Blog Sites for Business

1. Your domain has already established authority and pagerank, so adding a subdomain and content will 'latch' onto that authority and you'll see some good results quicker.  This is advantageous to both, but a blog subdomain has other advantages...
2. Since Google treats a subdomain as a (somewhat) separate domain, your site or blog can take advantage of backlinks between the two.  Backlinks are a gold standard of relevance in the SEO industry.  The more backlinks your site or blog has, the more search engines believe the site to be relevant.
3. Consumers are tuning into blogs to make purchasing decisions, so we love the fact that our clients prominently put blog, blogs or blogging in the subdomain.  Blogging denotes honesty and trust and that's what we want search engine users to see.
4. Real estate matters and by having both a domain and subdomain showing up on search engines, you're literally covering a bit more of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP).  If your blog is in a subdirectory, you'll get a single entry, a subdomain will add an additional entry.
5. Providing a distinctive difference can be advantageous to differentiate your 'polished marketing' from the 'voice' of your company.

• PPC ads have a very short title and description as opposed to a blog.  A blog offers both can leverage a full post title and lengthy description so a blogger can write incredibly compelling content that a searcher can decide on.
• PPC ads obtain 5% of a Search Engine Results Page (SERP) where as Organic Search results obtain 95% of the click throughs.
  
• Blogs are seen as trusted resources for conscientous purchasers online.  So not only do more people click-through, they're more likely to purchase after reading a blog rather than a web site.
• A PPC advertisement is a one-time event that you have to actively pay for for the duration of the campaign.  A blog post is there for as long as your blog is alive and well - always ready to be a relevant response to a visitor's request.
• PPC  ads don't 'combine' to build trust nor authority with Search Engines.  Blogs do!  The more content you post, the smarter you're making the search engine on how your website is relevant to searchers.
• PPC  ads are only an acquisition tool, to get people to your site.  Blogs are both an acquisition and a retention tool to obtain new clients and continue to maintain a relationship with them after they are on board.
• PPC can only be won by spending more money than the next person.  Blogs can win organic search simply by being more relevant.  The popularity of a blog through trackbacks, number of blog posts, and the richness of the content can drive your result to the top of the Search Engines.

• Offer a Call-to-Action (CTA)
• Set a goal
• Track results&measure success
• Adjust and test

• Give a deadline for ordering
• Advise of a price increase
• Establish a trial/introductory period
• Free gift
• Demo
• Offer an upgrade
• Online offer only

• Join newsletter list
• Obtain a white paper
• Request contact by a representation

• Use action language to incite momentum
• Always tell the reader exactly what you want them to do
• Use more than just a simple hyperlink to bring attention to the conversion point
• Use a pleasing design and images when possible
• A maximum of two Calls-to-Action should be used at one time on the blog
• Rotate the CTA, experiment with messaging and offerings to find the right fit for the blog readers

• Create a unique landing page for the call to action
• Ingrate tracking tools such as analytic programs and CRM tools
• Ask clients how they found about you and if they have visited the blog

• Link Farms: A group of Web sites is created for the primary purpose of delivering a high number of links to a given Web site.
• Automated Content Generation/Duplication: To get search engine spiders to index more pages from them, some sites auto-generate content or scrape Web content from other sites.
• Keyword Stuffing: This involves over-populating certain portions of a Web page with repeated occurrences of a given keyword.

A week or so ago, I had a chance to meet up with some personal bloggers, and one of the questions that arose from that gathering was whether blogging as we know it would be around in five years. The basis for the question was the rise of simplified rich media creation and the development of semantic technology that makes locating the media more feasible.

I thought about this for a while. I've been reading blogs for around eight years. I've contributed content both as an author and as a commenter for about six of them. I've read a lot of blogs... personal, professional, and corporate. Rich media has a seductive lure, but I don't think it's for everyone.

Creation of video and audio content is certainly easier and cheaper to do than it was four or five years ago. Free or inexpensive video editing software, Adobe Flash's support for streaming video, and the ease of uploading content on sites like YouTube have created a boom in this area. Indeed, just about anyone with enough desire to be seen has put a clip or two on that site.

The downside to rich media is that if you want to stand out, the quality bar gets raised several notches higher. In the business world, minimally edited output from a camcorder or a webcam won't do it. You're going to have to look good, or at least have good presentation graphics, for people to not only push the Play button, but also stick with the clip all the way through. You're probably going to have to have an expert at the helm.

Contrast this with how corporate blogging works with Compendium's hosted service. Employees across your organization contribute, so you can harness the creative energies of many, not just a few. You get to retain content control through an approval process. And you can always add rich media, when it makes sense, by embedding an object in the post's HTML.

Blogs are also search engine friendly. Even with semantic aids that are becoming increasingly available for rich media, the added overhead of tagging and annotating media imposes an added burden that may not always be met consistently by your organization. Compendium's blog pages use a structure that is rich in semantic detail, aiding search engines in focusing upon the most relevant parts of your content.

Finally, blogs are reader friendly. Information overload is an undisputed problem we all have to deal with. To deal with it effectively, people have to train themselves to filter through the deluge for relevant bits and pieces. You can do this easily with a blog post. It is less possible with podcasts and video. When someone is in a hurry to find something, which do you think will help the prospective customer not only find you, but also learn whether you are going to meet their needs?

Compendium is helping to shape the future of corporate blogging, both on the consumption side, with people and search engine friendly content presentation, and on the creation side, with tools that make the blogging experience more enjoyable to the author and accountable toward ROI.

When you take all of this into account, corporate blogging is definitely in it for the long haul.  We'll be glad to help you along the way.

• Where would you want your company's site to show?
• If you were ranking in the first 5 spots, would you erase your PPC (Pay Per Click) campaign and save your marketing budget hundreds or even thousands of dollars?
• How about in the top 10 spots?
• Now what if you were ranking in the top 10 on mulitple keywords?

These are all questions we at Compendium Blogware answer on a daily basis, because it's what we do.  We provide a solution to companies marketing strategy via a Corporate Blog.  Our platform utilizies the way search engines work in order to maximize your efforts and provide huge return on both ROI and conversions.

The secret sauce behind it all?  Actually, it's no secret at all - Content Development.  Remember that frequent and relevant content on a regular basis is what drives traffic and therefore results to your site. 

1. People search.
2. Search engines provide the relevant answer.
3. People read the answer.
4. Some people engage further.

• Show the relevant content that people were looking for.
• Provide a compelling call to action for the person to engage your business future.

John's page has no less than 50 calls to action (text and image ads) on it.  Why?  John's page is not a corporate blog, it's a blog to make money off of corporate sponsorships and advertising revenue.  Other than to buy ad space, the purpose of the site is to make money from folks hitting ads. 

The way to ensure this happens is to place ads everywhere you can find real estate.  It's a great blog and it works at driving advertising revenue to John.  John also does NOT rely on search engine traffic for acquisition.  In fact, I believe Google dropped him from the index a while ago.

Here's an example from Compendium Blogware's Business Blog:

Our focus is not that of a content management system nor of the off the shelf blogging software.  We designed our system + our standard template + our call to action strategy to drive business results from search back to your company.  It’s a proven force already in the industry.  Extraneous features are a diversion and will significantly reduce the conversion rates of those people who land on your blog.

We absolutely want to cross-promote your site – where you can have all of the gadgets and widgets you'd like (and hopefully information in a neatly organized, easy to find, and attractive interface).  However, on your blog, it’s going to hurt your investment. 

A minimalist approach is the best approach – with distinctive call to action(s) that leave nothing to the imagination for organic searchers who land there.  I would add that we’ve proven this methodology by drinking our own Kool Aid!

Additional Resources on Optimized Landing Pages and Maximizing Conversions:

• SEOmoz - Simple Strategies for better conversion rates
• BtoB - Landing Page Optimization
• Jonathan Mendez - How Simplicity, Recognition&The "Perception of Ease" Impact Landing Page Optimization
• Search Marketing Standard - Five Factors for Landing Page Optimization
• Conversation Marketing - 14 Landing Page Upgrades
• Marketing Experiments Journal - Landing Page Optimization Tested

Books on the Topic:

• Landing Page Optimization
• Don't Make Me Think
• Call To Action

• Utilizing the ShareThis application on his blog network.  This allows his readers to "digg", "tweet", post, email, etc his blog posts.  Thus the readers are able to virally spread the word about his blog.  In essence doing his marketing for him!
• Chuck has an account on Facebook, that he reguarly posts his post to for his social network on this site to be aware.  As well as, he frequently comments in his status about his latest blog post. 
• Chuck has also put a link on to his blog in his LinkedIn profile.

1. Content - Write often and make it relevant is the rule here.  It is simple, the more you write, the more the search engines see you writing which will help you with rankings and gaining traffic to your site.
2. Frequency - We have seen that there is a direct correlation between the number of posts our clients write and the amount of traffic that gets driven to their blogsites.  The more they write, the more people are visiting their site and taking action.  In the long run this means ROI for the client.
3. Linking in - This can be critical when trying to get your audience to take action on the site.  Whether it is a purchase or viewing a whitepaper, taking them to pages in your own site can push them to take action.
4. Linking out - This can help to build a community.  By linking out to other sites who do what you do, could get them to link back to your site.  This can help you to gain even more traffic.
5. Blog with keywords in mind - Using keywords is one of the most overlooked pieces when it comes to writing a post.  It is most helpful to use keywords throught the post and in the title of the blog as well.

"When I use a search engine for consumer research, I'm thinking in terms of the specific thing I'm looking for, not a specific brand. Generally, when I start, I will not use a branded search term. I am building a consideration set. Yes, I likely have brands I have an affinity for, but I won't explicitly include them in my query. I'm looking for the search engine to provide me some alternatives to consider. Typically, searchers will look at four to five results before making their selection. These are usually the top sponsored, and the top two or three organic, results. This represents the prime and very limited "shelf space" of the search results page. If a brand appears that the consumer has an existing affinity for, the chances are good that the site will capture a click-through. If the brand doesn't appear, the company has likely lost the opportunity to connect with a consumer that will soon be ready to buy."

"....the act of searching is done with the left brain. It is a rational, logical interaction, not an emotional one. That's why text-based advertising does well, and graphic or rich media doesn't. We're intellectually engaged in a task, and we're looking for information that will help us succeed in accomplishing that task. We're not looking to be influenced by an emotionally charged message. In fact, we block anything that smacks of overt commercialism or looks like advertising out of our consideration."