So I know that I have already blogged about this issue but it seems to come up a lot. In fact I just read a post by Shel Holtz where he also addresses the issue that I hear all the time, "my staff is already maxed...we just don't have time to blog" and it got me thinking again.
The truth is by saying you don't have time to blog you are really saying I don't have time to communicate. I know I would never hear the same answer in regard to email or phone calls. The idea of not communicating by phone would be unheard of! We need to re-tune our minds to look at the blog in this exact way....as another form of corporate communication with our clients and business prospects on a human level. The beauty of the blog is now our method of communication is serving multiple purposes. Engaging our prospects, optimizing your company in the search rankings, and turning visitors into customers by your ability to do both of the first two things. But to do so you need the tools that allow you to do this.You need to incorporate methods of advanced business blogging.
The real time issue with managing a corporate blog does not come from communicating...it comes from managing the blog for ROI. There is a lot of lifting that happens to leverage that communication for your maximum benefit. At the end of the day if your company uses the right blogging tools to do this for you, you will inevitably secure the many benefits of blogging you deserve while at the same time never allowing your clients and potential customers to rank below the number one spot on your lists of priorities.
Driving business comes from the ability to acquire new customers by communicating to them you have exactly what they need. So by saying you don't have time to blog you are really saying I don't have time to obtain new forms of revenue. From a business perspective that just doesn't make sense. Blog for SEO. Blog for engagement. Blog for ROI!!!!
Business growth = Good Stuff..........Happy Blogging!
Posted Friday, August 8, 2008 by
Kristen Hanschu
Compendium Blogware is happy to announce that our newest client, Eugene Chamber of Commerce, is blogging. Not only are the blogging, but they are already seeing results! In just one month of posting content they have seen all but one of their keywords ranking in Google. How have they accomplished this in such a short time? The answer is, and will always be, content. The way to get better rankings in the search engines is by adding updated and relevant content on a regular business.
Blogging for SEO is a growing business trend that companies are continuing to see the benefit of. Our blogging platform is easy to use and makes blogging fun. The Client Success Team at Compendium will help you get your blogs off the ground and provide you with continuing support for the life of your blog. We are here for questions, consulting, and getting your company the results that you are trying to achieve. What other blog software can say that? Well, none to be exact.
If you would like to view Eugene Chamber's Blog click here. Leave them a comment while you are at it!
Posted Thursday, August 7, 2008 by
Kaila Woodside
A few weeks back Compendium took a weekend to do a little team building - via white water rafting. The trip was amazing and everyone came back with a new energy and feeling of real camaraderie. Wilderness Voyaguers, my rafting company of choice in Ohiopyle is actually one of Compendium's clients. So as opposed to blogging immediately after our trip on our blog - I made a guest post on the WV blog. You can check it out here. Wilderness Voyaguers has taken to blogging for search and they keep their blog updated with fun happenings in Ohiopyle as well as infromation on the trips they offer. Following blogging best practices with the help of their Client Success Manager, Sarah Sedberry- they will surely be one of our next top corporate bloggers.
Posted Thursday, July 31, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
Big Corporatations try and make things so complicated. I always say that innovation starts at the bottom...the so called Minor Leagues. Think sports marketing, everything cool in sports marketing (bat night, concerts, fireworks...even frisbee dogs) started in Minor League Baseball.
This is especially true in business blogging. With the advent of Affordable blogging software, some of our best bloggers turn out to be coming not from the ivory towers of the fortune 500, but from the SMB's. Forget Jonathan Schwartz or Robert Scoble...
If you want to emulate great Blogging Best Practices, pay attention to Lizan Brand.
Lizan is focused on Blogging for Search. She highlights high value and unusual products using all the best SEO tactics including the right keywords, geo targeting and blended search favorites like video. Why?
So when someone is looking for a specific product or a drink recipe in Greenfield or any of the surrounding communities like the big city of Indianapolis, she's the number one choice.
As a result, she has been featured in the Indianapolis paper which is over 20 miles from her store. This week she was featured in DMNews (trust me, she doesn't consider herself a direct marketer) and the things that she blogs about, she is now buying by the case. This is the best thing about Business Blogging, telling a great story about things that move your business forward.
Sure Greenfield Liquors sells 6 packs of cold Miller Lite, but her profits come from high end wine and Liquor. Blogging on these topics rings the cash register.
Watch this video and see if you don't end up thirsting for a Root Beer Cocktail :-)
This is especially true in business blogging. With the advent of Affordable blogging software, some of our best bloggers turn out to be coming not from the ivory towers of the fortune 500, but from the SMB's. Forget Jonathan Schwartz or Robert Scoble...
If you want to emulate great Blogging Best Practices, pay attention to Lizan Brand.Lizan is focused on Blogging for Search. She highlights high value and unusual products using all the best SEO tactics including the right keywords, geo targeting and blended search favorites like video. Why?
So when someone is looking for a specific product or a drink recipe in Greenfield or any of the surrounding communities like the big city of Indianapolis, she's the number one choice.
As a result, she has been featured in the Indianapolis paper which is over 20 miles from her store. This week she was featured in DMNews (trust me, she doesn't consider herself a direct marketer) and the things that she blogs about, she is now buying by the case. This is the best thing about Business Blogging, telling a great story about things that move your business forward.
Sure Greenfield Liquors sells 6 packs of cold Miller Lite, but her profits come from high end wine and Liquor. Blogging on these topics rings the cash register.
Watch this video and see if you don't end up thirsting for a Root Beer Cocktail :-)
Posted Friday, July 25, 2008 by
Ali Sales
Blogging for SEO isn't wrong, but it can't be your only goal. Why? Because it's the tip of the iceberg. Of course you want your business to get found through search as many ways as possible, but your goal can't stop there.
You want a prospect to find your business blogs through search, and then what?
There is a next step. What is it? You want them to find one of your corporate blogs and then read sixteen posts before leaving the page? You want them to find one of your blogs and then subscribe to an RSS feed in order to come back over and over again and do nothing but read?
You see what I'm getting at here of course.
Your corporate blogging strategy can't focus on only the search engine optimization aspect. SEO is a means to the end, and your end is to make money by creating new relationships. That's it. If someone clicks to your blog from search and finds a webpage that's impersonal, unprofessional, and full of pointless information, then your blogging program is completely falling flat.
Today Compendium's very own Chris Baggott, will be hosting a webinar that goes into more detail on these topics. The webinar will also cover blogging tips, blogging best practices, and more. This is a great opportunity to ask any burning blogging questions. Get details and sign up for the webinar here.
You want a prospect to find your business blogs through search, and then what?
There is a next step. What is it? You want them to find one of your corporate blogs and then read sixteen posts before leaving the page? You want them to find one of your blogs and then subscribe to an RSS feed in order to come back over and over again and do nothing but read?
You see what I'm getting at here of course.
Your corporate blogging strategy can't focus on only the search engine optimization aspect. SEO is a means to the end, and your end is to make money by creating new relationships. That's it. If someone clicks to your blog from search and finds a webpage that's impersonal, unprofessional, and full of pointless information, then your blogging program is completely falling flat.
Today Compendium's very own Chris Baggott, will be hosting a webinar that goes into more detail on these topics. The webinar will also cover blogging tips, blogging best practices, and more. This is a great opportunity to ask any burning blogging questions. Get details and sign up for the webinar here.
Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 by
Kristen Hanschu
We focus on a wide variety of marketing tactics surrounding our blog writing software. In a recent article by Lee Oden, he goes on to discuss each one of his secrets to blogging for search engine optimization. I do have to disagree with his second point where he names his favorite blogging platforms. This is probably due to the fact that this author is not familiar with our better blogging software.
One of the major differences between Compendium and our "competitors" is that we walk you through each one of these 25 marketing initiatives. Where as, the other blogging tools allow you to set up a blog and then leave you to figure it out on your own, we hold your hand through the entire process. Our client success team is trained to get your blog off the ground and have you ranking on keywords as soon as you possibly can.
One of the major differences between Compendium and our "competitors" is that we walk you through each one of these 25 marketing initiatives. Where as, the other blogging tools allow you to set up a blog and then leave you to figure it out on your own, we hold your hand through the entire process. Our client success team is trained to get your blog off the ground and have you ranking on keywords as soon as you possibly can.
Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 by
Chantelle Flannery
I have always been the type of person to think about what things are going to be like in 5 or 10 years… within reason of course not in the sci-fi startrecky kind of way. I love reading geeky articles about the newest innovations. Just imagine in a few years we will all have touch screen monitors in our end tables and we will be able to play chess directly on the surface or flip though a digital photo album with friends. With that in mind how do you think it will change the way we blog?
If you think about it search is already starting to change by incorporating images and videos in results. To try this for yourself just try Googling Darth Vader. Because we know how search is starting to change we can begin to adjust our content to account for this. Make sure that your switching up your text based content with video and images. The verity of content will also make for more engaged readers.
But really you can look at my previous statement and say that there are already vodcasters, podcasters, and image only blogs… so then my question to you is what do you think the next big shift in blogging will be?
For a great article that will help you get your futuristic thinking cap on check out this article.
If you think about it search is already starting to change by incorporating images and videos in results. To try this for yourself just try Googling Darth Vader. Because we know how search is starting to change we can begin to adjust our content to account for this. Make sure that your switching up your text based content with video and images. The verity of content will also make for more engaged readers.
But really you can look at my previous statement and say that there are already vodcasters, podcasters, and image only blogs… so then my question to you is what do you think the next big shift in blogging will be?
For a great article that will help you get your futuristic thinking cap on check out this article.
Posted Wednesday, July 23, 2008 by
Megan Glover
At Compendium Blogware, we drink the kool-aid. We blog to get found in organic search and our compending software helps us maximize the keywords we're targeting in search.
So -it's always fun to share some real-life examples of blogging success! We had a prospect (now potential client) find us through our blogs yesterday. Here's how it happened:
1. Prospect was looking for blogging software.
2. Prospects googled "Blogging Solution"
3. The Compendium Blog "Blogging Solution" appeared as the #1 search result.
4. Prospect browsed the blog to affirm the information was on point.
5. Prospect clicked on the Live Chat Call-to-Action, which triggered me!
6. Prospect and I chatted she was interested in a demo.
7. Prospect was forwarded on to Business Development
8. Prospect is now a Sales Ready Opportunity - and might close within the month!
Does this pattern of events sound familiar?
Personally, when I'm searching for something, my search starts and ends in the organic section of a search engine. That's why, as a marketer, it's your job to get found in organic search and blogging is a tool that will help you do so.
And, with the right calls- to- action on your blogs you will convert blog visitors into potential customers. In our case, a simple Live Chat feature appealed to this particular prospect. View it here.
Do you have Blogging ROI stories to share? If so, Compendium wants to know about them. Please send blogging ROI results to: megan@compendiumblogware.com.
So -it's always fun to share some real-life examples of blogging success! We had a prospect (now potential client) find us through our blogs yesterday. Here's how it happened:
1. Prospect was looking for blogging software.
2. Prospects googled "Blogging Solution"
3. The Compendium Blog "Blogging Solution" appeared as the #1 search result.
4. Prospect browsed the blog to affirm the information was on point.
5. Prospect clicked on the Live Chat Call-to-Action, which triggered me!
6. Prospect and I chatted she was interested in a demo.
7. Prospect was forwarded on to Business Development
8. Prospect is now a Sales Ready Opportunity - and might close within the month!
Does this pattern of events sound familiar? Personally, when I'm searching for something, my search starts and ends in the organic section of a search engine. That's why, as a marketer, it's your job to get found in organic search and blogging is a tool that will help you do so.
And, with the right calls- to- action on your blogs you will convert blog visitors into potential customers. In our case, a simple Live Chat feature appealed to this particular prospect. View it here.
Do you have Blogging ROI stories to share? If so, Compendium wants to know about them. Please send blogging ROI results to: megan@compendiumblogware.com.
Posted Tuesday, July 22, 2008 by
Jenni Edwards
Lately, I have been serious about getting better time management and organizational practices in place as lately I seem to have been a day late and a dollar short too many times --- and mostly, at my own fault. Although, the picture isn't actually my desk --- it sometimes feels as if I am not too far off of this mess!Being a start-up at Compendium it's been too common for me to get distracted with big picture conversations (i.e. - How business blogging will change the face on online marketing?) and personnel/procedure changes have also contribute to some time wasted. I am working on focusing on the day to day things that I need to do to introduce more prospects to Compendium and grow our client base --- and with some help from some new Salesforce reports and dashboards, have been trying to do just that.
So in saying this --- I also am trying to get more organized about blogging itself. It seems as if lately I either have so many topics to blog about or nothing at all and that steady stream of content that blogging for SEO needs is lost out on -- thankfully, there are many of my colleagues within Compendium that are stepping up their blogging game and luckily, with our unique software which allows for all of our content to compend into keyword driven blogs; my organization and time management woes don't impact our overall blogging success as much as if I was the lone blogger.
Here are some of the ideas I am hoping to use to organize my own personal blog entries and would love other suggestions that you all might use!
- Writing down blog ideas in the same place (whiteboard, notebook) rather than a million different places.
- Not writing for perfection the first go around...rather go back and editing the post 30 minutes later with a clear view.
- Sticking to my set aside 1/2 hour to blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays (and hopefully being inspired enough to get an additional post in over the weekend).
- Looking at my blog and other Compendium employee blogs before blogging --- What are some good ideas? Did I just talk about this? Is this relevant to the reader?
Posted Tuesday, July 15, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
I'm generally a fan of Forrester and their research, and they have done some terrific work on blogging in general. But in the newest paper which is mis-named: Derive Value From B2B Blogging comes off as really negative generally with regard to the state of B2B Blogging Solutions & implementations.
There are some terrific points in this paper for B2B marketers as it relates to Corporate Blogging and Blogging Best Practices. For example:
...many B2B marketers are failing to realize that good blogging style should resemble a coffee shop conversation, not a whitepaper.
But the sentence below really describes the overall tone of the paper:
What is broken in the Forrester study is the overall "goal". They keep talking about conversation, community, comments, and repeat visitors as the main objective of corporate blogging. These are metrics that are doomed to fail.
Successful business blogs have two characteristics.
First, rather than top down from the "C" level, they open up by having widespread employee participation. Prospects and Customers are not the ones to write frequently about your business....but you hire smart, passionate people who like their jobs, like the customer, are proud of your products....let them blog about it.
Secondly, ROI need to be measured based on search & conversion. Blogging is a content and engagement strategy. Widespread employee blogging generates lots of great topic specific, keyword, frequently updated and authentic content. The more content you generate like this, the more traffic you generate. Most successful Corporate Blogging programs in our system drive three times or more traffic than their traditional sites.
When the searcher lands on a page with a post that specifically matches their search intent...written by a real human being and addressing a similar situation...they convert. They take the next step in the relationship.
The business blog is basically a one shot encounter. They search, they find the blog, they convert to either email, phone or a sales relationship (if we are talking about B2B)
Blogging for search is legitmate, valued by the searcher and highly effective if executed properly.
There are some terrific points in this paper for B2B marketers as it relates to Corporate Blogging and Blogging Best Practices. For example:
...many B2B marketers are failing to realize that good blogging style should resemble a coffee shop conversation, not a whitepaper.
But the sentence below really describes the overall tone of the paper:
Corporate bloggers are apparently struggling to sustain a conversation...
What is broken in the Forrester study is the overall "goal". They keep talking about conversation, community, comments, and repeat visitors as the main objective of corporate blogging. These are metrics that are doomed to fail.
Successful business blogs have two characteristics.
First, rather than top down from the "C" level, they open up by having widespread employee participation. Prospects and Customers are not the ones to write frequently about your business....but you hire smart, passionate people who like their jobs, like the customer, are proud of your products....let them blog about it.
Secondly, ROI need to be measured based on search & conversion. Blogging is a content and engagement strategy. Widespread employee blogging generates lots of great topic specific, keyword, frequently updated and authentic content. The more content you generate like this, the more traffic you generate. Most successful Corporate Blogging programs in our system drive three times or more traffic than their traditional sites.
When the searcher lands on a page with a post that specifically matches their search intent...written by a real human being and addressing a similar situation...they convert. They take the next step in the relationship.
The business blog is basically a one shot encounter. They search, they find the blog, they convert to either email, phone or a sales relationship (if we are talking about B2B)
Blogging for search is legitmate, valued by the searcher and highly effective if executed properly.
Posted Thursday, July 10, 2008 by
Eric Romer
So, I recently made a joke to someone that my blog was all about.... well, blogging. Seems a bit redundant at times. But I guess I'll ask the people reading to let me know if it's a complete bore. Hopefully it sheds some light into your business, and how you can better communicate through multi user blog software.
But I do like Seth Godin's post today "The limits of meta", in which he uses the example of a website that makes money by teaching you... how to make money with a website.
It reminds me of how I used to feel about teachers. You go to school for 15+ years, learning from teachers how to.... go to school and teach? I always thought people should have some other life experience before leading a classroom. But now I have friends that are great teachers, and started right out of college.
I digress....
The point is, our blog software is meant to help your business GET FOUND, engage people with relevant content, and convert them into a customer… or subscriber… or whatever it is you want them to do once they find your organization.
But I do like Seth Godin's post today "The limits of meta", in which he uses the example of a website that makes money by teaching you... how to make money with a website.
It reminds me of how I used to feel about teachers. You go to school for 15+ years, learning from teachers how to.... go to school and teach? I always thought people should have some other life experience before leading a classroom. But now I have friends that are great teachers, and started right out of college.
I digress....
The point is, our blog software is meant to help your business GET FOUND, engage people with relevant content, and convert them into a customer… or subscriber… or whatever it is you want them to do once they find your organization.
My blog, and other Compendium blogs are excellent examples of this. Looking at keywords that have driven traffic to our website vs. our blogs over the past year -- our blogs drove 3x as many non-paid keywords than our website. We're talking over 1,000 keywords we would have never captured from organic search without blogs!
So, sorry Seth, it may be redundant... but this stuff works. And I'm going to continue to blog... about blogging.
Posted Thursday, July 10, 2008 by
Sarah Sedberry
Next stop on the 4th of July weekend tour was Philadelphia, PA, the heart of our country's foundation. For those who have never visited this city, it is a place I highly recommend you put on your list of places to go. The history that is entrenched here is amazing, along with all of the beautiful architecture and interesting places to see.
Some of the highlights of our two days in Philadelphia included a visit to the childhood home of Larry from the Three Stooges, the Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, the graveyard where Nicolas Cage was chased in National Treasure, Rocky Balboa's training route, the City Tavern - complete with costumed service staff and patrons, Betsy Ross's house, Benjamin Franklin's home, the first United States Post Office, and the list goes on and on and on...
The city of Philadelphia has such a rich history that goes hand-in-hand with that of our country. The amazing thing to me is that it wasn't that long ago that all of this happened. We're talking about 250 years here. What a small blip of time in the world's history! Even more mind-boggling is how successful our country has become in this short period of time. Much like the results a company can obtain from maintaining a current blog, a blog can propel a website, due to search engine optimization, in a relatively short period of time, thus giving your company great success.One of the great thing about blogs, is that they can pull off the equity of your already existing website - just how America pulled from the ideas and concepts of Britain. Blogs give your company the chance to jump ahead of the curve in marketing.
I cannot stress enough the importance of rich, current, and frequent content in company blogs. Search engines thrive on these components and are what ultimately make a blog successful. Our country is rich in its history and continues to build on it going forward, making us a stronger nation each and every day. Do the same with your corporate blog - build it richly and therefore ensure your success!
Posted Wednesday, July 9, 2008 by
Chantelle Flannery
Yahoo and Google have signed a 10-year deal where they will be working together on ad sales. Having these two giants in the industry pair up sounds a little fishy to me ... and to the FTC. I think that we will see more about this deal over the next few month and maybe even a year.
The deal, which would allow Yahoo to display Google search advertising on its search pages, will make for reduced competition. Advertisers also see this as less competition and higher prices. All the more reason to start investing more into natural search over paid search. Blogging is a great way to start winning natural search.
To read more about the deal check out the CNet News Blog.
You might also try subscribing to a Google Alert for this topic because I am sure there will be a significant amount of chatter online about this for quite some time.
The deal, which would allow Yahoo to display Google search advertising on its search pages, will make for reduced competition. Advertisers also see this as less competition and higher prices. All the more reason to start investing more into natural search over paid search. Blogging is a great way to start winning natural search.
To read more about the deal check out the CNet News Blog.
You might also try subscribing to a Google Alert for this topic because I am sure there will be a significant amount of chatter online about this for quite some time.
Posted Tuesday, July 8, 2008 by
Kristen Hanschu
When setting up a blog, you have the option to use a sub-domain or a directory. We suggest using a sub-domain for two main reasons.
- Sub-domains are seen as a part of the website so you do not have to "start from scratch". In other words, Google will recognize your sub-domain before it would a directory so it takes less time to get indexed.
- Sub-domains are also easier for a reader to remember. They are more likely to remember both your website and blog site since they are so similar.
Posted Sunday, July 6, 2008 by
Jenni Edwards
We are always talking about the Long Tail here at Compendium Blogware --- with the short explanation (a longer one here...) and relation to corporate blogs and SEO being that it is important to remember that while winning a word such as "cars" is great; it is probably much more realistic to win and capitalize on key phrases such as "Indianapolis Car Dealers" and "Buying A Car In Indianapolis". With Compendium --- you are able to leverage the same content to win all of those relevant key phrases through data driven blogging. So back to this recent controversy --- which is really a matter of data and statistical analysis, but with one piece that was strange to me, Anita Elberse, reports in her data a lower satisfaction in the long tail versus the head of an average product (pulling this from the statistical data around Australian DVD rentals and ratings following a product). This might be true in some consumer buying decisions, but when it comes to search I think we can look at things a big differently --- who wants a less specific result to what they are searching? The point of searching is to find what you are looking for --- not necessarily to browse as may be the case when choosing a DVD.
Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008 by
Kristen Hanschu
Visit Tampa Bay is an excellent example of how a small to medium size business can see success with blogging. They do a fantastic job of following best practices and posting frequently.
Visit Tampa Bay has been blogging for seo (search engine optimization) for a few months and each month they have had the opportunity to gain new clients through this program. They are doing this by winning organic searches on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. In fact, everyone of their keywords is ranking in at least one of these search engines.
If you are having a hard time getting your employees to blog, follow the example that Visit Tampa Bay has set in their blogging strategy. They keep their posts short and to the point. Their bloggers add relevant links and interesting images. To view their blog click here.
Visit Tampa Bay has been blogging for seo (search engine optimization) for a few months and each month they have had the opportunity to gain new clients through this program. They are doing this by winning organic searches on Google, Yahoo, and MSN. In fact, everyone of their keywords is ranking in at least one of these search engines. If you are having a hard time getting your employees to blog, follow the example that Visit Tampa Bay has set in their blogging strategy. They keep their posts short and to the point. Their bloggers add relevant links and interesting images. To view their blog click here.
Posted Tuesday, July 1, 2008 by
Chris Baggott
Many of you may have noticed the announcement last week regarding ICANN dramitically increasing the suffixes available for domain names. Here is a blurb from the New York Times:
What are you going to do?
Incorporate blog management software company wide. The biggest benefit of enterprise or business blogging is Search engine optimization. The more people you have blogging, the more relevant content gets created, and the more likely you are to be found accross a lots of keywords.
Forget people remembering your domain...focus on getting found by using corporate blog tools.
According to new rules unanimously passed by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or Icann, at its meeting here, any company, organization or country will soon be able to apply for a new Web address extension, called a top-level domain.
That could smooth the way for Web addresses that end in city names, brands and generic words. It could also sow confusion in the minds of Web users, create a host of new ways to exploit the Web addressing system and start a wave of legal skirmishes over applications to register trademarks — .coke, for example.
Uggh! What a mess this makes for normal businesses & organizations. People are already having a tough time keeping track of your web address. By adding basically an unlimited number of .anything branding by domain becomes just about impossible.
If anything is going to drive people even more into the arms of the search engines, it's going to be this.What are you going to do?
Incorporate blog management software company wide. The biggest benefit of enterprise or business blogging is Search engine optimization. The more people you have blogging, the more relevant content gets created, and the more likely you are to be found accross a lots of keywords.
Forget people remembering your domain...focus on getting found by using corporate blog tools.
Posted Monday, June 30, 2008 by
jeff lefevere
As our Client Success team, the folks responsible for day-to-day work with our clients interact with current and soon to be clients, we get a frequent and re-occurring question … and it goes:
"We love Compendium and we “get” the blogging for search, but what’s the real difference between “blogging” and “blogging for business?”
It’s a simple question and it goes to the core of what Compendium stands for. And, the answer is equally simple and really can best be understood by understanding the division of writing for pleasure, as a hobbyist, what we like to call a “Citizen Journalist,” and blogging for results, or blogging for business.
Blogging for pleasure and blogging for results.
In talking with customers, I usually use myself as my own baseline or example.
I have a personal wine blog (www.goodgrape.com). I happen to like wine and I happen to like to write—hence, I view my blog as a hobby, a creative outlet.
Now, mind you, my blog has yielded some interesting results for me, the least of which are wine samples, wine books and other flotsam and jetsam that are sent to me in order to try and influence me, as others view me as an alpha-influencer.
This influencer model is great and typifies what thousands and millions of other people try to do—cultivate influence with loyal readership. In doing so, you get into a “jetstream” of community in the niche in which you write, but to get to the point where I am at today, (about 1000 - 1200 daily readers, a bunch of hits and pageviews, etc.) it has taken very consistent content creation (4-6 posts per week) and a lot of social networking over the course of 2.5 years.
While this is a fine model for individuals, it’s not that great of a model for businesses. It’s very difficult to get somebody in the marketing department to chew off on a two or three year “influencer” model, and with good reason.
However, and thankfully, the underpinning of Compendium is to blog for business. What that means is that instead of trying to cultivate a readership by writing good content that goes into a category bucket, you try to cultivate content for search engine optimization by writing good content that gets compended into a keyword blog (our equivalent of a category), so people who are searching for those “keywords” can quickly and easily find you in the search engines (Google dominates search) and then subsequently find something you are saying of value-- enough value to want and stay on your site for a while and do some other action that drives to a metric for your organization.
It’s very simple, but a very important paradigm shift in thinking. Social media, as an umbrella over a bunch of different things, including blogging, is great, but it’s really only great in business if it drives a result.
Many people will tell you that influence is the new currency, and they wouldn’t be completely wrong, but the part they don’t get right is that influence doesn’t equal a sales number and using your blog as a business tool to drive engagement with customers is very important, as well.
So, what is the real difference between blogging and blogging for business, or blogging for a purpose?
Results.
Blogging for a purpose with Compendium delivers the kind of results tied to a metric that can be delivered infinitely quicker than a two year slow burn of influence.
"We love Compendium and we “get” the blogging for search, but what’s the real difference between “blogging” and “blogging for business?”
It’s a simple question and it goes to the core of what Compendium stands for. And, the answer is equally simple and really can best be understood by understanding the division of writing for pleasure, as a hobbyist, what we like to call a “Citizen Journalist,” and blogging for results, or blogging for business.
Blogging for pleasure and blogging for results.
In talking with customers, I usually use myself as my own baseline or example.
I have a personal wine blog (www.goodgrape.com). I happen to like wine and I happen to like to write—hence, I view my blog as a hobby, a creative outlet.
Now, mind you, my blog has yielded some interesting results for me, the least of which are wine samples, wine books and other flotsam and jetsam that are sent to me in order to try and influence me, as others view me as an alpha-influencer.
This influencer model is great and typifies what thousands and millions of other people try to do—cultivate influence with loyal readership. In doing so, you get into a “jetstream” of community in the niche in which you write, but to get to the point where I am at today, (about 1000 - 1200 daily readers, a bunch of hits and pageviews, etc.) it has taken very consistent content creation (4-6 posts per week) and a lot of social networking over the course of 2.5 years.
While this is a fine model for individuals, it’s not that great of a model for businesses. It’s very difficult to get somebody in the marketing department to chew off on a two or three year “influencer” model, and with good reason.
However, and thankfully, the underpinning of Compendium is to blog for business. What that means is that instead of trying to cultivate a readership by writing good content that goes into a category bucket, you try to cultivate content for search engine optimization by writing good content that gets compended into a keyword blog (our equivalent of a category), so people who are searching for those “keywords” can quickly and easily find you in the search engines (Google dominates search) and then subsequently find something you are saying of value-- enough value to want and stay on your site for a while and do some other action that drives to a metric for your organization.
It’s very simple, but a very important paradigm shift in thinking. Social media, as an umbrella over a bunch of different things, including blogging, is great, but it’s really only great in business if it drives a result.
Many people will tell you that influence is the new currency, and they wouldn’t be completely wrong, but the part they don’t get right is that influence doesn’t equal a sales number and using your blog as a business tool to drive engagement with customers is very important, as well.
So, what is the real difference between blogging and blogging for business, or blogging for a purpose?
Results.
Blogging for a purpose with Compendium delivers the kind of results tied to a metric that can be delivered infinitely quicker than a two year slow burn of influence.
Posted Monday, June 30, 2008 by
Daren Tomey
I just finished reading a great article on The Semantic Web by John-Scott Dixon in the May 2008 issue of Website Magazine. In this article John does a great job of outlining the current short falls of search engines and what the future may in fact look like. I really liked the analogy of doing a search on Randy Johnson's ERA...Great Stuff! I am a major fan of baseball, so that one really caught my attention.
Anyways, the long and short of it is that search engines are delivering far too many results today and will continue to do so for many more years, but as a marketer we are constantly challenged to increase our lead generation efforts through an audience which is passionate and engaged into what products or services we have to offer.
How do you do that? Our client success team will tell you that in order to maximize the benefits of blogging for seo, a blogging best practice is to focus on the mid and long tail approach in their keyword/Compendium blogs as the audience that is using three words or higher when conducting a search are more educated and engaged in what they are searching for and closer to making a purchasing decision.
If you really want to target the audience to drive conversions and ROI, add a local qualifier to your keyword blogs! For more information from Compendium on blogging trends, blogging tips, and blogging best practices, please visit our website frequently!
Anyways, the long and short of it is that search engines are delivering far too many results today and will continue to do so for many more years, but as a marketer we are constantly challenged to increase our lead generation efforts through an audience which is passionate and engaged into what products or services we have to offer.
How do you do that? Our client success team will tell you that in order to maximize the benefits of blogging for seo, a blogging best practice is to focus on the mid and long tail approach in their keyword/Compendium blogs as the audience that is using three words or higher when conducting a search are more educated and engaged in what they are searching for and closer to making a purchasing decision.
If you really want to target the audience to drive conversions and ROI, add a local qualifier to your keyword blogs! For more information from Compendium on blogging trends, blogging tips, and blogging best practices, please visit our website frequently!
Posted Monday, June 30, 2008 by
PJ Hinton
Others' blogs can be a great source of blogging tips, even if they don't come right out and label them as such. Take for example a post that was published by Lead with Your Heart author Lewis Green. In discussing why it's important to give as well as get, Green talks about our natural resistance to "sharing openly" with others in personal and professional settings.
He goes on to list several examples of businesses and individuals who put this principle into practice and succeed by doing so. It's no surprise that his longest bullet point deals with bloggers who use their sites to educate and advise, not just self-promote.
If you are thinking about starting a business blog, SEO might be an attractive selling point. But one of the best blogging benefits you will reap, if you write the right kind of content, is an improved relationship with your customers. Quoting Green's closing remarks in the post:
He goes on to list several examples of businesses and individuals who put this principle into practice and succeed by doing so. It's no surprise that his longest bullet point deals with bloggers who use their sites to educate and advise, not just self-promote.
If you are thinking about starting a business blog, SEO might be an attractive selling point. But one of the best blogging benefits you will reap, if you write the right kind of content, is an improved relationship with your customers. Quoting Green's closing remarks in the post:
People like and like to do business with those they trust and those who have integrity. Sharing ourselves and what we know is the best way to build a trusting relationship, and it doesn't hurt profits.How well can you share?
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