of your favorite enterprise blogging solution, what do you think of? Does it deliver the return on investment that a good platform should? Does it sit there collecting and displaying content...and that's it?

The clients that I speak with give me a couple different responses:

Call me in a few months...we're just not ready. (Have fun getting passed by your competitors.)
How soon can I get started?

We help you monetize social marketing. Again, we help you monetize social marketing. Whether it's an email to post (E2P) or web to post (W2P) strategy, our algorithm's main objective is to get your company or content found with organic search. If your company is already using email as a marketing strategy, then you MUST have a conversation with us about how we can integrate. We are a software as a service company that is scalable to meet your needs.

Return On Time Investment... priceless

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 by Maureen McNamara

At Compendium we drink the Kool-Aid. We're all busy but we all are tasked to blog. I am in sales and blogging is a lead gen tool for us. That is a great motivator for me and that is why I appreciate the best blogging software, the only corporate blogging software on the planet. The user interface is so simple, so fast and the compending feature is priceless --- to coin an overused campaign sound bite.

If you can't take my word for it, and why should you, check out this internal email sent last week from Heather in the Compendium Marketing Dept. to see what I mean...

"Just wanted to share some inspiring information about our internal blogging program:

Since the start of our blogging efforts (November 2007) to today, Compendium employees have created 3,226 blog posts.

With the compending process, those 3,226 posts were multiplied a little over 117 times generating 377,683 total posts in our keyword blogs.

So, the 2 years and 3 months time to generate 377,683 combined keyword blog posts would have taken 263 years to create without the compending process!!

Have a great weekend!"

WOW! I can't tell you how many leads we generated from those posts but let's just say we're all EXTREMELY busy and leave it at that.

Should your organization be blogging? If you don't think you have the time to make an impact on your SEO, customer acquistion and lead gen goals, check out the Compendium blogging solution and let it do all the heavy lifting for you. Trust me on this one... it works!

PageRank - Does it matter?

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 by Sarah Sedberry

In working with a client this week on their blogging program we started discussing the topic of PageRank - what it was, does it matter, can you affect it, how does it affect you, etc. It was a great discussion and one worth sharing (hence this wonderful post).

PageRank - what is it?

Sites' positions in Google's search results are determined based on a number of factors designed to provide end-users with helpful, accurate search results. Typically on a scale of 0-10, where each "page" on a site/network has a value. So if you have multiple pages on your site, each one of them might have a different "rank"

Can you affect it?

PageRank reflects Google's view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that they believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

In short - sure, just work on the 500 million variables.

Does it matter?

According to Google's Webmaster Help forum, the following is stated from the "horses mouth":

"Q: My site's PageRank has gone up / gone down / not changed in months!

A: Don't worry. In fact, don't bother thinking about it. We only update the PageRank displayed in Google Toolbar a few times a year; this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank, which is just one of over 200 signals that can affect how your site is crawled, indexed and ranked. PageRank is an easy metric to focus on, but just because it's easy doesn't mean it's useful for you as a site owner. If you're looking for metrics, we'd encourage you to check out Analytics, think about conversion rates, ROI (return on investment), relevancy, or other metrics that actually correlate to meaningful gains for your website or business."

Key Points:

PageRank is just one of over 200 signs that determine the health of your site!
PageRank is only updated a few times a year!
Don't even think about it! They literally tell you - "this is our respectful hint for you to worry less about PageRank"

There is no magic answer to the question of "How do I win", but we do know there are several factors that play into it. PageRank is one of the factors that should not get your attention, and instead be focused on measurable results - like ROI, TRAFFIC, and CONVERSIONS.

Google as a Blogging Role Model

Tuesday, March 9, 2010 by Ford McAlexander

Google is a good role model for bloggers across the world. The two founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, are true innovators and have made their impact on the technology world as we know it. But what is even more special, blogs would never have the same effect that they have now without the power of Google's PageRank technology.

Google looks at a lot of different factors when determining PageRank, but one of the more important aspects they look at is how pages are linked together. Good bloggers should know that linking their blogs around the web helps them climb the Google ranks and gain more exposure. The more exposure means the more subscribers and for business, more money!

Compendium Blogware wants to help you climb the ranks faster by helping you compend your keywords to make every word mean more with every post. Without the need to rely on SEO directly, blogging is the most effective organic search strategy for any marketer. Schedule a demo today to see how you can grow like Google online.