Companies Blogs

Applying more SG to business blogging

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Brian Millis

Ok, so I try not to do double Seth Godin references but he seems to be so timely for what I'm doing. His most recent blog post begins with this quote:

"The problem with "everyone" is that in order to reach everyone or teach everyone or sell to everyone, you need to so water down what you've got you end up with almost nothing."

This is what I find so hilarious about most of the corporate blogs I read. Often time these busy business men and women spend time manually tagging or categorizing their freeware blog for things like: social media, agency, advice, technology, etc. etc.

These are such general topics for organization. Most of these people tell me that they spend time blogging for SEO and do this organization so they will be found in the search engine by qualified prospects. If you are a branding agency, why would someone search just "branding" or "agency"?! They wouldn't. They would search something like "branding agency in charlotte".

Seth's advice is great to heed when thinking about corporate blogging. If you try and make your blog about EVERYTHING or appealing to EVERYONE . . . . almost NO ONE will find you. Or you could look at it this way: A company that creates one blog and fills it with info ranging from industry news to product information simply waters down the blog, trying to make it about EVERYTHING. This means it will not be found by ANYONE or be a useful vehicle for getting found in search and driving traffic.

And this is why Compendium's structure is brilliant. Blog about EVERYTHING and let the software take care of the organization that actually makes it relevant to the searcher and the search engine.

Common Mistakes in Blogging (#4)

Friday, November 6, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

(4th in a series of 5)

Common Mistake #4:

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

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

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

Answer:

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

Other ways include:

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

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

Health Blogging, Online Health Education

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Jenni Edwards

I am admittedly an online hypochondriac; I feel as if the readily available medical information has resulted in many of us "self diagnosing" ourselves with a multitude of conditions and syndromes --- not to mention the amount of worry that results when you have a simple ailment and the Symptom Checker on WebMD lists a plethora of debilitating illnesses that could be the root cause of your headache, back ache or dizziness.

However, medical information is a positive powerful tool online as it educates the newly diagnosed, can provide a support group of sorts and allows for suffers to be aware of the newest treatments. One example that Compendium has of a client that is playing in this space of "Health Blogging" is Simplex Healthcare, better known as Diabetes Care Club. They are one of the leading suppliers of direct diabetes supplies and their blog has recently kicked off and provided some great information for diabetes patients.

So while we do focus on all companies on providing an ROI from their business blogging efforts, it's important to occasionally take a step back and look at the great resources that online health blogs and tools can provide at no cost and hopefully help someone through their own medical struggles.

How to use your Corporate Blog for inbound links

Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Corporate Blogging is all about credibility and search marketing. By organizing relevant content that is frequently updated you are essentially building targeted organic landing pages. Content drives this strategy, but don't forget ever that inbound links are really valuable too. Generally I fall into the camp that if your company bloggers create great content and that content targeting search, then you will dramatically increase the reach of your blogs and links will come naturally.

Sometimes however you might need to 'Prime the Pump' and engage in some strategies to legitimately go out and get some links.

This particular tactic is not my original idea but one I've been working on after a post by Rand Fishkin. The idea is sort of back to the Zig Ziglar quote that has been around forever:

"You will get all you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want."

There is really nothing new conceptually with Social Media. The ideas are the same as they were before brand corruption, now we just have the tools to actually execute.

Rand's idea is to target people you know and write a testimonial about them. The key is not to put this testimonial on your blog, but offer it up for them to put on their own blog.

Another spin on this is the offer to be a guest blogger. I use Google alerts to keep track of who's blogging in my industry, that gives me a steady stream of fellow advocates to reach out to.

Demonstrating your point

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Stephanie West

The best way to know how something works is to just listen and learn about it. Professors do this all the time. They stand in from of a classroom and lecture. How effective is lecturing though? Personally, I don't respond well to lectures. I just don't comprehend everything that's being said when a professor stands in from of a classroom and talks.

I need professors to show me what they're talking about. I need a professor to demonstrate his/her point to me.

Demonstrate your point.

It's one of the most effective ways to get the other party to comprehend and fully understand what is being discussed. Both audio and visual aids are the components that make your point most effectively communicated.

Compendium understands this - we offer demonstrations of our product so that you can better understand the software that we offer. Compendium's demos are designed with visual aids that you can view on your computer screen as a blogging expert is talking to you on the phone.

In the demonstrations, the blogging experts at Compendium outline how our blogging software will help you leverage your company in search marketing.

So don't hesitate - schedule a demo today to get a better understanding of what Compendium has to offer, and how your company will benefit!

Exciting Product Release to Preview your Blog Post within Your Template

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Abby Brosmer

This morning, Compendium proudly released the ability to preview your blog post within your live blog template. Prior to today,when creating post as a user the options available were to save as a draft, submit my post to the administrator for moderation or preview the post in new window to ensure video worked properly.

Today, when a user selects preview post, they will now view their content as it would appear live on the web. A nice enhancement to our easy to use blogging software which allows users an extra reassurance that their content will represent the company well on the corporate blog.

As a member of the product support team, we are always working to request enhancements to the product that will enhance each users experience and provide the best blogging software to our clients.

If you have a suggestion, fill our the web form and we will add it to our product log for enhancements. Yes, these enhancements are prioritized by customer request, so every vote matters.

Finding Business Blogging Success

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Amber Mohling

Are you considering starting a blog program at your company?
Or are you looking for ways to improve your current blog's ROI?

If you answered Yes to either of these questions then you'll want to tune into Compendium's upcoming free webinar:

Finding Business Blogging Success: Real-Life Stories
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 from 2-3pm EST
Hosted by award winning marketer, Chris Baggott

During the webinar, Chris will discuss the best practices for ROI driven business blogging, real-life examples of successful blogging strategies, and how to set up a blogging strategy built for success.

November Webinar: Finding Business Blogging Success, Real-Life Stories

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Jess Wehner

We have a webinar coming up this month that is sure to be interesting for clients and prospective clients alike.

If you are a current client, this will be a great time to learn about what some of Compendium's most successful customers are doing on their business blog, how they incorporate blogging best practices, and what success really means to them. Come see how you can make improvements to your current blog program.

If you are new to Compendium, come learn about how blogging for search can lead to an increase in traffic to your site, generate leads, and increase sales from people that have actually experienced these results.

As a snapshot, you'll hear from the following types of companies who blog for business:

eCommerce Gymnastics Apparel Company:

Over $100,000 closed business within a year, directly from blog traffic.
$10,000 in sales within the first two months of blogging with cheer uniform network.

SaaS Event Management and Web Survey Company:

500% increase in keyword reach, compared to the number of paid keywords targeted.
Receive over 50,000 keyword referrals each month.

Concrete and Services Company in Minneapolis:

Customer was searching for “spancrete”.
Found the company’s blog and called.
$3000 job complete within 48 hours of search.

Google Software Engineer Discusses Rankings

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Amber Mohling

What's the main focus of your company's blog marketing program and search marketing program?

Recently Matt Cutts, a Google Sofware Engineer, posted a youtube video disucssing ranking, and he challenged companies that they should be more focused on converting better instead of getting obsessed with ranking.

In the Client Success department at Compendium, we do focus a lot of time on helping our clients receive great search results on numerous keywords related to their business. However, we believe that the success of a blog program is looking at tangible ROI results, i.e. online leads developed and then ultimately conversion.

To learn more about the success of our clients' blog programs, check out some of their case studies by clicking here.

Empathy In Blogging & Search Is Natural

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Jenni Edwards

Empathy doesn't come to natural to most of us. Potentially it is a lacking quality across my seemingly selfish generation, but I have to make a conscious effort towards empathy in any given situation.

Our friend, Seth Godin, recently wrote about empathy in marketing noting that marketers and the fact that as marketers we can try as we might to be empathetic and we may think we understand the hopes and dreams along with the woes of any given demographic, but we really don't. And when we think we do, we are likely making broad, incorrect generalizations.

What can we do about this? And how does empathy really work? I consider empathy to be very close to the idea of a "similar situation" sales approach (i.e. - I'm just like you; let me solve your problem like I did for someone just like you, etc.). The truest form of empathy is truly being in the same situation...not faking it or making assumptions. How do you create this feeling of empathy through blogging? You enable multiple individuals throughout your organization to create content. It's amazing even within a small company the socioeconomic, life stage and other diversity that exists and opening this up can be a powerful marketing tool.

Another way in which empathy is natural from a search perspective is through known data. Although I can agree as Seth warns that mixing empathy in marketing is rather dangerous --- the fact that through search and tracking tools we are able to tie back the search terms that an eventual buyer or "conversion" came to our website or blog from, therefore, as we learn more about the individual we can begin to make these somewhat dangerous assumptions such as "Stay at home moms generally search with terms such as XYZ where as working mothers usually search on terms such as ABC" and using these data backed assumptions to create better custom landing pages, blog templates, calls to action within a blog and so forth.

It might be a stretch and empathy may never be a natural quality in many of our everyday lives, but I believe that some of the benefits of empathy in marketing can be found through blogging and search.

Success Stories are the Best Stories

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Meghan Manning

No matter what stage you're at with researching Compendium and deciding if we're the best solution for your search marketing strategy - client success stories are always a great way to get the inside story on a company! That's why our November Webinar is focused on just that...

We want you to hear about our clients and learn how Compendium has helped them to successfully achieve their blogging goals. During this informative Webinar, you'll learn:

Best Practices for ROI driven business blogging.
Real-life examples of successful blogging strategies.
How to set up a blogging strategy built for success.

Don't hesitate to register for this Webinar - there are only 250 spots available and they are filling up very quickly! Also, after you register, email Chris Baggott at chrisb@compendium.com to send him your questions for the Webinar.

We'll see you there!

Common Mistakes in Blogging #3

Wednesday, November 4, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

(3rd in a series of 5)

Common Mistake #3:

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

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

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

Answer:

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

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

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

Common Mistake #1
Common Mistake #2

Happy Birthday to ME!

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 by Allison Bowen

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keep It Simple

Tuesday, November 3, 2009 by Lee Jorgenson

When considering whether or not your company is going to use a blogging solution for search marketing, keep it simple. It's easy to get side-tracked talking about fancy plug-ins and all of the bells and whistles and end up losing sight of what you are trying to accomplish. Oftentimes, businesses can get so caught up with shiny widgets that they compromise the end goal.

Choose a simple blogging software that focuses on what really matters. Stick to your guns on the end results, and don't get lost in the weeds. While slick plug-ins might whet your appetite for tech-toys, they don't necessarily put food dollars in your pocket.

Alerding Castor Hewitt receives results

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Stephanie West

This firm is a great example of why a business should blog. They dedicate about 2 hours a week to blogging. That's right: 2 HOURS PER WEEK. Wrap your head around that. In addition to their two hour per week blogging dedication, they have seen 500% blogging ROI... 500%!

Those numbers (alone) should convince you that corporate blogging has something great going for it. But if those numbers don't convince you, consider this additional information about Alerding Castor Hewitt.

This case study is an excellent reason of why you should blog for business. Compendium's blogging platform structures SEO tools that help maximize your search engine optimization results. Blogging for search, just as Alerding Castor Hewitt does, is a way for potential customers to find you on the internet. Online marketing is a means of reaching those potential customers that are searching for something on the internet. By blogging (for as little as 2 hours per week!), you are helping position your company to get found in search.

Click here to view this Alerding Castor Hewitt case study and read about their blogging success!

Don't Be Scared of Keywords

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Tyler Bender

I've been writing for years. I have a background in Journalism and was beat over the head with APA format writing in college. I have written websites, press releases, brochures, video scripts. I thought I'd seen the in's and out's of this "web 2.0" movement. The basic principles for writing for the web: keep it simple, put yourself in the shoes of your audience, tell them what you want them to do. Don't screw up gramatically, and don't have typos.

Got it.

Now, I've only been a part of Compendium's team for about three weeks as an internal content writer, and one of the things I have seen multiple times in some of our client keyword lists look something like this: (I'll use Compendium as my example)

Compendium Blogware
Compendium
Blogging Software
Corporate Blogs
Compendiums
Comppendium
Compendiam
Compendium Blog Ware

Notice something odd? The name of the company is misspelled. more than once.

And I'm expected to throw those keywords into my content like that? Whhhhattt? This concept takes some catching on. And for someone who has spent the greater part of his life trying to edit and perfect his writing so that it never has a typo, learning how to include typos into content on purpose is like telling Peyton Manning that it's ok to throw passes to the other team. At first, it was like nails on a chalkboard, only the nails were buckets of acid and the chalkboard was my eyes.

But it makes sense.

People don't check Webster's Dictionary or the phonebook before they visit search engines to search for your company's keywords. Sometimes they're going to misspell their searches and you want to win those searches - even if they're "wrong." Right?

When you're bloging for search, you should always account for the searches that aren't perfect. It's okay. Wouldn't you rather have someone find your blog even though they mistakenly typed in "Acmes Solution" instead of "Acme Solutions," than someone completely miss your content because you weren't comfortable including the misspelling in your content?

Part of the beauty of blogging is that it's not perfect. Actually, I think some imperfections in corporate blogs make the writers more "relatable" to their audience. If I saw a typo in a brochure, I'd think that the company was lazy, didn't care enough to edit their material and all-around not very professional. If I see a typo in a blog, it's easier to remind myself that an actual human being is on the other end of the blog, constantly updating their content, and it was probably a simple oversight.

So don't be scared of your keywords just because they're mispelled. They'll still work, and strategically, it makes sense to use them. The goal is to reach your audience - even if they're not sure how to spell your company name.

"Real" Blogging

Monday, November 2, 2009 by Allison Bowen

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

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

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

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

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

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

Announcing Compendium Client Training!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 by Allison Bowen

Well folks, it's here! That's right... I'm proud to announce the release of Compendium User and Administrator Live Training Webinars! Your best blogging software just got better! The trainings will be coming to you live from 55 Monument Circle and will take place every Tuesday and Thursday.

On Tuesdays, user training will take place at 2:00pm, followed by administrator training at 2:30pm. The live webinars on Thursdays will take place at 10:00am for users and 10:30am for administrators.

Accessing the live webinars is very easy. You'll simply need to join the "Go-To-Meeting" session by clicking on the following link at the time given above.

User Training

Admin Training

Who should attend these trainings? Anyone! If you are writing a blog for your business through Compendium's blogging software, we would love to have you attend. Please note, you will be asked to tell us your company name, so you must be a client of Compendium's.

If you would like to learn how to operate our system or would simply like to learn some new tips and tricks, please feel free to join in on the fun! I look forward to training you soon!

Communicating with Your Blog

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 by Stephanie West

Corporate blogging is a great way to update your clients (or perspective clients) on what is going on within your company.

Corporate blogging is a great search marketing tool. It also helps businesses get found in search. Blogging is also a great way to generate leads. And it humanizes your business.

But another great aspect of blogging is communication.

Simply communicating what is going on within your company is equally as important as getting found in search or generating leads.

So as the marketing intern, I'm here to tell you what's going on within the marketing department at Compendium.

This month, the Marketing department is hosting a blogging competition amongst the 5 departments at Compendium. Our Marketing Manager, Meghan, assigned each department weekly blogging goals to reach. The Client Success department won two weeks in a row. No one has caught them yet!
The Marketing department hosted a successful Webinar last week! Look for the replay on Compendium's website soon.
We're preparing for another Webinar and follow-up this Thursday, Sept. 17 from 2-3PM, Third Generation Business Blogging. Click on the link to sign up for this FREE webinar!

These are just a few of the fun things going on at Compendium - particularly within the Marketing department. From now on, look for more regular updates from me on what's going on at Compendium in the Marketing department!