The Wall Street Journal hosted the seventh annual All Things Digital Conference last week in Carlsbad CA. The meeting opened with a discussion of the emergence of new concepts around Web 3.0
"The real arrival, after years of false predictions, of the thin client, running clean simple software, against cloud-based data and services."
What does this mean for your business? Think about that phrase "cloud based data..." That's you. We live in a world of data on demand. How do people call up data? They use search engines.
The old world of marketers focused on interruption. They find a destination where you might likely hang out (bus stop, TV show, Social Network) and try and interfere with an offer or a pitch.
Web 3.0 says that you no longer need the middleman. You now have to be the one providing the information and organizing that information in ways that help the people searching the cloud for solutions to their problems.
This is why corporate blogging software is such a fast growing category. Business is recognizing blogging as a tool for SEO and that in order to compete in this 3.0 world they are going to have to come at the ideas of content creation in a different way....a better way.
I love the other sentence in this description of Web 3.0 "The complete integration of computing into every part of our lives in a way that is seamless, ubiquitous and, ideally dead simple."
Search rules the 3.0 world because it fulfills all those requirements. If you want to play, you have to advance your thinking regarding blogging best practices.
How to start a business blog (with Compendium Blogware):
Step 1: Establish that you have a product or service (or idea) that people are searching for online. ie how are you making money?
Step 2: Search on Google for "Affordable blogging software", "Blogging Solution", "Easy to Use Blogging Software", (or any of the other hundreds of keywords that Compendium is number one on search for).
Step 3: Download a whitepaper or attend one of the Compendium Blogware webinars.
Step 4: Pick up the phone or return the email sent by one of the wonderful Compendium sales people!
Step 5: Execute a contract to implement Compendium - the best blogging software available.
Step 6: Once set up, start writing content on your blog network!
Step 7: Begin growing your business as a result of all the leads generated because of Compendium.
Take that first step to setting up a blog for business today!
"Work smarter, not harder"... this simple but brilliant little qoute is really the premise of our easy to use blog software.
As with anything in life, we'd all like to get more out of less. In business and especially in today's economy it's critical to maximize resources. Time is precious!
With Compendium, nearly everything is automatic. You create human blog content, then our blog software takes your content and automatically organizes it across specific keywords that you want to be found on. No manual tagging required!
I love this video if you haven't seen it. Thanks to Janet Croswell for sharing.
A lot of traditional web marketers push back on Corporate Blogging as a search and marketing strategy, I think because it's too simple, obvious and effective. Just talk about what the customers wants you to talk about...which is what they are articulating in their keyword selection. Empower your employees to blog and talk about what they do to help customers every day. Leverage affordable blogging software and simply blog for rankings. It's clean, pure, honest and really really easy. Widespread corporate blogging is one of the best SEO techniqess available.
Ok how are blogs and dictators (or a dictatorship) related in any capacity?
A dictator is defined as a ruler who is unconstrained by law (thank you wikipedia). Some people may feel that google is a dictator when it comes to search results - google provides results of only what it wants, there is no way for change it!
In some ways, this is correct. Google does have guidelines by which they rank what results appear in what order. The misconception is that there is nothing to do about it. Sure, you can not cheat google -- they will find out you are cheating them and get you! You can however provide google with exactly that they want to rank your information relevent.
Compendium Blogware provides you with an affordable blogging software that will give google exactly what it is looking for. Our easy to use blog software will provide your organization with results, all tied back to ROI.
There is blogging and then there is Better Blogging - from Compendium!
My colleagues Brian Millis and BJ McKay recently returned from a great conference in Chicago, Blogwell. This conference hosted quite a few well known enterprise level companies and disucssed all things blog and social media related. Brian and BJ observed that these companies are realizing they need a strategic social media presence. Their customers are using facebook, twitter, etc... to communicate about them both positively and negatively. These companies need a professional blogging tool, a tool like Compendiums easy blog software perhaps, to particpate in these conversations and monitor what is being said online about their products and services. I found an interesting article from online marketing source Practical Ecommerce, that shared some interesting points about this very topic title Social Media: Listening Is The New Marketing.
If you are tired of looking around and not finding an easy interface to start a company blog… you need not look any further. Looking for an easy blogging software, just check out Compendium Blogware. Compendium offers not only an easy-to-use software for everyone from the technologically challenged to the technologically savvy. The one thing that helps your blog posts become more effective with Compendium’s software is the Keyword Strength meter. You can watch the meter turn from red to green as you see how effective your post will be (the greener… the better).
Along with the actual interface, Compendium also offers further expertise and suggestions with its in house Client Success Team. The Client Success Team analyzes Google Analytics and offers information and feedback to our clients, long after they have purchased our software.
So if any of this sounds intriguing, go and check out Compendium's website, talk to someone today, and Get Blogging!!
The heat map below from a notable Marketing Sherpa study evaluates where clicks happen on any given Google results page. It is easy to see how valuable it is for a business to be listed in the organic results and particularly in the top few listings of the organic search results. If you are not one of the first listings you may as well be on page 25 because no one can find you. Businesses that identify the opportunity to blog for SEO dramatically increase traffic to their blog pages and to their web sites. Compendium's easy blog software enables businesses who want to blog for SEO and lead generation to do so in an easy to use way with an actual measurable ROI. In tough times marketers must find ways to do everything more effectively with a keen focus on ROI to their business. For more information on this check out Compendium Blogware.
I have spent some time in conversations over the past few days with Sylvia Muller who, along with her husband Gary, owns the Mill House Inn. The Mill House Inn is a fantastic, romantic, beautiful bed and breakfast in East Hampton, New York. They have a great web site and are looking at using Compendium's easy blogging software as an additional tool to enhance their organic search power and increase business at the inn.
As you can imagine Sylvia is quite a busy lady running a bed and breakfast and it seems to be a great opportunity for her to maximize her time spent blogging by using Compendium's keyword SEO blogging system. I share this not only because I am hopeful about working with Sylvia and Gary but also because I truly am falling in love with this beautiful place, if you like bed and breakfasts and are looking for a romantic getaway on the east coast I highly reccomend you check it out. I hope to make a visit there in the future too.
For those marketers involved in search marketing, we know that search is the one bright spot in the marketing landscape. As you can see from the eMarketer forecast, search will continue to accelerate against other online advertising…and of course we all know that traditional non-online advertising is in a long and protracted decline.
Why is search winning? Because it is the only mass marketing tool in history where you are responding to a prospects intent. No longer do we have to analyze data and hope that certain segments might be interested in our offer.
With Search, our prospects simply tell us when they have a need or problem they could use our help with. Condo, Austin? Variable Printing Services? Chrome 4 slice toaster?New Tires, Buffalo? All of these and millions more indicate the needs and desires of the searcher. Do you sell tires in Buffalo?
80% of all web interactions begin with searches.
So why, in a recent Microsoft adCenter survey, did 73% of the small business owners say they would rather DO THEIR TAXES than start a paid search marketing campaign.
It’s not a lack of desire or a lack of intelligence, what most web folks fail to recognize about small business marketing is that they are constrained by both time and money. This is what makes and internet business blog such a compelling option.
With a business blogging solution designed for business, they get two things. The first is a managed solution. One of the beauties of SaaS is help. Unlike “free” blogging tools where you are completely on your own, hosted business blogging tools have actual people that work to make their clients successful.
At the end of the day, all the business needs to do is tell stories…as Sienfield’s Kramer says…talk about your day. The more they talk, the more search traffic they drive. Easy to use blogging software makes search marketing a LOT easier than doing taxes…. Blog for SEO...and win.
People often wonder why blogs are so easily searched. The answer is clear and simple, Google likes the frequency and relevancy of blog content. What most people get hung up on is the act of blogging itself.
Most days I use our easy to use blogging software to communicate what Compendium Blogware does to the world wide web. Most days the content I write is extremely relevant content that gives readers insight as to what blogging is all about. However, there are times where writing a blog that is lacking some perspective is necessary. To stay consistent with content will get your blog and keywords ranked higher in Google. Therefore, today I am going to add some fun blog jokes I found on the web. A big thanks goes out to CatchThePosts.com for entertaining us with these jokes.
DISCLAIMER: I do not support Tucker Max or his views. However, I was surfing around on social media and blogging entries on YouTube and this clip popped up. Check out this short Fox News coverage about Tucker Max at this link. They have not allowed for embedding it for some reason, so you'll just have to click the link:
I think his story, however distasteful it may be, is a testament to the power of social media marketing strategies and blogging. Basically, Tucker Max was a jokester who started a blog-like website to tell his tales that his friends thought were so funny. His site became very popular and Tucker Max is now a best selling author.
What does this have to do with business blogging? Well, if you start a business blog that helps you build a fan base for your company, brand, product, or service, marketing becomes much easier. It's like having an army of marketing or sales people who sell your company on a daily basis simply because the like it. Compendium Blogware is an easy blog software that allows a business to open the blogging up to a wide range of content contributors within an organization. This conversation and increased visibility on search engines and within social media help turn prospects into full blown fans.
Chantelle, (Successful Blogging), and I followed up with an in-depth webinar with our clients on how to "Spice up your Blogs" this week and images were a key part of the presentation.
Images can be used a number of ways with your corporate blogging strategy, including:
To distinguish the blog or post (helps a lot with RSS).
To explain data through a chart.
To provide a call to action for folks to click-through to another site.
To provide photos of the people from your business.
To provide a photo that's representative of the content. This
is very important, since studies have been done where cognitive
recognition is actually done through images, and very rarely through
remembering text.
I try hard to incorporate some kind of photos or images into every single one of my posts. If you're using easy blog software such as compendium, designing a blog post and including an image is quite simple.
If you don't have any advanced photo manipulation experience and are locked up behind an IT force that won't install any image desktop applications, there are a few great online tools out there:
Aviary - a powerful photo imaging and design application. There is a free and a professional version.
Picnik - a simple online photo editing tool with all the basics plus some cool enhancements.
Pixenate - a basic image manipulation tool, great for blogging.
If you have never blogged before Compendium is easy blog software to use.
Chandra, a new employee here at Compendium, discusses the steps she went through to set up her blog account and create her first post. It's important to note that Chandra has never had her own blog before.
Please share your thoughts on creating your first post or setting up your account with Compendium. We would love to hear how Compendium's multi user blog software makes it easier for you and helps you meet the goals of your corporate blogging program.
Recently, I've noticed an increase in home builders and real estate companies reaching out to Compendium for an easy blog software to help combat these difficult economic times. It's no secret that the housing market is a major catalyst in the downturn of the economy. Because few people are buying new homes, and the ones who are now do far greater research before buying, real estate companies are rethinking how they put themselves in front of their market. $500,000 newspaper advertisements that are ignored throughout the year will not sustain many of these companies.
That is why search marketing and blogging for SEO is a much better avenue for these companies to commit their limited resources; both time and money. A multi user blog software allows agents, corporate marketing offices, and other real estate employees to help with content creation, which will drive the online visibility. By putting the properties and messages in front of this immense online traffic, real estate companies can stop suffering and be ready when the buyer seeks them out.
Plus, Compendium's blogging platform is so simple to use, anyone can join in the effort. Our client success team will help track the ROI so that the company has more control in these unstable times. It's time for these companies to re-think marketing strategies if they want to weather the storm.
You know what, if real estate companies start a business blog with Compendium, they not only weather . . . . they prosper.
Each time I've sat down this week to watch one of my weekly TV shows .... they are all re-runs and that drives me crazy!!! I hate having to wait for the next episode just to see what happens!!
Sorry I just had to rant a little bit ... my Monday's and Thursday's I look forward to just sitting in front of the TV and doing nothings - but this week I had to find more productive things to do ... like blog!
When it comes to business blogging there is no such thing as a re-run!! There are always new ways reuse previous posts, because there are always new ways to write it - and sometimes when you write something different you have the chance to reach a new audience.
So if your ever stuck or have writers blog go back through your posts and take a different angle, a different approach!!
Really all you have to do is write and Compendium's "easy blog software" does all the hard work for you!!
In hopes of sharing successful business blogging tips in my blog, and not being an expert by any means on business blogging... I find it particularly helpful to reference various resources I come across.
My Marketing Profs email today titled "The Big Bad Blog Clock" touted the importance of having a strategy for blogging, developing a dedicated team of bloggers, and having a system so that your posts to hit your blog at the most effective time. Compendium's philosophy and mine do mimic these overall strategies, and I would encourage you to be even a bit more "loose" with your company blogging efforts by freeing more than just a few people within the company to blog. Yes you will probably have a core team that enjoys it and is good at it but why not open it up and encourage all of your employees from the top on down to share information? This strategy, in my opinion, will ensure you have a variety of information and stories around all the reasons your company is great, not just the opinion of a few and that you will have multiple posts per week. With an admin layer in place, such as the tool on our easy blog software, you can ensure all info, no matter who is writing, is solid and correct for your business before it is live on the web. This tool along with bringing in multiple bloggers will help your business blog acheive the overall goal of engaging searchers and customers on a person to person level.
We're fans of pay per click. The immediacy and accuracy of pay per click advertising has made it an enormous success. It's an investment that can be carefully monitored and controlled. These capabilities are what drove us to develop our software.
Until Compendium Blogware, this has always been a challenge for the execution of a corporate blogging strategy, whose benefits have always been measured in intangible terms such as engagement, authority, etc. Pay per click provides us with a distinct value on acquiring visits through keyword driven organic search strategies.
For every 1 click on a paid search result, the organic results generate 8.5 clicks (this is on a keyword parity basis, not counting those search results that have no paid ads)
Based on action/conversion tracking, paid search clicks convert, on average, at 1.5X the rate of organic clicks (no surprise, since that ad text and landing page is custom optimized by the advertiser)
Utilizing easy blog software like ours provides you with the benefits that pay per click provide, but with the enormous benefits of organic search placement. The corporate blogging strategies that we implement for our customers provide that every post is an optimized landing page. As a result, our clients obtain the benefit of increased clicks with the additional benefit of an optimized landing page where the calls-to-action drive conversions!
If you're going to execute a pay per click strategy, and you aren't going to execute a corporate blogging strategy, you're not taking advantage of one of the greatest acquisition tools in history!
Jason, one of our marketing interns, came by my desk today and told me that I could have a candy cane if I wrote a blog post....so, before digging into my holiday treat I though I should uphold my part of the deal.
You may be thinking about employing some type of corporate blogging strategy yourself right now but are struggling with the idea of "how do I get my employees to blog" .....my answer is.....give them candy.
We all like to be rewarded, and all it took for me to write this post today is a little candy cane. The reason I could equate a candy cane as being a proper reward for my efforts here was because I know how easy it is to write a post. I am not talking about the latest advancement in blogging for SEO, or the way that blogs can drive serious ROI for your business. I am talking about writing a post using an easy to use blog software for candy. Pretty simple. This post has taken me 10 minutes and I am now off to enjoy my treat. Happy Holidays!
Oh yeah, for those of you that are still worried about motivating people to blog you may want to consider chocolate as well........who doesn't love chocolate!!!
I'm doing my duty as a company blogger today mainly because I was bribed to do so. What did they bribe me with you ask? A pair of candy canes with a pretty ribbon tied around them. You can start a business blog that will drastically increase your online real estate, drive traffic and leads for your business, by simply motivating everyone to get involved. Our marketing department is a terrific example of motivating all of us to blog to help our search engine rankings. They are constantly doing contests, prizes, etc. Opt to take advantage of an easy blog software like Compendium to your 2009 budget. It will empower employees to get involved and be a very affordable SEO solution for your business. Happy blogging!
etc... to communicate about them both positively and negatively. These companies need a professional blogging tool, a tool like Compendiums easy blog software perhaps, to particpate in these conversations and monitor what is being said online about their products and services. I found an interesting article from online marketing source 
What does this have to do with business blogging? Well, if you start a business blog that helps you build a fan base for your company, brand, product, or service, marketing becomes much easier. It's like having an army of marketing or sales people who sell your company on a daily basis simply because the like it. Compendium Blogware is an easy blog software that allows a business to open the blogging up to a wide range of content contributors within an organization. This conversation and increased visibility on search engines and within social media help turn prospects into full blown fans. 
We're fans of pay per click. The immediacy and accuracy of pay per click advertising has made it an enormous success. It's an investment that can be carefully monitored and controlled. These capabilities are what drove us to develop our software.
Jason, one of our marketing interns, came by my desk today and told me that I could have a candy cane if I wrote a blog post....so, before digging into my holiday treat I though I should uphold my part of the deal. 
I'm doing my duty as a company blogger today mainly because I was bribed to do so. What did they bribe me with you ask? A pair of candy canes with a pretty ribbon tied around them. You can start a business blog that will drastically increase your online real estate, drive traffic and leads for your business, by simply motivating everyone to get involved. Our marketing department is a terrific example of motivating all of us to blog to help our search engine rankings. They are constantly doing contests, prizes, etc. Opt to take advantage of an easy blog software like Compendium to your 2009 budget. It will empower employees to get involved and be a very affordable SEO solution for your business. Happy blogging!
