Improve Blogs SEO

Take the Easy Route: Blog for Business

Thursday, July 2, 2009 by Allison Bowen

It's amazing how much the marketplace has changed in just a few short years. Take for example, a September 19, 2005, Wall Street Journal article describing the crazy adventures of two men attempting to get their new product to market.

"The pair had finally scored a coveted 8 a.m. appointment with a Wal-Mart buyer -- giving them a chance to get their ergonomic pen, the PenAgain, in from of the world's largest retailer. But with only 10 minutes so spare, that chance was slipping away as the entreprenuers sat, panicked, still a mile and a half away."

I wonder what that pair would do now if I told them it's not nearly that hard to get a new product to market. They can simply blog for business! That's right, a blog can help you in many ways.

Say for instance, PenAgain knew that much of their target market spends many hours a day online. If someone were to search for an inventive writing product, he or she may Google "creative writing pen". What if the first organic search result that appeared was for a PenAgain blog? Clearly many sales would develop from those that click through to the blog and saw all that the company had to offer.

This is where Compendium Blogware comes in. Compendium provides the best blogging software that will get companies search engine optimization results. It's not just about blogging in order to relate to your customers anymore. While that is certainly still a great reason to blog, there is more that can be accomplished. Using basic blog software from Compendium, any company can increase their SEO and thus drive more potential clients to their website.

Had PenAgain been launching their product today, I would have suggested they done so online first rather than take it directly to Wal-Mart with no evidenece that the product would sell. Why go through all the trouble when there is an easy route to success? As a start-up company, PenAgain would not be able to afford pricey PPC. Instead, it could choose an affordable blogging software and be well on its way.

Blogging for business is simple. It doesn't involve a lot of money or a scramble to Wal-Mart's headquarters. Instead, it involves a committment to writing blogs and a call to Compendium today. Why not save yourself some trouble and give it a try?

Blogging with the search engine

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 by Brian Millis

In many of my conversations with marketers from all different kinds of companies, I often hear the misnomer that there are two separate ways to blog for your business; blogging for good content and blogging for search engines.

Why do these have to seem like two different categories? In my opinion they are one in the same. When a business employs strong blog marketing, the content is good because it addresses what the target audience is searching. Those people are searching it because it matters to them. Therefore, good content revolves around the important search terms for that business. Using authentic, helpful content is only great when people find it. So I say good content includes blogging WITH the search engine (and searcher) in mind.

This applies to all business, B2C, B2B, B2D2C, etc. Search engines do not discriminate. They simply want to provide the most relevant, frequently and recently updated web pages to the searcher. One of our clients, Brian LeCount, said it best in a recent blog post of his own. Here are the brilliant 10 points that he wrote:

   1. I blog about the things I think and do.
   2. I try to blog a lot.
   3. I use the search marketing keywords that I know people search on.
   4. I use a platform that automatically positions my content for maximum search
       engine love.
   5. I get ranked in Google for terms like Cincinnati Marketing (#3 in local results)
       Cincinnati Marketing Firm (#1), Cincinnati Advertising Agency (#10), Social Media
       Marketing Cincinnati (#10), and about 45 others.
   6. People search using these search marketing keywords b/c that's what the
       research tells me.
   7. They find my blog.
   8. They read and click on a call to action.
   9. They get some value, and we have a great marketing strategy conversation.
10. Some of those people choose to engage us and help them build their business.

Hi #4 point is what we provide here at Compendium Blogware. I enjoy talking with any interested business who wants to have a strategy behind the company blog and yield the best SEO results possible from the good content. Feel free to reach out to me if you would like to see how our corporate blogging software could make it easy for your online marketing as well.

$65 Billion to be spent on Corporate web sites....not on traditional media

Wednesday, July 1, 2009 by Chris Baggott

Here is a quote that should grab your attention:

"In 2009: $65 billion will be spent on enterprises’ own sites, dollars NOT spent on TV, magazines, newspapers, billboards, etc. To scale that, compare 2009 total U.S. TV ad revenue (cable + broadcast) at $66 billion, and total 2009 U.S. Newspaper ad revenue at $42 billion. So corporations spending marketing dollars on their own sites is equivalent to (a) wiping out all TV ad revenue or (b) wiping out one and one-half newspaper industries!"

Hello! Thanks to Outsell for this great new report, but what does it mean to advertising? Why is this happening?

Simple answer is that Advertising relies on middlemen to deliver a corporate message. With Online Marketing (Search Marketing), business can now leverage their own site, Corporate Blogging software and email marketing to control and develop a direct relationship with their prospects and customers.

Emarketer already told us that the three biggest growth areas in marketing are Search, Email and Social Media (Business Blogging covers both SEO and Social Media). What is transforming the marketing world it the capacity for organizations to have direct relationships with the people who drive their business. Marketing departments from organizations large and small are rethinking their investments and strategies and going direct...to the detrement of the old model that required a middleman to deliver your message.

Links: Why they matter to your blog program

Tuesday, June 30, 2009 by Jess Wehner

As a Client Success Manager, one of my main goals is to ensure that the clients that are putting effort towards their business blog program are getting search marketing results (and those that aren't putting effort in - start to!). Every once in a while our team will come across a client that has been writing frequent, relevant content but is not seeing the search engine results they would expect. While there are many areas we trouble shoot and look through in order to understand what's happening, one area that always seems to stand out is having links.

No matter how much great content your business blog might have, if you don't have any links pointing back to your site, it's hard for Google to recognize your site as an authority and consequently rank it. Links can happen naturally, for example, as you write better and better people will begin to link to you naturally. But in order maximize your search marketing efforts you can build links too. Here are a couple easy ways to get links out to your blog.

Put a link to your blog...
1. On your website
2. On your social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn)
3. On your partner's websites

Additionally, SEOBook has a list of 101 ways to build links - starting with having good content that people naturally want to link.

Increase!

Thursday, June 25, 2009 by Mitch Burk

Increase -> Increase

Seems like a fairly simple formula? Inceasing your number of blogs will lead to an increase in... well... rankings on search engines, customers, profit, visitors to your blog... enough results for you?

I really liked a blog posted by Compendium CEO/Co-Founder Chris Baggott a few weeks ago. He says that when you are blogging, you should use a "message in a bottle strategy." What this means is, the more bottles you toss into the sea, the more likely someone is to find one of those bottles.

I think of it as a needle in a haystack... Obviously, the more needles you put into the haystack, the greater the chance of finding one of those needles. In this same way, if you want to see results from your blog marketing strategies, it is important to fill you blog with posts and increase your SEO and customer base.

Trusted Content Developer: Say It For You

Wednesday, June 24, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

Trusted Content Developer: Say It For You
Website: www.sayitforyou.net
Blog: blog.sayitforyou.net

Who is Say It For You in their own words:
Say It For You is a premium ghost-blogging and blog marketing service that provides enhanced potential for improved standing in search engine results but also highest-quality marketing content for a wide variety of uses. Our blog posts are more than just a collection of keywords; they are strong, thoughtful messages about your business by writers with extensive business experience.

When you use Say It For You, you receive the following benefits in addition to impeccably written posts:

A single writer dedicated to understanding your business and keeping abreast of topics in your industry. Say It For You works with only one client in each field of business, so that all research and promotional efforts are devoted towards benefiting you and your business.
A writer ready to interface with your SEO consultant, web designer, marketing team, or anyone involved in making your business a success.
Personal contact with your writer, including regular in-person meetings. Your writer is always available to discuss blog content and strategy.

The ideas and input of a writers with strong background in business. Our writers include experts in finance, marketing, operations, event planning, marketing and more.

Our relationship-based approach to blogging distinguishes us from the competition.

Choose a writer invested in your success. Choose Say It For You!

Who is Say It For You currently working with on Compendium’s platform?
Say It For You currently works with several of Compendium’s clients however because it is a ghost-blogging service it does not disclose clients. Portfolio examples can be provided when requested. For writing samples check out the Say It For You blog.

When Say It For You brings a new client on what process do you use/work though to get to know and create content for the client?
Say It For You meets personally with the client to talk about content for the blog and how the "tone" should be set. (Should it be cute, serious, informative, technical, etc.. Who is the target reader? Are there distributors or business partners that can offer insights or be interviewed, etc.. I try to help the client focus on ONE main aspect of his/her business to promote in the blog.)

If possible, Say It For You also likes to meet with the client’s web designer or SEO adviser, if there is one, so that I link the blog posts to the correct landing page, etc. Taking this extra step really ensures that the content is maximizing the resources available to the client and makes it easier for the client to prove blogging ROI.

Are Press Releases Relevant?

Tuesday, June 23, 2009 by Chris Baggott

If you are not investing time monitoring your business and industry in the social networks, you are missing a great opportunity to not only generate leads, but also to get in front of what others might be saying as it relates to your livelihood.

For example, this came up from one of my LinkedIn groups today:

"We are looking for a source to distribute press releases. Do you have one or two to recommend? Thanks for your consideration."

I replied:

Just to be a contrary.....why?

If it's for SEO, you are better off with leveraging blog marketing that feeds content out to social networks (twitter, facebook, linkedin) Press Release distribution was popular a couple of years ago as a way to goose SEO through backlinks and people finding the releases through their own searches and hopefully navigating back to the home site.

This is not nearly as effective as it once was and can't compete with the benefits of managing your own content through your businesses blogs.

For one thing you will drive a lot more search marketing traffic and secondly, you will get a lot higher engagement. We, as well as journalists, are pretty trained to tune out traditional looking press releases in favor of simple authentic stories about your business, products or services and most importantly customer use cases.

My point to everyone is that Press Releases are just another form of Online Marketing. The problem is that it's expensive and becoming less effective. Business that manage their own blogs, focus on search and produce content a lot more frequently will get significantly better results.

What is the best online marketing tool available?

Monday, June 22, 2009 by Brett Fritz

If you ask a marketing company what they think is the best online marketing tool available is you will probably get varied results. Most might just keep their answers generic and talk about the differences between paid search and organic search or SEO. Some companies might even go out and push a certain software they use or a company they have a relationship with.

When asking Compendium Blogware what they best online marketing tool is you will get a simple answer....look at our clients and you tell us what you think is the best way to market via online search.

Our clients are being found in thousands of related keyword search terms. Our clients are growing their business. Our clients are seeing more and more relevant leads come in their door month over month because of the content that they are writing on the Compendium corporate blogging software.

So, you could ask us what we think but of coarse you will get a biased answer. Better yet, why don't you ask our clients. The overwhelming answer you will get is the best online marketing tool is utilizing a blog for business.

Give us a call today!

Archimedes, Sir Isaac Newton, Einstein, and Organic Search

Monday, June 22, 2009 by Brian McKay

A recent article by Robert Lee Hotz in the Wall Street Journal uncovered research about the breakthrough moments occurring during daydreaming. Archimedes discovered how to calculate density and volume while taking a bath, Sir Isaac Newton was walking in an orchard when he was hit with his law of universal gravitation, and Einstein was imaging trains and lightening when the special theory of relativity was born.

Apply these findings to a typical consumer when they are searching for something online. This is the crux of search marketing and blog marketing. Writing content in nearly the exact way a consumer/prospect will search for it.

“Solving a problem with insight is fundamentally different from solving a problem analytically.” -- Dr. John Kounios of Drexel University. What does this tell us about what is going on when a consumer decides to take that problem solving online using a search engine? Actually, a lot!

Most internet marketing minds lean toward analytical or technical skill sets. Understanding the nuances of coding and working tirelessly to think and act in a way that is most favorable to Google and major search engines. The problem with this is, the people who are actually searching are operating on an entirely different plain.

The consumer has a need, want, or problem. They type their problem in the shortest manner possible that can accurately describe that want. Then they hit “Go.” Here is where the world of Google (who is working tirelessly to think like the searcher) and the world of web developers, SEO’s, and Internet marketers (who work tirelessly to think like Google) collide.

Who ultimately win’s in this tug of war is not as important as who often times loses… You and me. When I search for something in the best way I can describe it, why do the results usually fall short of what I wanted. How many times am I forced to search multiple variations of my problem to get a workable web site?

The moral of the story is take a minute to daydream before SEOing or writing content for your site. Write what your gut tells you’re your prospects are going to actually type into the search engine. More amazing developments in the history of the world have come by that manner, than by opting for the analytical.

Trust your gut.

Steps to writing better Blog Content - STEP 5 - Be Creative

Friday, June 19, 2009 by Brett Fritz

The last step, STEP 5 - Be Creative. After today, I will have written about five steps that will help you and your organization write better content on your blog for business.

Today's step is easy....simply put... be creative with your content. If you go back and read through my blog posts you will see that I have written about so many different topics and themes. Some of which may have not made any sense at the time (sorry about that!). The point is to be creative with your content.

Always try to relate back your creative side on the content post with your blogging goals. Remember that using your blog as a tool for SEO means that you want to be found via search through the keywords that are found in your blog content. So, as creative as you want to get, always try to relate it back to your keywords you want to win on search. Make the post relevant to your business but make it interesting so your audience does not fall asleep when reading the content.

Having a blog for business is a a great tool and being creative with your content will help you attract and retain an audience that wants to read (or hear or see) what you have to say.

Do us, your audience, a favor and Be Creative on your blog for business!

Steps to writing better Blog Content - STEP 4 - Plan Ahead

Thursday, June 18, 2009 by Brett Fritz

The past few days I have written about steps to help you write better blog content. Today is STEP 4 - Plan Ahead.

Ahh...the old riddle, is it better to plan ahead or procrastinate and do it all at the last minute. To be honest, there are a lot of things that I do very well when I am on a time crunch because I procrastinated and waited until the last minute to get the task done. I know I am not alone, there are a lot people like that.

I do, however, like to plan ahead with my tasks. For instance, although this post went live on my blog on June 18th, around 9am eastern time, I am writing this blog content on Monday, June 15th. I am in between meetings and I am caught up on paperwork and emails so I thought I would plan ahead and write a few blog posts to have them go live on the internet in a few days. This will help me during the week when those times come up that I know I should be writing a blog post to help my search efforts (because we at Compendium use blogging as a tool for SEO) but I am too swamped with my other work. Instead of not having new content on my blog, I am able to plan ahead and schedule my content to release out during the week.

So what if your corporate blogging software does not have this great feature like Compendium's does... don't worry... simply write down your content post in a program like Microsoft Word, save it, and then submit it to go live on your blog when you are ready to do so.

I like to write blog content when I am up at the crack of dawn before my kids or late at night after they have gone to sleep!

Planning ahead is a great way to get great blog content out on your network and it is STEP 4 on my steps to writing better blog content.

Hotel blogging getting better

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 by Brian Millis

I just came back from a meeting with the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Indianapolis. I recently helped them begin a company blog strategy and they are doing a great job so far. But after some great pulled pork tacos and good discussion on blogging best practices, I think we found ways to make a good blog even better. What were my tips for Mike and Lindsay who head up there hotel SEO strategy?

Use pictures
Be Human and talk about personal experiences that relate
Link words and pictures to deeper parts of the site
Start a YouTube channel and imbed video tours
Use Feedburner to populate Facebook and LinkedIn
Talk about the hotel in the news (best fries in town! hello!)
Don't obsess on the keyphrases, but use them at any natural time
HAVE FUN WITH IT!

I hope that I was able to give some good, simple tips to keep Mike and Lindsay blogging for search. When they start having fun with and making the company blog part of the routine, the strong results will follow. I'll look forward to the next time I can share a demo with some of the other hotel GM's that could also see success with our tool.

Content and Platform are Google's Recommendations

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by Douglas Karr

Pagerank Sculpting is the practice of trying to change how PageRank flows within your site using e.g. nofollow tags. Someone asked Matt Cutts (from Google) about Pagerank Sculpting and his response was:

I wouldn’t recommend it, because it isn’t the most effective way to utilize your PageRank. In general, I would let PageRank flow freely within your site. The notion of “PageRank sculpting” has always been a second- or third-order recommendation for us. I would recommend the first-order things to pay attention to are

1) making great content that will attract links in the first place, and
2) choosing a site architecture that makes your site usable/crawlable for humans and search engines alike.

Make great content. Choose a great architecture!

Matt also recently came out with a presentation where he noted that the blogging platform (free) that's most common in the industry is about 80% optimized. 20% is quite a huge gap in potential when it comes to Search Engine Optimization. If your blog is 80% optimized and there are 100,000 results... that puts you on about page 2,000... right? How much traffic is that going to get you from a search engine?

The Beauty of User Generated Content

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by Jenni Edwards

I know User Generated Content isn't a new thing...but I do think that it has somewhat become a buzz word where few understand the real value of these 'gold nuggets'. So why is UGC so good?

Increase content for your blogging strategy by soliciting feedback.
Increase your SEO through the aforementioned blogging strategy and win search.
Allow for a real, human voice outside of the company to tell their story; get your brand advocates in front of the world.
It's FREE.
The super long tail --- a user (customer) may describe their situation in a very unique way that internally you would never think of saying. This provides phrases that could very well match someone else's way of describing the problem when they Google.
Discovery of new keyphrases --- as you get UGC you can see how your current customers talk about your product or services which can give you some great new ideas for keyphrases to begin to target.

We here at Compendium have actually been playing with some UGC on our website where a couple of clients such as Carhartt have been utilizing it on their blog. Both have increased conversions thusfar.

Steps to writing better Blog Content - STEP 1 - Make Time for Blogging!

Monday, June 15, 2009 by Brett Fritz

Over the next few days, I am going to be posting some great steps to help you post better content on your blog for business. These steps are meant to be encouraging, inspiring, and motivating for you and your organization!

I will be posting one step each day and I encourage you to take each step to heart and implement it into your current blogging for SEO strategy.

So here we go...

STEP 1: Make Time for Blogging!

I have written about this before but it is a very important step so I wanted to write about it again. Be sure that you put time in your schedule to write blog content as often as possible. I encourage people to put a slot on their calendar and call it "blog content creation time". Having this time set aside everyday will help you formulate your ideas and ultimately get you to write more content online.

Having a lot of content online will help your search marketing strategies. This is even more true when you use a corporate blogging software (like Compendium Blogware) as your business blogging software provider!

Sure, at first, it might take you a few extra minutes to get used to writing content on your blog so your "blogging time" might be a bit longer than you want but, before you know it, you will be a pro blog writer!

So, recap of STEP 1 - be sure to schedule time to write blog content. Maybe this is once a week or once everyday...whatever it is, be sure to stick to your schedule and write that content for your blog for business!

Google Reveals how C-Suite Executives Use the Internet

Friday, June 12, 2009 by Brian McKay

BtoB Magazine just released a study by Sam Sebastian, Director-local and b to b markets at Google, that reveals that C level executives are leveraging search and social media far more than most think. This has been great news to btob companies leveraging blogs to win search.

This is the quote that hit me the most:

“They’re not delegating,” he said. “They prefer to do a lot of this stuff on their own.” Among the findings from the research, which will be formally released in the coming weeks include: 64% of C-level execs conduct six or more searches per day to locate business information. (Read entire article)

64% of C-level execs conduct six or more searches per day to locate business information! There is a case for leveraging online tools to drive C-level leads inbound to your company. This is what we've been discussing when it comes to meeting qualified prospects at the moment they are searching to solve a problem or accomplish a goal.

For those that blog for SEO and leverage a blog to generate meaningful humanized content to earn search traffic, this becomes additional support for the time and effort you've invested in organic search marketing.

If you are a marketer looking to reach a C-level prospect, you can use corporate blogging software to accomplish that goal.

SEO considered best method for generating conversions online

Friday, June 12, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

According to a recent survey 2009 Ad Effectiveness Survey done by Forbes marketers of all sizes should start with search.

Respondents for the survey were mostly from the Unite States and fell into two categories:

Marketers with over $1million budget
Smaller marketers with less than $1million budgets

Across all marketers 48% said that search was the best method for lead generation online and 53% of marketers with budgets over $1 million agreed.

Are you spending your budget in the right places based on what works?

Consider corporate blogging as a SEO technique that can and should be used for lead generation.

Already blogging?

Think about adding more keyword terms to your blog. As markets grow searchers begin to narrow their focus and expand their search terms. And so should you by expand your keyword lists to help you be found.

For more information about targeting and adding the right keywords to your corporate blog contact our client success team.

Using a Blog for Business with e-Commerce

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 by Brett Fritz

e-Commerce is increasing in size and demand every day. It seems like more and more individuals and corporations are shifting into a model that revolves around the majority of revenue being generated comes from their e-Commerce site.

This is great, if you are able to get your e-Commerce site found through all the clutter of other sites. With all the growth of e-Commerce, it is becoming more and more competitive to show up in search for the keywords you want to be found on. Sure, many of the larger e-Commerce sites have plenty of money to spend so they are able to utilized all of the SEO and SEM best practices but it all comes with a hefty price tag.

One of the best things about blogging as a tool for SEO (being found in search), is that you can utilize a corporate blogging software that is going to provide you with great results and it is not going to cost you an arm and a leg to do so! You will now be able to utilized all of the blogging best practices and before you know it you will be found in more places on search than you could with just website SEO strategy.

Setting up a blog for business is great for e-Commerce sites. If you don't ask me, just ask a few of our clients like: Fairytale Brownies or GK Elite.

These clients are very e-Commerce heavy and they will tell you that having a blog for business has been a great investment of their time, energy, and money!

Keyword Usage

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

Here are the facts:

1) Google wants to return the most relevant result back to a searcher
2) Having a page that contains that exact phrase match with content that is that exact phrase match is going to rank higher than other that don't
3) A site that has the exact phrase match and was updated recently, and on a frequent basis is going to show higher in the organic results

This is why blogging as a tool for SEO (search engine optimization) is such a great idea! You can target specific phrases that your potential clients are searching on and be able to get in front of hundreds/thousands of individuals a month and show them how you can solve their problem!

One of the best tips we can give our clients is to always write at least one exact keyword phrase that you are targeting in EVERY blog post. That way the web crawler can see that you are the best result to show the searcher because your corporate blog is the one with the best phrase match, relevant content, that has been updated recently on a frequent basis.

Keywords = Yellow for Admins

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 by Compendium Client Marketing

As an Admin your focus should be on keyword usage. Why keywords? The more relevant content you write, the more search results you'll be found in... which will lead to more business generated by your blog.

Search engines match a user's query to recent content that has been written. The more exact the keyword or phrase, the far better chance that your content will be identified as a relevant result!

The easiest way to know if your bloggers are writing relevant content is to look for the yellow highlights when you are approving their posts. If there are only a few yellow highlights like the example to the left, then it is time for a keyword intervention.

Give your blogger tips on how they can improve the content in their blog post to include more keywords.

Blogging Exercise:
Need tips on how to improve keyword usage? Let us help improve your blogging for search engine results by watching: The Key To Keywords.

Remember if you have any questions about your keyword strategy please contact our client success team and we will be more than happy to coach you through it.