Blog Post Software

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.

Common Mistakes in Blogging (#4)

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

(4th in a series of 5)

Common Mistake #4:

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

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

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

Answer:

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

Other ways include:

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

Common Mistake #1
Common Mistake #2
Common Mistake #3

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.

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.

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.

Common Mistakes in Blogging #3

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

(3rd in a series of 5)

Common Mistake #3:

Not allowing or enabling conversation. A blog is a great way to allow potential customers to see the human side of the company. Don't let the blog just become another masterfully skilled piece of marketing that has to go through 8 layers of approval before going live to the web. Readers expect to see a human element when they land on a blog, so make sure they receive that.

Statistics show that the majority of visitors that read a blog, are new visitors. So how would you approach a new potential customer in person? You would engage with them and earn their trust before trying to sell them a product.

Same concept with a business blog - this is the first time they have seen your company, so if all they read are marketing and PR posts, that are super "sales"y - you're going to scare them away instead of engaging them.

Answer:

Allow visitors and readers the ability to interact with your writers. Let comments show on the blog - both the good and the bad - it allows you as the company to respond and show that you are willing to be transparent with your customers.

It is also good practice to engage with other bloggers in your industry. Comment on their blog posts, highlight an article in the industry and what your opinion is on it.

Let personality show, engage and encourage conversation with others out there.

Common Mistake #1
Common Mistake #2

Happy Birthday to ME!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 by Allison Bowen

Today I officially feel old. Okay, okay, I know 23 is not very old... But STIL

L! 23 is one of those ages that I've always considered to be "old." And now here it is, already! Wow does time fly by!

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

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

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

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

"Real" Blogging

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Allison Bowen

Many people think that in order to write a blog post, you need to a be a subject matter expert. We at Compendium know that this is just not the case. In fact, in order to blog for business all you really need to do is blog! Using our powerful blogging software to write a post, you can get you the search results you are looking for.

We often get the question "Who should be blogging for my company?" Our answer? Any one you empower with an e-mail address you should also empower with a blog. Every person in your company has a story to tell and they should be given the opportunity to tell it!

Take for example students at M.I.T. According to an Oct. 1, 2009 article in the New York Times titled M.I.T. Taking Student Blogs to Nth D

egree, these student bloggers are free to write about whatever they want. One blogger even writes that she was "bored out of her mind" in a class. While this may seem like bad publicty for the school, it's really not. It's a real thought from a real student. This is what your readers will be most interested in.

Your readers will appreciate the posts where your writers offer up their advice or suggestions and they'll enjoy posts of cute stories. But they'll really get into posts were your writers tell exactly what is going on within your company. A product recall? A down quarter? Blog about it! Explain the issue, how it occured and how your company is working to fix the problem. Blog posts should be an area in which you can "get real" with your readers.

So go ahead, let your employees blog about anything they want! Who knows - it could even end up in the New York Times!

Common Mistakes in Blogging (#2)

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

Recently I started writing about common mistakes we see when a company begins a blog marketing program. To continue with the series, I wanted to discuss the expectations regarding the amount and frequency of content generation.

(2nd in a series of 5)

Common Mistake #2:

This is one of the most common misconceptions we see with new clients, is the understanding of how a search marketing effort becomes effective. When looking at our most successful clients, it is when they continue to fuel their content machine, and frequently put out new blog posts.

Think about blogs that you read on a regular basis - how often do they publish content? Typically it is multiple times per week, and is on a scheduled basis. So that you as the reader begin to count on when you'll see new information. Same story with the web crawlers - the frequency that your network creates content will train the crawlers to come back and crawl your site more frequently and see you as an authoritative answer.

Answer:

Blogging on a regular basis is a hard habit to get into, but similar to going to the gym, once you get in the routine you'll find that it is an enjoyable experience, and the results will encourage you along the way. Get other individuals at your company to help write content, so that not one person is shouldering the load.

Also, with our easy to use blog software and post scheduling feature, you'll be able to schedule when a blog post shows live to the web, so that if you aren't able to put content out everyday, you'll at least look like you are! ;)

Remember that anything can be good blog fodder so talk about that great conversation you had with a client, or a new product that's coming out, or a recent article in your industry and how your company plays a role.

(Common Mistake #1)

Why Rankings Aren't Important - from Matt Cutts

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

There are several things that are used to determine whether a blog marketing program is successful, but one of the things that we stress here at Compendium, is that rankings is not the main thing to focus on. We instead focus on overall traffic, search traffic, conversions, etc. These are much better ways of tracking the success of a search marketing effort, than simple rankings.

Recently Matt Cutts, a Google Software Engineer, posted a video about why even the Google kings advise to not pay as much attention to rankings. I wanted to share this video as additional information that a successful blog program does not hinge on a ranking report.

Happy Halloween from Compendium!

Sunday, November 1, 2009 by Kaila Woodside

Happy Halloween from Compendium! That cutie over there is my sweet little cousin Carter dressed up in his astronaut costume. He is my motivation for my Halloween post of the day. 5 spooky ideas for your next 5 blog posts that follow blogging best practices:

1. Tell a spooky story. Testimonials are a great way to allow your prospects to hear from your current clients.

2. Creepy Statistics - Your prospects want numbers. Numbers showing clear ROI from your product are great ideas for blog posts.

3. Show a Scary Video! Videos embedded right into your blog post will give your readers a different way to connect with your product.

4. Report on an evil story. Sharing a story where your company is highlighted is a great way to talk about your company's success from another angle.

5. Happy Halloween - blogging about timely holidays and events are great for search. Show your personal side and share how your company celebrates holidays and events.

Will blog for Candy

Sunday, November 1, 2009 by Kaila Woodside

Candy, pizza, milkshakes, paid time off, movies during lunch, happy hour drinks, cash... etc, etc. You name it - our blogging administrator has done it. Incentive programs that is. At Compendium all it really takes is a little friendly competition or incentives to get employees to blog. Take me for example: I am not a dedicated blogger. Typically, my name is used when referring to the idea that you "can't appoint bloggers". However, tonight, a Saturday night on Halloween, I am blogging. (and passing out candy to cute tricker treaters from the big bag of candy on the right).

Powerful blogging software needs lots and lots of content to be successful and sometimes its just takes the right type of motivation for each person to become a dedicated blogger. What did I need, you ask? What drives me to blog at 9:00 PM on Saturday night is that it is now part of my job. Each month every blogger on the client success team has a set number of blog posts they need to write. This isn't a huge number - 10-13 posts is all. But knowing that it is part of my job, keeps me motivated to get to that number.

Every day I am talking with blogging administrators on how to keep their bloggers motivated, and sometimes it just takes a little trial and error to find out what motivates the blogging team. Talk with your Compendium Client Success manger today about some ideas for your own blogging program.

A Good Rule of Thumb For Content Creation

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Jess Wehner

Many clients wonder how much content it will take to start receiving traffic on their keywords - and the answer we most often tell them is you can never write enough! But the truth is, depending on the keywords you are targeting - it could take writing content to each of those keyword phrases as much as one time a day. When you decide to go after words organically, it takes a bit more work than targeting them via a pay per click campaign.

Using Compendium as your business blog software is only the first step in a great SEO strategy. Writing frequent, relevant content is the next step. I found a great post that gives one person's opinion on how much content you can actually expect to write: SEO Copywriting Frequency. Ian Lurie says to look at the competitiveness of the term, and then gives this scale for how much content you should be producing based on the number of competing pages showing up when you search for that term in Google:

<10,000 competing pages: Write once a week.
10,001-100,000 competing pages: Write twice a week.
100,001-200,000 competing pages: Write three times a week.
200,001-2,000,000 competing pages: Write every day.

Keep in mind, these theory applies to each keyword - so if you are targeting 100 keywords, you need to write a lot of content! (You can see why we just tell people to write as much as possible).

Fortunately, Compendium gives each of your posts the biggest bang for your buck, pulling each post out to several different pages based on the number of keywords you use. So instead of having to write 100 posts a day for 100 keywords, our software will take 1 post and put it towards 2-5 keywords (or however many you target). For more information on exactly how our software works, view a demo with one of our business development managers.

Put A Survey On Your Blog

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Jess Wehner

One of my clients asked how to add a survey to their blog. We don't get this request a lot, because most of our client's business blogs are focused on lead generation or increasing sales. While a survey might not be a good fit for all blogs, a survey might be something you would be interested in adding to your blog if you are wanting to engage with your readers, get feedback on something, or just get your readers' thoughts on a subject. They may even give you content ideas to write a blog post!

If you would like to add a survey, there are a lot of free, easy to use sites out there - glowday.com, polldaddy.com, surveymonkey.com - just to name a few! For the most part, I found these sites are simple to use - set up an account, specify what you would like your survey to look like, then copy and paste the code into your blog.

Like any call to action you put on your blog though, make sure you have a reason for adding a survey and a tangible way to track and use the results.

Explaining Compendium to Friends

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Allison Bowen

I have always loved the fall season. Football, changing leaves, chilly fall days... and HALLOWEEN! What's better than that?! Despite the fact that I'm now an adult, I still find it fun to dress up and go out on the town. This year, my friends and I decided that our own little Halloween night was just what we needed. Of course this meant that we had to carve pumpkins.

I am one of the lucky individuals who is still best friends with their high school friends; last night's Halloween party was with girls that I have known since kindergarten. As we all sat around reminiscing about the past, our conversations quickly turned to what we are doing know. One friend is a hairdresser, one works for a local health company, two are in grad school.... and then there is me. How do I explain what my company does?

"Oh that's easy," I always say. "We provide the best blogging software for search engine optimization." That's the point at which I always get blank stares.

Compendium's product is really quite easy when you think about it. By writing blog posts, you are able to increase your company's position within Google's rankings for certain keywords. Does your company sell bicyles in Indianapolis? You would probaby want your company to appear first when someone searches for "Indianapolis Bicycles" within Google. Our product helps you do just that! Of course there is a bit more to it, but overall, Compendium helps your company rise to the top of search results through blogging.

We Want Your Ideas!

Friday, October 30, 2009 by Allison Bowen

Here at Compendium, we know that we provide our clients with the best blogging software available. Not only does our product allow you to easily write a blog post, it will also help you actually blog for search engine optimization. We know that our product is great, but there are always areas in which it could be better. This is where you come in.

We want to hear from you! Have an idea? A suggestion to improve our product? We are always open to ideas from our clients. Our main goal is provide our clients with the most powerful blogging software that will help them get the best results.

If you have a suggestion for something we could improve within our system, please let us know! Send you ideas and enhancement requests to help@compendium.com. We take all the ideas submitted and enter them into a database. Each idea is prioritized by demand, so the more clients that ask for a feature, the more we want to make it happen! Every week, our engineering team takes a look at the enhancement requests submitted and tries their best to upgrade our software accordingly.

Keep an eye out for more new features that you, our clients, have requested coming soon!

Two different methods; One common goal

Thursday, October 29, 2009 by Stephanie West

When you give two different people the task of preparing dinner - they will (most likely) come up with two different meals.

For example: Say you give two people a can of crescent rolls each. They are each told to prepare a meal that incorporates the can of crescent rolls.

http://auntypolknowsitall.blogspot.com/2009/07/hungry-hungry-hippo.html

The first person makes a meal that we'll call: Chicken Crescents. It involves about an hour and a half of preparation, a lot of slicing, dicing, stirring and stuffing. The meal then has to cook for another 30 minutes. So, after 2 hours the meal is ready to be eaten.

http://saucytart.typepad.com/eat_drink_memory/2009/04/pigs-in-a-blanket-day-contest-kicks-off.html

Then there's the second person who makes a meal we'll call: Pigs in a Blanket. It involves about 10 minutes of preparation, i.e. stuffing a hotdog with cheese, then rolling it in a crescent roll. This meal has to cook for 20 minutes. So, after 30 minutes the meal is ready to be eaten.

Let me tie this all together for you. Two different methods; One common goal. The goal? To eat.

Just like eating, there are two different methods for preparing a blog.

One method involves a platform that allows you to set up multiple blogs. After you write a blog post, there are multiple steps and actions that you have to take for search engine optimization. This method requires a lot of manual work.

The next method involves writing a blog post (which takes anywhere from 10-20 minutes), then clicking "Submit." Because of the platform, the blog post is automatically optimized. You blog for search engine optimization - but the blog platform optimizes it for you!

Two different methods; One common goal. The goal is for your blog to be maximized in search engine optimization.

If you were blogging, which method would you choose? I would go with the second method, because all I have to do is blog. The platform does the rest.

Want to know more about this platform? Schedule a demo with a blogging expert at Compendium to learn more about how your blog can maximize its search engine optimization.

Go with the Pigs in a Blanket approach - you'll reach your goal more quickly!

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.