Starting a Business Blog

E-tailers Investment Plans in 2010

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by jennifer buscher

Just read an interesting article in EMarketer on how advanced e-commerce businesses plan to invest their dollars moving into 2010. The top three additions include:

1. Social Marketing
2. Video
3. Blogs

Nearly 40% of all respondents plan to include these applications. What does this mean? I think this means a number of things... First, social marketing and blogs are not a fade. Adoption is becoming mainstream. Customers want to human buying experience.

So, what to do? It's really simple... start a business blog on an advanced business blogging platform. This should be your cornerstone for content creation. Use video in your content, and then push that content out to your social networks. You can kill three birds with one stone so to speak.

“The last time many retailers installed a new e-commerce platform was five years ago, and those systems aren’t robust enough to support all of the new technology that’s changing the very nature of how consumers are shopping online,” David Fry, founder of Fry Inc., told Internet Retailer. “Smart retailers know they need to implement better technology now or they’ll miss out on the recovery and a big opportunity.”

Moral of the story.... get onboard or you'll miss out!

The Content of Your Blog

Friday, August 28, 2009 by Stephanie West

Many of my friends are interested in that fact that I blog - but they don't quite understand what I blog about.

Ironically, I blog about blogging: blogging for business, blogging at Compendium, blog software, etc.

While all of these are different topics, they all have the same structure of their content. The content of your blog is crucial.

Here are some points to consider within the content of your blog:

The customer only cares about search - so talk about what they searched for!
Don't stuff your blog with unnecessary information.
Put links to other resources or your company website in your blog.
Focus on blog volume. More blogs = More blog traffic.
Lifetime of the blog program: more content within your blog = an increased number of search visits to your blog per month.

For more useful information like this - fill out Compendium's ROI Toolkit to get more information on how to start a business blog.

Yours

Wednesday, July 29, 2009 by Mitch Burk

Your blog is... yours.

Let me repeat myself: YOUR blog is YOURS.

When writing about your product or service, remember... YOU are the expert. YOU are the most qualified person to discuss it. People looking for information about a product or service don't want a review from a third party writer... They want the expert!

When looking on a way to make your online marketing effective, remember to motivate your employees to write... They are going to be the ones who people want to learn from, and they know the most up-to-date news about the company.

If you're looking on information on how to start a business blog and claim a piece of the online marketing world as your own, contact Compendium today and we'll show you where to start!

Discovering the unlimited potential...

Tuesday, July 21, 2009 by Mitch Burk

Up until a few months ago, I had rarely spent time reading blogs or and had very limited experience in the blogosphere. Then, one piece of information entered my life and changed that: My girlfriend loves blogs. And as any good boyfriend should, I tried to take an interest in her interests. Nearly every day she was giving me the newest update from (now nationally known) mckmama and a few other blogs her and her friends followed.

The blogs would spark conversation, usually starting with, "Why don't I write a blog!? It's such a cool concept!" and then, sadly, almost always ending with, "Well, my life can't possibly be interesting enough that anyone would want to read about what I had for lunch today or how my group meeting went last night..."

Prior to finding Compendium, my knowledge on blogs and their usefulness was incredibly limited... I had only seen them as a place for people with interesting lives to talk about them, or for kids who need a creative outlet to go post their poems and pictures.

Enter: Business blog software. Discovering the world of blog marketing was like entering Narnia! You may laugh, but picture it... those "Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe" kids lived in such a limited world with a limited perspective on life and then upon walking through the wardrobe, they discovered a world of limitless possibilities! That is the world the Compendium is offering! Blogs will change your business and show you that you don't have to waste your time, energy, and money on old-school marketing strategies.

I'll be the first to admit, I always put blogs in a box. I didn't understand them and did not see the potential in them... However, it only took a few days at Compendium before I saw the outstanding results that come from the decision to start a business blog.

So, what's your next step? Are you tired of limited business strategies? Take a walk into the world of limitless marketing possibilities and let Compendium show you the way!

iMedia Article - 5 Outstanding Business Blogging Programs

Tuesday, July 14, 2009 by Meghan Manning

Recently an article was released on iMedia Connection authored by Compendium's CEO/CoFounder Chris Baggott.

The article outlines 5 outstanding business blogging programs, check out the complete article here.

So you might be asking yourself - what constitutes as an outstanding blogging program? Well, the answer is simple - Chris addresses this question by stating the following:

"When contemplating this article, the first question I had to address was what exactly qualifies a corporate blog as being "outstanding." To me, an outstanding corporate blogging program is one that accomplishes the clearly articulated goals of the organization."

If you're thinking of starting a business blogging program of your own, review this article and see how easy it can be to fit blogging into your hectic schedule, and you never know, you might be able to run an outstanding blogging program and be featured in the next issue!

Jungle out there...

Thursday, June 25, 2009 by Mitch Burk

Jungles have this reputation of being chaotic, busy, and packed so tight you can't get around, hence the phrase: "It's a JUNGLE out there!" Now, I've never been to a jungle, but I don't really see it being that packed... although there are plenty of animals around, they all have their own areas and things they involve themselves in and I don't think they're getting stuck in animal traffic going to the watering hole...

Many hesitant bloggers would find themselves saying the same phrase about the blogging world: I'm not getting involved... It's a jungle out there!... I looked on multiple websites for statistics and everything I found said there are probably over 100,000,000 blogs in the world right now, so it's no wonder that people may fear getting lost when trying to create business blogs.

It is so important, however, to not let the numbers intimidate you... when your company starts a business blog with Compendium, you become the experts on the matter and you are the most qualified. How many bloggers exist in the world doesn't matter, the thing that matters is that your company is creating plenty of relevant information that is going to increase maximize your SEO and become the best online marketing tool you ever invested in.

How to start a business blog...

Thursday, June 25, 2009 by Mitch Burk

How to start a business blog is a common concern of many business owners looking at diving into the world of blog marketing. And lucky for you, here at Compendium, we make it quick and convenient for you by providing you with a talented team of IT support members, client success managers, product developers, and many more people! We also help to provide you with plenty of information right on our website that makes starting a business blog easy!

Look around our website and you'll find:

Whitepapers outlining many of the specifics about the blogging world and how your company can use blogs to win search.

Case Studies discussing the recent success of many of Compendium's currently clients and how they are capitalizing on blog marketing to create business.

Articles to prove to you that we're not the only ones talking about corporate blogging theses days.

And conveniently enough... all three of these things can be found in our new ROI Toolkit containing all of the above mentioned, as well as a getting started to help the process of starting a business blog go quick and easy for your company!

You don't have blog readers

Friday, June 19, 2009 by Ali Sales Roach

Time to face the brutal facts: unless you're a publisher, you probably aren't going to have a high number of blog readers or RSS subscribers.

Let me share an interesting stat: Across our 400 customers, the average for new visitors to their blogs is over 90%.

What does this mean? It means that only 1 out of 10 people are coming back to read your content; everyone else is showing up for the first time.

What does this mean for marketers? And how does this impact blogging best practices? Well, a couple things:

1. You can repeat yourself.
And considering that one of the number one factors impacting whether your business blogging program will succeed or fail is content, and lots of it. The ability to repeat yourself is a beautiful thing -- you won't be "letting your readers down" by repeating yourself and making the same points over and over again, because this will be the first time they are digesting your blog content. Repetition is key.

2. You can take the pressure off.
Yes, the fuel of your corporate blogging program is content, but every piece of content that you write does not have to be perfect. You are not writing a whitepaper or a novel, you're simply writing something that will quickly capture the attention of someone showing up to your blog for the first time.

When you're considering how to start a business blog, I hope you keep in mind the stat of 90% new visitors. Realizing early on that your blogging program is about conversion and lead generation will free you from the fear of "What will my readers think?" You don't have readers, you have new visitors, and they are just waiting for you to provide them with some good, relevant info and then give them a chance to convert and learn more.

I'm not going to do that, because I haven't done it before!

Tuesday, June 16, 2009 by Lee Jorgenson

Isn't it amazing how "stuck in our ways" we can be?

Growing up, my family always had a dog. As a result, I determined that I hated cats and would never own one. They seemed too prissy, moody, and distant. Then, in college, one of my roommates bought a kitten. Not by my own volition, I was exposed to living with an animal that I actually came to enjoy. My unfounded predisposition was crumpled, and I decided that cats could actually make good companions.

Who cares?

Well, this same principle carries over in business. "Why blog? We've never had a corporate blog before." "I'm not going to start a business blog; it isn't a priority right now." Just because you haven't done it before, doesn't mean it's bad or doesn't work. As a matter of fact, many great successes are born when people decide to try something new.

Wine, Beer, Blogging and SEO

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 by Brian Graham

Blogging for SEO is like finding a great wine or the best beer. Remember when you first explored these landscapes? You made your selection by white or red for wine or light and dark for beer. As you became more educated about the differences and all the varieties available searching for what you were looking for was easier. The differences in a Shiraz and a Pinot Noir are significant. A Munich Helles and an American Lager are worlds apart, literally.

When your potential clients are searching for what you offer they have the same knowledge and are searching on terms that are specific, IE glossy four color printing. When I go to the liquor store I know that I want an Imperial IPA, I am going to ask for exactly that. This is going to narrow down all the other beer styles available and get me to only the Imperial IPA choices.

Blogging as a tool for SEO allows you to help your clients find you and narrow down all the other choices. They have to wade through the sea of other companies out their who may offer the same or similar products or services. They know what they want and you can convert them at a higher rate IF they find you. Help them find YOU! So go grab your favorite Cabernet or IPA and find out how to start a business blog! CHEERS!

A New Way to Generate Leads

Tuesday, June 9, 2009 by Angela Castelli

How do you prospect for your company? Where do your leads come from? Do you network and cold call and buy mass mailing lists in hopes that there are a few qualified leads amongst all of your efforts? This is what I hear from hundreds of companies that I speak to on a daily basis, and they are looking for a new way to generate leads.

What if I told you I could help you to be standing in front of an audience who wants to speak to you? That is exactly what the power of Compendium can do for you and your business. Compendium is a search marketing tool that is going to help you to be found organically in search when someone is searching for you, based on keywords that are relevant to your business. When creating a corporate blog, or starting a business blog, one of your goals should be to generate leads and acquire more customers. If lead generation is a top priority for you and your business, and you'd like to learn how to generate leads online, Compendium Blogware is the only business blogging software available that's easy to use and produces results.

So let's start blogging for leads together. You are a potential lead for Compendium, and you found my blog, didn't you?

How Will You Build Your House?

Thursday, June 4, 2009 by Brett Fritz

The old saying goes, "don't build a house on sifting sand... build it on solid rock!"

You would not build your house like a this card house before consulting with a building contractor who knows what he is doing.

So why would you develop a start a business blog without looking at the blogging best practices?

Be sure to consult with an individual that knows what they are talking about when it comes to blogging. Ask them about their blogging goals and what type of success they are seeing on their business blog. Ask how they are measuring their results - what metrics are put in place with their business blog.

If you have questions about business blogging, Compendium is here to help. For starters, download our Business Blogging Survival Kit.

This kit will help you figure out how to start a business blog on the right foot!

Learn how easy it is to measure your business blogging strategy.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009 by Megan Glover

We recently did a survey with Compendium prospects and asked: What is the biggest obstacle to starting a business blogging strategy?

Hard to Measure was tied as the number one obstacle to starting a strategy. The reality is business blogs are no different to measure than your Website. Below is a snap shot of the template we use to measure the success of our blogs at Compendium.

The screen shot is a little muddy to decipher. but we use Google Analytics and Salesforce.com to capture all of the data we need. Any analytics or CRM package will suffice to capture the relevent data.

Here are the basic variables we capture on a weekly and month-end basis:

1. Unique Visitors (Search, Referral and Direct)

2. Call - To - Action performance (we use Salesforce.com campaigns and web-to-lead forms on every CTA landing page so that we can track indivicual performance).

3. Leads (someone who fills out a web-to-lead form and is funneled into Salesforce.com)

4. Click-through-Rate (the number of unique clicks on a CTA/total unique visitors)

5. Lead Conversion (the number of people who filled out a form/total unique visitors)

6. Bounce Rate

These six marketing metrics give us a great picture as to how we're fairing month over month and give us indicators as to what changes need to be made to increase conversion and ultimately the number of leads we are able to funnel into the sales pipeline.

Just curious, how many of your are measuring your blogs in a similar way and/or do you have additional metrics that you find really helpful?

Congratulations to GK Elite!

Friday, May 29, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

I wanted to give a give shout out to our client GK Elite, and their blog administrator Andrew Foss.

Recently they were featured in an online article by Internet Retailer regarding their success for their e-commerce site and how the blog has helped drive sales. Congratulations on your success so far!

For more information on how to start a business blog for your company, view a demo now.

Escape the "Jon & Kate workplace..."

Thursday, May 28, 2009 by Mitch Burk

Dominating conversation around the water cooler these days: Jon & Kate. For years, America has been fascinated by the chaos, the crying (not just from the children), and the emotional turmoil that comes with having a household of ten...

It is the feeling of "at least it's not me" that makes it easy for us to watch. It is a wonderful time of R&R when we are laid back in our recliners watching the madness of the Gosselin family unfold.

But how accurate are we in our "at least I'm not that stressed" mentality? According to the American Phychological Association, over 33% of Americans are living with extreme stress and 74% of respondents claim that work was the leading factor.

So how do we create happier businesses? Some argue that a happy business is a successful business. What does a successful business have that others do not? A strong customer base. Where does that base come from? (I think you know where I'm going with this...)

Using blogging as a tool for SEO will help your business get found. When customers can find you, they can use your products or services... ergo... creating a successful workplace for you and your employees. And think of the stress you can eliminate once you discover that when you start a business blog you don't have to waste time and energy on ineffective marketing strategies searching for customers... they can actually find you

So... let's not reside in a "Jon & Kate workplace" full of tears, tattle-tales, and screaming. Look no further than Compendium to help relieve some of the unnecessary stress you're company is carrying...

Is it worth outsourcing your corporate blog?

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 by Brian Millis

I had a great eye opening experience over the weekend that directly relates to my job here at Compendium. My fiance and I wanted to use a blog platform instead of the standard wedding website provider templates. I first started on Wordpress since I knew that they have amazing features, plug-ins, multiple page designs, and more. After about 2 hours of trial and failure, I moved onto the try Blogger. Blogger seemed to be much more user friendly and allowed me to download more creative templates. In the end, we will stick with our blogspot wedding page.

This experience got me thinking about the objections that I hear while working to bring new clients onto our business blogging platform. Here are two that I hear often:

We just don't have the personell to help put up good, frequent content.
Well, we're hiring a new PR director who will most likely manage the blog.

My wedding blog experience gave me new insight into these issues that often lead to pushing out a decision to choose Compendium. First, our platform is desiged to free up employees to blog. With the secure work flow built into the platform and the user interface tools (content ideas and keyword density meter), Compendium's blog software answers this objection. Once this is in place, it should be just as easy to write about your business as it is for me to write about my wedding.

For the second objection, I now understand why businesses pawn the ownership of a corporate blog onto other departments and co-workers. IT IS A PAIN TO START A BLOG WITHOUT HELP! I have new respect for our client success team who can create an entire business blog network in 10 business days. This set-up, design, monitoring, reporting, and peace of mind is simply icing on the cake since the real value proposition of our platform is the SEO around revenue driving search terms for a business.

So when you're thinking; Is it worth it to outsource our company blog? If getting found by your target online market, converting at a high rate, and humanizing your marketing efforts isn't enough reason, the simplicity that Compendium brings to starting a business blog is worth it all by itself.

Business Blogging to survive the Online Marketing Jungle

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 by mikey mioduski

That's right, this post is blatant self promotion for the exclusive Business Blogging Survival Kit, our latest, greatest, most densely packed business blogging resource to date. What's included?

1. Compendium Client Case Studies x2: The case studies selected offer a good glimpse of the diversity in our clientele, from Fairytale Brownies success increasing their online sales to Dr. Clue, a B-to-B client, who is driving 49% month-over-month traffic growth in just over 6 months of blogging.

2. Blogging ROI Whitepaper: Newly updated and packaged to articulate the very measurable Return on Investment of a business blogging strategy.

3. iMedia Article: "10 Ways to Boost the Value of your Corporate Blog."

4. Getting Started Checklist: As this Survival Kit is really for anybody considering a corporate blog, or who may not know how to start a business blog, this checklist gives a tangible list of steps to consider.

Online marketing is such a rapidly growing market, and the demand to climb the organic search ranks is only going to grow in importance as more and more catch on. Getting on the ladder with a smart blogging strategy before your competitors not only gives you a significant head start (it takes time to start ranking!!!!!!), you will begin building relationships and opening new doors that you otherwise would not have found with traditional marketing tactics.

So for those considering blogging as a tool for SEO, download the Survival Kit today.

Age, Benjamin Button, and Your Website

Sunday, May 24, 2009 by Brian McKay

Benjamin Button and Bloggin to Earn Customers

In the Curious Case of Benjamin Button, he is born old and then ages younger. Gaining more vitality, strength, and wisdom every day. Most of us has been there, "If I only knew then what I know now." On the Internet, each of our websites can be equated to Benjamin Button. Every day age builds up, and the search engine spiders/bots, are taking inventory of what content we've created, the keyword density, relevancy, and volume of that content, and age.

Age matters. Not just age, but intelligent use of age to optimize your website. If you didn't already know, action you are taking now under your domain name are going to impact you five years or more down the road.

This is one of the major cases for Blogging as a tool for SEO. On a website, or more specifically a landing page, you have limited real estate to deliver content to users. On a blog page, your real estate is endless. The canvas on which you are able to deliver content of all varieties is not restricted.

As you continue to explore, and hopefully embrace, starting a business blog, remember Benjamin Button. Make wise decisions as you thoughtfully and strategically age your business online, and take action to leverage blogging today.

Help me find my tag!

Thursday, May 21, 2009 by Brian Millis

Here is a great tag line from a prospect email I received:

If You Can't Measure It, You Can't Manage It!

One thing I fail to do is include a catchy tag line at the end of my email signature. How do you even come up with a good tag line that will capture someone's attention? In my opinion, a good tag line should relate directly to your individual role or company. For example, here is the new tag line from a colleague's email here at Compendium:

"We're not a blogging company, we're a search company."

She took this quote from a short company email from our CEO, Chris Baggott .
What a great place to find a good tag line for your email! It gives a reader something to think about and addresses a common misconception that we deal with on a daily basis as we develop and grow our new business client base. Just like a good company blog, a catchy email tag line can be an opportunity for human content to connect in a one-to-one manner.

So now, I am on a mission to create the Brian Millis Email Tag Line. I want it to portray the message that Compendium's platform can help any size business learn how to start a business blog. We can help add a true strategy to help you reach your blogging goals. We can be your coach on Blogging Best Practices. It is still amazing to me how our corporate blogging software makes it so easy to blog, get found in search, and convert.

Should I Start a Business Blog?

Thursday, May 21, 2009 by Meghan Manning

Many people have this concern quite frequently, so here are some quick questions to ask yourself to help determine if you should be starting a business blog:

1. Are you aware that blogging is one of the most effective tools for SEO?
2. Do you have employees that are willing to talk about their jobs and company?
3. Do you want to start relationships with prospective customers?
4. Would you like to acquire more customers?
5. How about driving more demand for your product or service?

If you answered YES to these questions, than look no further, you're definitely ready to start a business blog. And with Compendium Blogware's web-based blogging platform built for businesses and organizations, you can be up and running in no time!

Check us out today by viewing a demo with one of our blogging experts or attend our upcoming Webinar: Top 5 Myths of Business Blogging - seats are limited so register now!