Blog Review

Conversation Turned Blog Post

Thursday, July 2, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

Today I was working through my emails from various clients who are using the Compendium Blogware platform for their online marketing efforts, when I came across an email that I often see. It typically goes something like this....

"I understand that content is what drives the success of my blog program, but I am having trouble figuring out what to write about. I have used up the content ideas I had planned out and need help knowing what to write about next."

For the answer let's start with the breakdown of the searcher to conversion path:

Searchers are using the search engine to find an answer to their problem
Your company writes content on how you can solve that searchers problem
Searcher engages with your company
You convert that searcher into a sale

So what should you be writing about? The same thing you talk about every day with your clients in email, phone calls, conferences, trade shows, etc. Talk about how your company can solve their problem. Tell them how you solved a problem just like theirs the other day with a current client. Most of us have a very active email inbox - every one of those is a blog post waiting to happen! Just like emails never end, neither do blog ideas :)

The other thing to keep in mind is that most of the individuals landing on your blog are from search and have never heard, seen, or read anything about you and your company before. With that in mind you can re-purpose old content - its OK to talk about the same things, because they don't know that you've already talked about it. You can also re-purpose old newsletters, email campaigns, marketing materials, etc.

Content is all around you!

Trusted Content Developer: Element Three

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

Trusted Content Developer: Element Three
Website: www.DiscoverElementThree.com
Blog: blog.discoverelementthree.com

Who is Element Three in their own words:
Element Three is about business. Specifically, your business and how to grow it. We are a brand development, marketing strategy and creative execution firm focused on integrating business insights to measurably advance our clients' business objectives. If you're a business leader with growth objectives you just might be interested in what we say. Or, more importantly, what we will do to help your business achieve more. Our clients' needs vary; from re-establishing lost market share to creating a new brand identity to packaging design to market analysis. All come to us with the singular goal of helping their businesses grow. Element Three. Business first.

Who is Element Three currently working with on Compendium’s platform?
Element Three and Compendium have had a relationship for a little over a year. Element Three blogs on Compendium’s platform and is the agency of record for That’s Good HR that also uses Compendium.

While Element Three does not write the blog posts for That’s Good HR. They do provide monthly content strategies session with That’s Good HR bloggers in order to encourage quality content creation.

When Element Three brings a new client on what process do you use/work though to get to know and create content for the client?
When working with a new client, we have a questionnaire that they would need to complete, we would review and then have face-to-face meeting with them to outline the content strategy for the upcoming month. We would not engage with a client for less than 6 months. It would be a set amount to help write the content strategy and to write a pre-determined number of posts.

Two Days & Two Prizes Up For Grabs

Thursday, June 18, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

Content creation as a part of June's Blogging Vacation has been picking up this week with prizes that go out to:

6/15: Travis Claytor from Visit Tampa Bay
6/16: Marcus Danernos from Sutter's Mill
6/17: Nancy Heltman from DCR Virginia

Congratulations prize winners! Haven't earned a prize yet this week?

You still have two chances to earn prizes this week. All you have to do is blog!

We are here to help you earn prizes. Attend one of our mini-webinars and Chantelle will provide you with a custom review of your content and blog post ideas!

Remember content is the driving force behind your blog's success. To learn how more quality content can positively impact your blogging ROI. Attend next week's webinar when we will discuss outsourcing content creation. Register to attend and you will qualify for additional prizes!

Understanding Content
Creation Outsourcing

Date: Thursday 25th of June
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:00 PM EST

Remember there are still two prizes up for grabs this week. Write content now!

And the winner is ...

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

The winner of last week's Blogging Vacation increased their content creation by 1400% with 13 more posts than the previous week.

Congratulations on your hard work Ryan Hinricher from Investor Nation!

You have five chances to earn your vacation this week. The blogger with the most content at the end of the day will receive a prize. All you have to do is blog!

To help increase your chances we will be holding mini-webinars everyday this week. During the 30min time slot Chantelle will provide you with a custom review of your content and blog post ideas.

Custom Content Ideas
Date: Tuesday 6/16 - Friday 6/19
Time: 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM EDT

Remember a prize will be given away everyday to the highest content creator. Start your content creation now!

P.S. For more information about outsourcing your content creation attend next week's webinar when we will be learning all about content creators and how they can positively impact your blogging ROI. Register Now

Blogging for search works.

Friday, June 12, 2009 by Lindsey Bailey

Nothing is more compelling than seeing results and testimonials from an actual Compendium client. Indianapolis area law firm Alerding Castor is just one example of the power of our software. Please see a blog post from yesterday by David Castor entitled "Blogging for Search". In this post Castor states:

"Not to sound to infomercial on behalf of Compendium, but the ROI in this tool (in terms of dollar and time investment) has proven big.

I can only give so many details on the clients and contacts made, but here are some recent examples:

1. This week, a SaaS company from southern city found my blog through a google search for "SaaS Law". We came up #2 on the google results page - and top law firm. That got us in the door for initial conversations where we secured the engagement. We are moving forward with an initial contract review project and counsel on future equity rounds.

2. Last month an established capital group in New York found the blog through google search for "Entrepreneurial Law Firm". We came up as #1 on the google results page. Again, this got us the initial contact. Through four weeks of discussions we have secured a good working relationship with this group. I am flying out to NY next week to work on four early stage SaaS client equity raise deals with them.

3. An established mountain-state real estate group found the blog through a google blog search for "Private Equity Attorney". We came up as #1. We helped this group structure their equity raise last month."

Wow. That's good stuff. Thank you David Castor for the amazing shout out, and also providing us a powerful testimonial to reference for companies that want to follow in your footsteps using successful search marketing. Keep on blogging for search!

Interview Tactics

Thursday, June 11, 2009 by Blake Matheny

The Compendium Engineering group has a reputation locally for having a tough interview process. Our interview process generally looks like the following:

That is, after a recruiter screen is passed we perform an initial phone interview. Assuming the initial technical interview goes well we give the candidate a take home problem. Assuming the take home problem is solved satisfactorily we invite the candidate in for an in person interview.

About 80% of candidates never make it through the technical phone interview. Most people really struggle with CS fundamentals like data structures (when to use an array vs a hash vs a binary tree) and algorithms (runtime complexity, performance implications of using an array vs a hash). However, a number of candidates struggle with some of the basic FizzBuzz type problems.

The take home problem is intended to be solved without the use of a framework but in any language that the candidate is comfortable with. My belief has always been that anyone can learn a new language so I've never asked people to complete a project in a specific language although sometimes the position kind of requires it, e.g. a front-end take home problem probably ends up involving creating HTML/Javascript/CSS/etc. Of the remaining 20% of candidates who get to this point, about 50% of them pass this part of the process. You might be surprised at how many people either can't solve the problem (and, they're fairly trivial) or create buggy solutions that don't meet the requirements.

Of the remaining people who are invited in for the in person interviews, they can look forward to 4-6 hours of technical interviews with everyone on the engineering team. We take The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing to the extreme. Before the candidate comes in the entire team gets together and reviews the take home problem and comes up with a comprehensive set of questions for the candidate. This group meeting ensures there is no overlap in questions and also that the question coverage is sufficient. The phrase 'test coverage' comes to mind.

We start the day by having the candidate join our scrum standup. Using scrum at Compendium, we have a daily standup at 11am. By allowing the candidate to join the standup as a chicken they get a brief introduction to the team, one of our most important processes (scrum) as well as some insight into our day to day work.

We also do a group code review near the end of the day. The primary purpose of the take home problem, besides demonstrating basic abilities, is to provide the entire group including the interviewee with a common piece of code. The take home problems are small enough that the team can review the code before the candidate comes in and we can perform a useful formal code review with the candidate. This provides the candidate with an opportunity to interact with the entire team as well as get a feel for some of our internal processes (since we do bi-weekly formal code reviews). A good candidate is interviewing us just as much as we're interviewing them and this is a great opportunity to do that.

In addition to each interviewer covering both soft (HR style) questions as well as technical questions, each interviewer follows up the interview by providing me with an immediate yes/no hiring recommendation along with a longer writeup of their reasoning. In some cases the interview is ended early if we have enough 'no' recommendations. We meet as a team after the interview has concluded to review the candidate and do a post-mortem of sorts on the process. This ensures that our interview process stays up to date and usable.

Although I've had some recruiters give me critical feedback about how 'tough' the process is, I disagree. Our interview process is extensive but it has also evolved regularly based on our own needs and experiences. We've developed a process that helps us not only find the best qualified candidate but the candidate that will be the best fit.

Blog Food

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

I just got off a call with John Bancroft at SmokerZChoice, a client here at Compendium Blogware. Now John and I were talking about his blog program, how to track and measure conversions, how to measure ROI, etc, when he casually mentioned something that struck me - Blog Food

We talk about it all the time internally or joke with our clients about how every conversation or topic can be turned into a blog post; however, it is often difficult to remember what that conversation was or that topic that you were so excited about, by the time you actually sit down to blog.

Now I personally keep a folder in my inbox specifically designated for blog ideas - any email (internal or external), online news publication, website link, etc that sparks an idea for a blog post goes into it.

What John brought up in our conversation is that he has a document called "Blog Food" where he writes down his ideas every time it strikes him. Then when he's got the time he goes back in and writes the post in the document and transfers it to his corporate blog when finished. Therefore he doesn't have to worry about losing that idea and once he's written about it, its on to the next topic he has in line.

This was a great idea John and I hope other bloggers out there are doing similar actions, as it eliminates the concept of "what do I blog about today?"

Calls To Action

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

In the Client Success department we have frequent discussions with our clients regarding questions regarding their blog program. Everything from blog topics, best practices, how do I motivate my team, what are my analytics telling me, can I change this on our template, etc. We love helping our clients out in every way we can, however, what we often notice is that program administrators will begin to get bogged down in the "extras" of blogging, instead of keeping a keen focus on the purpose of a corporate blog - to drive conversions.

The best way to drive conversions is to get searchers who are finding your blog to click on your "Call to Action". It would be great if they did this on their own, but sometimes you need to lead that horse to the water - tell your searchers what to do. Tell them about the great deal you have going on, tell them about the information they'll get if they download that whitepaper, tell them what's in it for them!

Review your CTA against our CTA Checklist, to see how yours measures up. Also, don't forget about our new ROI Toolkit that includes our "How to Measure Blog ROI" whitepaper, case studies, and a getting started checklist.

Blogging Broadway...

Monday, June 8, 2009 by Mitch Burk

Sunday night was every Broadway fanatic's favorite night, the Tony awards. My lovely girlfriend kept me updated on the happenings of the awards show because, sadly, I was unable to watch. I was busy in Louisville, Kentucky for the night seeing a production of the 2007 Tony award winning "Best Musical," Spring Awakening. As you can imagine, when we had both finished watching our Broadway spectacles the conversation went something like this:

Melissa: "Let's get some people together and go to New York this summer."
Me: "Heck. Yes."

(Source: www.nyctourist.com)

So as I spent some time last night and today (during my lunch break, of course) surfing the Internet checking out the happenings of NYC, I have came to one conclusion: Broadway needs blogging. I have been to New York, and I know that there is so much happening on Broadway... but I don't know when to purchase, what to see, where to stay, who's in the show and what show just closed when a show will open. A couple of Broadway sites have blogs, but they do not provide the information that a tourist would need. Broadway is lacking at one of the most important blogging goals that we tell our clients: Make your information relevant.

I could only find a couple sites with Broadway blogs and neither one would be helpful for a tourist trying to get the latest happenings on Broadway. The only blog entries I ever found were short, uninformative reviews on new, unpopular shows.

So... Broadway... friend, I'm a random traveler who wants to spend 3 days in NYC this summer. Help me make my trip the best it can be. You're the expert, you know what's going on day by day, you know when shows are opening or closing... Tell me about them!

The mentality I have toward Broadway right now is the same thing that thousands of people are thinking as they hop on Google or Yahoo to search for some random information. They want to be able to easily find the information, and the information to be relevant once they get there.

Compendium's corporate blogging software makes this happen. We help make sure you know what to write about, and when to write about it. As a business, we know the importance of getting the customers to find you. And as a consumer, we know how frustrating it is to not find the information you need.

Don't worry, you're not past the point of no return (a). Your blog could be defying gravity (b) and growing as fast as greased lightin' (c) in no time. Whether your company sells technicolor dreamcoats (d), cans of hairspray (e), or all that jazz (f) music you own, Compendium knows that if you're living in America (g)... you're going to need customers. I think it's about time for the curtain to open on a new era of Blogging Broadway.

**Musical References**
a- Phantom of the Opera, b- Wicked, c- Grease, d- Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, e- Hairspray, f- Chicago, g- Rent

Movie Blogging

Friday, May 29, 2009 by Clayton Stobbs

Prior to renting a movie the other night I decided to do some of the usual research on length, reviews, etc. just so I had some idea of what to expect. Aside from the usual spots to check out movie reviews (IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes...) I was pleased to find that Redbox, where I rent most of my movies, had their corporate blog talking all about the movies they rent.

Not only did they have some relevant content, but they had some decent content about older movies and current debates in the space (best movie title?). Given that Rexbox is already blogging, maybe they should considering blogging for SEO with Compendium and really making that great content a part of their search strategy (and dominate what remains of Blockbuster in the space).

Not Enjoying the Silence

Friday, May 29, 2009 by PJ Hinton

Words are very unnecessary
They can only do harm

-- Depeche Mode, "Enjoy the Silence", Violator

My blog has been quiet the past couple of months, and that's not exactly something I'm happy about. Even here, at the forefront of corporate blogging software development, we sometimes fall into that "too busy to blog" rut.

Unlike the lyrics quoted above, words are very necessary when you're looking to acquire new customers. If you're not getting the word out about what your business has to offer, new customers won't be a callin'.

Fortunately, since everyone in our organization has a blogging account, the effort of keeping the message current and compelling is spread out across all departments. When they arrive at our website from a search, our prospective customers get to hear from a diverse array of voices... sales, marketing, client success, product support, and even the development team. That means our blogs continue to feature fresh content.

So what has been keeping me away from the post editor? Only one of the biggest development projects our department as undertaken since the new template editing and rendering environment we rolled out a little over a year ago.

Back in late March, the engineering team turned its attention to the user interface that administrators have for moderating blog posts and comments. There were two ways to moderate content. One interface presented content that was pending approval, while another provided a more comprehensive listing of all content on the network. We wound up replacing these with a sleek unified interface.

The change was a nontrivial undertaking. Over the past year, we have migrated to a service-oriented approach for our application, meaning that the operations one could perform with our application were accessible from URLs, callable by way of modern JavaScript interfaces or even other web services.

The moderation of posts and comments was one of the few remaining areas where we didn't have web service coverage. So we wound up having to write brand new service endpoints to do this, and we upgraded a number of our existing endpoints for listing and retrieving content so that they would be useful for a moderation interface.

On the front end, we took a different approach to designing a user interface. We created new JavaScript classes dedicated to interacting with web service endpoints, and we developed a set of loosely coupled components that communicated changes in state asynchronously.

How did this benefit the end user? Moderation moved to one central location instead of two. The interface took on a much more familiar appearance, bearing resemblance to popular web-based e-mail applications which have listing and preview panes. The interface was designed using state-of-the-art rich front end technologies.

Listings of content are now obtained more quickly, and there's no more waiting for the page to refresh itself as more information is retrieved. The act of previewing got a huge upgrade, with more detailed information about the post and a means of previewing content as it would appear on the live blog.

All in all, it was quite an achievement from a small, talented, and cohesive team. The Compendium Engineering team is committed to continuously improving the product in ways that make the experience of corporate blogging easy and enjoyable. You can be assured that we don't like resting on our laurels. :-)

Love hurts... but blogging doesn't.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009 by Mitch Burk

Week one of Summer Internship 2009 is over.

In that week:
...I've distributed leads to our incredibly talented sales team.
...I've went through training sessions to learn how to navigate through 10 different software programs and websites.
...I've written blog posts, stuffed envelopes, and created restaurant reviews.
...and I've heard the song "Love Hurts" by Incubus at least 25 times (Thank you 92.3, WTTS)

What have I learned through this?
Simply put: Compendium has shown me the powerful results that appear when you use blogging as a tool for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

I have been able to see the blogging world from many different angles. I've learned to write, study, and implement blogs in the workplace. I've seen first hand how well blogging works for our clients. And numerous times I've witnessed Compendium's continuous interaction with clients and their dedication to helping clients achieve their blogging goals.

I have seen the progress, I have reviewed the lists, and I have met the experts (one of whom being Doug Karr, just yesterday named one of the 200 top social media bloggers on earth!)... and everyday I realize more and more that blogging is the way to be found.

With Compendium, using blogging as a tool for SEO will help to ease the pain and hurt in your life. The pain of minimal results in a search engine... The pain of still depending on basic, boring blogging platforms... The pain of not understanding 'the blog'... heck, Compendium just might take away some of the hurt that love causes (this is a powerful platform, the possibilities are limitless)...

So what have I learned?... Love hurts... but blogging doesn't.
...just don't tell my girlfriend about this new realization I've come to.

Why Bourbon Street Distillery in Indianapolis needs a blog.

Friday, May 15, 2009 by Megan Glover

It's a tradition in the Marketing Department here at Compendium that every Friday we take a mid-day breather to a local restaurant around Indy. We've tried everything from Maxine's Chicken and Waffles to authentic Cuban fare at Tata's Cuban Cafe. You can read about all of our choices on the Indy Restaurant Blog.

Today we're going to Bourbon Street Distillery, located at the west end of the city near IUPUI. I haven't been there in a while so thought I'd scope out their menu head of time. To my surprise, I couldn't find a thing. Sure there were tons of reviews from various sites like Yelp, Trip Adviser, etc. But I couldn't find a single thing from the actual restaurant.

Bourbon Street... where are you!?!? I searched, and you left me hanging!

Starting a business blog is a simple for companies to establish web presence without investing an exorbitant amount of money into website development and upkeep. In addition, it's a fantastic way be a part of the conversation that's already taking place. (believe me there were lots of comments - good and bad - to be found on those review sites!)

It's simple really, people - your prospects and patrons, are searching online every day if not to buy your services, to research what you have to offer. And, if you don't have that web presence you're not fulfilling the searchers need and could be missing out on a new business.

Bourbon Street... I'll be in around noon today. Maybe we should chat how blogging as a tool for SEO can increase your online visibility to ensure other folks, like me, aren't wanting more.

Company Kudos.

Wednesday, May 13, 2009 by Lindsey Bailey

A lot goes on around here when you've been gone for two weeks! I come back to find out that Compendium Blogware has been given the honor of being written up as one of America's Most Promising Startups! What a great honor for us a company. Here's a little preview of what they had to say at Business Week:

Compendium Blogware and Vontoo Inc. are basking in the national limelight after placed among “America’s Most Promising Startups” by Business Week magazine.
Founded two years ago by Chris Baggott and Ali Sales, Compendium Blogware develops software that improves the odds a firm pops up high on the results page of a Web search engine.

Compendium employs 41 people at its offices on Monument Circle. “We just brought on board four more people last week,” said Baggott, also co-founder of Indianapolis-based e-mail marketing firm ExactTarget.

He said the recognition is a reminder that central Indiana has the people and technology needed for innovation.

Blogging for search is truly on the radar for most companies that are trying to market smart and effectively. People trust blogs, and they trust the stories companies can share through this medium. I'm happy and lucky to work for such a growing, influential company...and I had to take a minute to brag about it! Happy blogging!

50 Content Strategies for Your Blog

Thursday, April 30, 2009 by Douglas Karr

50 Content Strategies for Business Blogs

It's important to keep your content focused and use the keywords that your organization is targeting when blogging for search engine optimization (SEO). Below is a list of 50 different content ideas that you can create into blog posts to help your organization’s blogging strategy.

The most effective blog post is when you share your customer stories, successes and testimonials with your current readers. People trust references more than the marketing source!

Here's an example from Bicycle Garage Indy:
What are the most common questions from your sales prospects? If they are asking your sales team, they’re probably searching the Internet for the answer, too!
Write an in-depth post for each common question from your sales prospects, then write a single post putting it all together and linking to those other posts.
What are the most common questions from your clients from your customers? Educating your customers that your blog is also a great knowledge base is a great way to cut down on customer calls.
Write an in-depth post for each common client question then write a single post putting it all together and linking to each of the other posts.
What is the most rewarding thing about your job? Sharing your personal enthusiasm with your readers is contagious. People want to work with companies that are excited about helping them.
What’s the latest product change you’ve made or product you’ve introduced at your company. Why did you? Why would your audience be interested in it?
Discuss a problem that a client had that you were the ideal solution for. Include their feedback if possible, and a link to their website or blog. (Repeat post for each problem and solution!)
Discuss current events and how they might be impacting your customers. If you’re in the healthcare business, you should write about swine flu precautions. If you’re in the Real Estate industry, you should write about how mortgage processes are changing, etc.
Discuss your first client and how you got started in the business. If you’re an employee, when did you join the company and why were you chosen? Specifically, what impact do you have on your clients.
“Green” is a search that many people are after. Growing numbers of people want to work with businesses that ‘go green’. If you’re ‘green’, share that with your audience!
Review your sent folder for an email you sent to a prospect or client that would be of interest to everyone.
Discuss your company, its physical location, and how your employees interact locally. Providing a ‘human’ side to your company is important and builds transparency and trust.
Discuss resources that you utilize – are their consultants you work with? Magazines and books that you read? Are there web sites you utilize? Getting a picture of the resources you utilize to be successful in your job builds reputation and authority with your readers.
What’s the last change your company made that has impacted customers. If feedback has been positive, share it and the reason you decided to make the change. If the feedback has been negative, share why you decided to make the change and how someone can follow up with you to discuss it more.
What is the latest and greatest news that’s happening in your industry? How is your company adapting to the change?
Invest in a Flip Mino HD camera and a movie editing application and put a video on YouTube about leadership, your employees, or your customers. People LOVE seeing people. It’s about trust! Faceless companies are losing ground in the social media era.
Find a YouTube video that would be useful to your readers. Be sure to write a short, keyword-driven explanation of the video when you embed it in your blog post.
What tips can you tell your clients about your product or service?
Write an educational blog post with detailed instructions on how to utilize a feature, your software, how to contact you… step by step.
Post about someone else’s press release, news article or blog post that your company was mentioned in. Be sure to give some link ‘love’ back to the source!
How has your business changed over the last decade and what’s on the horizon for your business? How are you making your mark in the business landscape?
Are there any compliance or legal issues associated with your business that you should share with your audience?
What is your roadmap? Where is your company’s strategy changing and how will your clients benefit? It’s important for customers to recognize that they’re not simply investing in a static product – but that you’re moving forward with new products, services and opportunities.
Bloggers love to meet! When you’re planning a trip to a customer, a conference, or even a vacation, let your readers know (if you want them to find you!). Face-to-face time is valuable and it’s unfortunate when you don’t take advantage.
Promote the vendors that your company has positive experiences with. Your vendors will love you for it, and may be a little easier when it comes to negotiating contracts, etc.
Solicit assistance through your blog when you have a problem you’ve been unable to find a solution for on and off-line. Readers love to contribute to your success and also appreciate having a voice!
Promote new clients on your blog! It’s a great way to welcome new clients, informing your own employees, and letting the world know who your clients are!
Promote your press releases online! Repurpose content that has gone mainstream and is valuable to search engines and newsworthy from traditional media.
If you’re ecommerce, promote each of your products with a great description, perhaps some customer feedback and ALWAYS have a purchase link that readers can click through on.
If you’re not an ecommerce company, explain how prospects should approach your company, demo your products, or contact your sales team.
Did you get mentioned on other media, sites, or blogs? Be sure to talk about it on your own blog and provide visitors with a link to check it out.
What are your customers’ challenges to success? How are you helping your customers overcome those challenges? Be honest and forthright! (That’s why we’re doing this presentation!)
Where else can your customers find you online? Twitter? Facebook? Plaxo? LinkedIn? Different people utilize different mediums to communicate – be sure to leverage your blog across all of them and invite people in!
What feature, product, or service does your company have that no one uses that they really should be? Explain why it’s so great!
Find a great blog post by an industry leader and write a blog post adding to their content or intelligently arguing against it (be respectful!).
Blog about best practices in your industry… if it’s ecommerce, then speak to shipping, handling, security, etc. If it’s law, then speak to process, billing, resources, etc.
Are you sponsoring a tradeshow or event? Blog as soon as you secure the sponsorship and blog about your preparation leading up to it, why people should stop by, who they can connect with, etc.
Blog while you are at industry events and tradeshows. Providing your readers insight into what is happening in the industry makes them value you as an industry resource – even if it’s not directly related to your business but is with theirs.
Blog after you return from industry events and tradeshows and let people know the value of the event and how you’re incorporating what you discovered there.
Schedule a casual get together and invite customers and prospects. Making yourself approachable breaks down a lot of barriers in the sales process.
Write about how your most successful (or happy) clients are utilizing your product or service! What do they have in common? How can other clients incorporate those lessons?
Write about how your least successful (or unhappy) clients are utilizing your product or service! What do they have in common? What can other customers learn from them?
Solicit input from other bloggers on a topic. This is called a meme and helps you to ‘swap’ audiences and build backlinks to your own blog.
Share humor! What’s funny that’s applicable to your business? We once had a blogger submit a help ticket because they couldn’t print from their laptop.
Interview a customer! Share their insight on your product or service. Many times customers love the spotlight but they don’t actually want to write the content.
Interview your company’s leaders. Share their insight on your products or services. Many times leaders love the spotlight but they don’t actually want to write the content.
Do a virtual tour of your offices! Showing folks where and how you work makes your blog more personable and engaging.
Convert a PowerPoint into blog posts… each slide is a post! Explain it as you would if you were doing the presentation.
Find an applicable article in our “Content Ideas” and write about it. Be sure to link back to the source so folks can follow the article to its source.

If you have questions about what you should be blogging about or for more great content ideas contact our Client Success Team and follow Tips4Blogging on Twitter.

Links for 2009-04-24

Saturday, April 25, 2009 by Blake Matheny

Links for 2009-04-24

Particletree » PHP Quick Profiler - We spend a lot of time echoing queries, memory stats and objects to the browser just to see how they are being used in the code. To reduce this repetition, we invested some time creating something we’ve called the PHP Quick Profiler—we call it PQP for short. It’s a small tool (think Firebug for PHP) to provide profiling and debugging related information to developers without needing them to add a lot of programmatic overhead to their code. Now, we only need to toggle one config setting to true and our reviewers have access to an automated tool to help create a faster and more consistent review experience. Since anyone can use it, PQP also gives the initial developer an idea of where their code stands before the review.
25 awesome Yahoo! UI Prototype JavaScript Components - 25 different reusable YUI effects.
WordPress.com Turns On Comment Reply-By-Email Support - ReadWriteWeb - WordPress, on their official blog, made a short announcement that Wordpress.com blog owners could now enable reply by email support for comments made to their blog. With a couple of simple configuration changes, blog owners can get the convenience of being able to directly reply to new comments via their preferred email address instead of through the Wordpress admin interface.
LinkWithin: A Prettier and Smarter Way to Feature Related Stories on Your Blog - ReadWriteWeb - Most blogging platforms now feature a number of third-party plugins that can display a list of related stories on your blog, or even on other blogs on the Internet. Typically, these plugins will look at how a story was tagged and then display a short list of similar stories that use the same keywords. LinkWithin is the newest contender in this market. The plugin looks at tags, but it also analyzes other factors like relevancy, popularity, and recency. Unlike similar plugins, however, LinkWithin doesn't just display a list of headlines underneath each post, but also a thumbnail with a picture from each post, which makes it far more attractive than most of its competitors.
NGINX + PHP-FPM + APC = Awesome - The following guide will walk you through setting up possibly the fastest way to serve PHP known to man. If there is a faster way, I’ve not yet found it climbing through zillions of blog posts out there on the subject. In this article, we’ll be installing nginx http server, PHP with the PHP-FPM patches, as well as APC. The end result? Pure awesome.

This is a collection of links I have bookmarked on del.icio.us for the date 2009-04-24

The Frustrating Apartment Searches of a College Graduate

Wednesday, April 22, 2009 by Jason Gergely

So I'm graduating from college here soon.......
Sweet....

After graduation I have to come up with some kind of place to find shelter.

I considered the alternatives; a shack, a highway overpass, my parent's house.... none of which seemed like any fun to me.

So in my process in looking for an apartment, I thought to myself... "Man these reviews are great, but I wish that there was a firsthand thoughts and opinions of a few tenants that reside there now..." Then I realized that blogging applies here too!

I continued thinking... who would be contributing to these posts? Firstly, the owners and operators; next the staff that maintain the building, and finally.. people that actually live there. That way we can get a firsthand, candid, personal feeling on all aspects of the facility. By using a multi user blog software, apartment villages can really reach people searching on that

human level that I was so feverishly looking for.

College kids can really relate to this because we are more of the techo-savvy people, looking to find that electronic first hand view of a product or service.

So if you are reading this and happen to have stock, or invest, or even work for an apartment village... start blogging!

And if you have a single bedroom apartment open... get a hold of me... my lease is running up soon!

Win A Customized Keyword Review

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

Attend this week's webinar to learn how utilizing keywords effectively can help maximize your keywords value. All webinar attendees will be entered into a drawing for a customized keyword review. Get the details here.

During this webinar...

Techniques for properly incorporating keywords
Deciding what Keywords need attention
How reviewing your analytics can help
What not to do with keywords – Keyword Stuffin

All webinar attendees will be entered into a drawing for a chance to win a customized keyword review. This review includes:

Analysis to determine the highest and lowest performing keywords
Strategy on how to increase conversions across your keywords
Custom tips on how to improve keyword usage for your individual bloggers
Review of analytics to determine additional keywords to focus on

What a homeless guy and a dairy farmer mean to Carhartt Corporate Blogging

Tuesday, April 21, 2009 by Chris Baggott

If you know Carhartt, you love them. The maker of clothing primarily worn by farmers, mechanics and other people who work in typically tough jobs is finding its way into the mainstream as a fashion line. However, Carhartt seems to be doing a great job of sticking to their roots as an authentic maker of tough clothes for people in tough jobs.

I’m not privy to any insights into company strategy, except where it comes to their Corporate Blogging that is. And with their blogging program, I can attest that hey are knocking the cover off the ball.

Labeled as “Tough Jobs”, they have set up a series of 50 different blogs targeting the keywords their customers might use to search for the kind of garments that Cahartt provides.

Using a custom form on their site that leverages the Compendium Blogware API, they are able to solicit Tough Job stories from their users. No suprise, when asked people are happy to tell how they use the product and how happy they are.

What's great about this from is that it not only formats the content automatically for a blog post, it enters the system at the Admin level. This gives the Carhartt people an opportunity to review and approve content before it goes live. The real magic is how this content gets organized around the specific keyword blogs so that the right content shows up in the right place. If you want to learn more about this program and how it might work for you, please send me an email. chris@compendiumblogware.com

Value Local Search

Thursday, April 9, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

There is a three step process that you expect your traffic to follow on your blog:

Find your blog though search.
Direct traffic by engaging them with compelling content.
Convert - click through on your calls to action and be added to your lead generation system.

Starting with step one it is vital that you make it easier for searchers to find you so that they can enter your pipeline. How can you make it easier? Use the value of local search to your advantage.

Write blog posts with Zips, Counties, Townships, Towns, School Districts, Area Codes, States, Metropolitan Areas, Neighborhoods,Parks, Landmarks, etc.

You can also give yourself a boost in the search engine raking by updating your information on search engines local business centers. Some will even let you add coupons or other CTAs! Check out the two most popular local business centers and update your information today:

Don't forget about the local review sites. This is a great place for you to link out from your blog to your positive reviews. Local review sites:

Want to learn more about local search and how you can use it to positively impact your search traffic on your blog? Contact Compendium Blogware's Client Success team and we will be more than happy to help you implement local tactics on your corporate blog.