Text Blog Software

How Search is Changing

Monday, March 1, 2010 by Sarah Sedberry

In a recent whiteboard Friday, the (in my humble opinion) god of SEO, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, recapped how the search engines have moved and evolved over the years, and where he believe search is heading. I won't bore you with all the details but here are the things that are important to review.

In the last several years we've seen the following time-line when it comes to search engines and how they determined what was a relevant result to show:

1995: Results were determined by keywords, editorial analysis, almost a manual process
1997: Search engines start to pay attention to links - who is linking to you, who are you linking to?
1999: The Page Rank makes its scene, and we begin to see more accuracy in search
2002: The rise of Anchor Text. Prior to now web crawlers updated on a scheduled basis, about once/month.
2005: Around this time we begin to see web crawlers updating based on how frequently a page is updated - could be as often as multiple times a day. Also comes the birth of sitemaps, no follows, and webmaster tools.

Up until this point, SEO best practices didn't change much. Certainly you had to evolve with the search engines but things stayed pretty consistent. Until.....

2006 and on - The rise of social media!
- Google works with Twitter to make a deal (talks with Facebook to reach a deal as well) in order to provide more real time results
- Search Wiki is created in order to jump on the social bookmarking efforts
- Google Wave created to serve more information about what's happening in real time
- Gmail -- and now its evolution to Goolge Buzz

The recent changes we've seen even in just the last 12 months is suggesting a movement towards social importance that could become more important than the SEO practices of not even 5 years ago. This type of trending will have a big impact on how users look for and share content.

All businesses should have a strategy to leverage social media, the virality of it, and to utilize the "word of mouth" marketing that the popular platforms are harnessing. It is critical to a business to know how these trends are influencing search results, and what it means for your business. Having a blogging solution, like Compendium, to be the hub of your content and pushing it out to your social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, allows you the ease and simplicity of staying on top of this new trending.

Social media and search are coming together in a big way - how is your company positioned for it?

Happy Birthday Photoshop

Friday, February 19, 2010 by Isaac Pellerin

In honor of 20 years of Photoshop, I thought I would share a quick self portrait I made in college using the iconic software. Now anyone that has played with Photoshop understands how easy it is to get excited about the tools and go a little crazy. So enjoy this creepy image.

I'm happy to say that my Photoshop skills have improved from the good 'ol days. At Compendium Blogware I've been getting much more acquainted with subtle uses. Setting a layer to Multiply or adjusting the transparency can generate some very tasteful affects to create Buttons and Icons.

Our designer, Mikey, introduced me to a technique he's been using to create the ">>" in this button:

What we have here is simply text with a dark gray color (#1d1c1c to be specific).

There is a Drop Shadow effect applied to this layer.
The Blend Mode is set to Overlay.
The Color of the shadow is a light gray (#f9f8f8).
The Opacity is set to 78%
Use Global Light is checked.

This creates a very subtle embedded effect. Here is the image of the settings:

Celebrate Photoshop today. Share some early "photoshopery" you've done.

Wednesday Release Day at Compendium

Wednesday, February 10, 2010 by Abby Warner

Wednesday is Release day at Compendium. Whether it is small enhancements, bug fixes, or work on larger strategic items, it is always an exciting day for us. A benefit for you, as a software as a service client, releases are a seamless and rarely noticed by the client. They occur before standard business hours to help eliminate possible interruptions in our service.

At Compendium, we follow an agile development process of SCRUM. With 4-6 week strategic sprints which focus on larger strategic enhancements and 1 week Zantac Sprints, which focuses on bug fixes and smaller product enhancements. Always working to make a better user experience and SEO tool for our client.

This week we released 1 client facing feature. The Image Dialouge box of the text editor now, auto-populates the http:// into the link field which is standard in other link field within the text editor. We also had a couple internal facing enhancements to the product, which ultimately help us better service you, the client with increased efficiencies.

As a client of Compendium, and software as a service client , we handle and support all routine maintence for our product. You will never have to worry about your plugins ceasing to work properly (as you would with a freeware software), no worries about upgrading and updating the product. Our full service corporate blogging solutions takes care of these items for you.

You've Copy/Pasted from Word. Now what?

Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Allison Bowen

You have written an amazing blog post using Compendium's simple blogging software and suddenly notice that your blog post is not appearing correctly. And your font is not the same as the others. What in the world?

Well, then you remember that you copy/pasted from Word. Oops! Now what? Microsoft Word and other similar text editing programs apply hidden formatting that interferes with all web formatting.

There is a way to save your post and regain that awesome blog for your business.

All you need to do is simply copy your text and paste it into a Notepad file. Then copy your text from there and paste it back into the text editor. Voila! It's that easy! Notepad will automatically strip your text of the formatting. You will need to replace your links and images, but it's a lot better than rewriting the entire post.

And -- you'll remember better next time! :)

Tips from Training

Thursday, January 28, 2010 by Allison Bowen

As the resident training webinar host here at Compendium, I've picked up a few tips that might be helpful to you as you begin you blogging program. Not only should you follow the blogging best practices that your client success manager shares with you, but you should also know about a few tedious little details...

#1 - You're all excited to start blogging for search, you've gotten your new username and password and you go to our login screen. And...your password doesn't work. What in the world? Here's often the solution - type the temporary password directly into the login screen! I know it's a weird password, but trust me. Copying/pasting this password often inserts weird spacing that will cause the temporary password not to work. Be sure to type it into the login screen.

#2 - We told you we have an easy to use blog software program and you discover we really do. You're all proud of yourself for uploading the perfect picture, but now it seems to be too large. You go back into the picture and try to modify the sizing from within the image properties box. Still too big. Instead of going back and forth and getting frustrated, try this trick. Click on the picture and drag the edges! Just like many text editing programs, with Compendium's system, you have the ability to change the picture size simply by dragging the edges.

#3 - You've written the best post of your life, submit it, it's been approved and suddenly you notice that the font looks different than the rest of the posts. Why? Well, did you copy and paste from Microsoft Word? Word and other text editing programs actually contain hidden formatting that interferes with all web formatting. Copy/pasting from anything other than Notepad can cause your posts to appear with different text, your images to disappear and many other problems!

Ask an SEO Expert...Again.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010 by Heather Benfield

Last week SEO Guru, Stephan Spencer, teamed up with Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott on a highly successful webinar, "Ask an SEO Expert: Stephan Spencer" (Watch the Replay here).

While I was typing up some blog posts about the Best Blogging Software Ever (Okay, I might be a little biased), I tuned in to hear what Stephan had to say - and was extremely glad I did!

I really learned a lot about SEO such as:

-How to use keyword research tools to see which search terms are more important than others and targeting those keywords into the content I write.

-How to get Google, Yahoo and Bing to consider my blog as important, trustworthy and authoritative material.

-The difference between anchor text and metadata and their role in SEO.

Webinar attendees were able to submit their SEO questions to Stephan before and during the Webinar for him to answer. Since there were so many questions, Stephan didn't have time to answer them all so he agreed to come back and hold another Q&A session!

Becuase I learned so much during the first one, I'm definitely planning on attending the second one...and you should too!

To register, click on the GoToWebinar Link below:

https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/808383930

The Business of Compassion

Monday, January 18, 2010 by Isaac Pellerin

The earthquake in Haiti left immense devastation in a country that has worked so hard to establish itself. Haiti has long been the location of mission trips and a context for us to invest our energy in making a better place. Last weeks earthquake was definitely a setback to those efforts. Yet it has also presented us with an opportunity to exercise compassion while testing the effectiveness of technological progress.

Today's technology has unearthed new ways to give aid. It has been revealed that texting allowed us to give $11 million through our phone carriers.

What better place to flex our technological muscles than for those who need the help most. Here at Compendium Blogware we have put our technology to use for the cause in Haiti. ExactTarget employee, Karen Jung, has partnered with Compendium Blogware to see that people can give to trusted organizations.

Mikey Mioduski worked under the gun to implement a website and blog powered by our easy to use blog software.

Please visit www.haiti-aid.org to donate and read the unfolding story of recovery in our neighboring country.

Tips & Tricks - #6 "Adding a Picture"

Monday, November 30, 2009 by Allison Bowen

One of the best ways to spice up a long, text-heavy post is to include an image! When it comes to pictures, it's important to remember that in order to use an image effectively, you'll need to be able to show the relevancy between the picture and your post/organization. You would never want to include an image that is not relevant.

With Compendium's easy to use blog software, adding an image to your post is simple. Click on the button that looks like an image (five in from the left within the template editor) and a box will appear. You'll have the option to browse your computer for the image or insert a URL. Next choose to "Insert this image."

The second screen will give you the opportunity to provide an image description, change the width and height of your image as well as the padding. Padding is simply the whitespace around your picture that controls how close the text gets to the edge of the image. I personally like to put four, but you may have a different preference. You can also select how you would like to align your image. By selecting the second tab at the top, you can also provide a URL that you would like your image to link to.

Once you've chosen all the correct details, simply select "OK" and you're set! Once your image has been inserted, you may also move it around with your mouse, or change its size by dragging the edges.

Blogging for business has never been this easy!

Tips & Tricks - #5 "Copying/Pasting"

Monday, November 30, 2009 by Allison Bowen

If you too took many computer classes throughout your school days, you probably have the same love and appreciation for Microsoft Word that I do. You've typed papers in Word, written outlines, brainstormed, you name it. For any basic text you've wanted to create, you've used Microsoft Word. So why would you not use it when you begin blogging for search?

Unfortunately, our beloved text editor has a dark side - formatting. All Microsoft Office products actually contain a hidden formatting that interferes with all web formatting. Therefore, if you attempt to first write your post in Word and then copy it into Compendium's blog software, you may start to notice a few peculiar things happening. Your fonts may not be standard across all blogs. Calls-to-action may start disappearing or in fact, the post may not display at all. You just never know what tricky thing will occur!

So what should you do instead? First, we recommend writing your posts directly into the text editor. It's simply the easiest option. However if you do prefer to copy and paste your text, always be sure you are using Notepad. Notepad strips text of all formatting and is standard on all PCs. It may not look like Microsoft Word, but it sure works a lot better!

ADMINS - Watch for users that may be copying/pasting from Word! This can cause all sorts of issues to your blog page. A good way to tell if someone has copied/pasted from Word is the font. If it looks much different than every other post that has been submitted to you, it may be because the user used Word.

Exciting new feature release this week!

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Abby Warner

This week, Compendium was excited to announce a new feature release for all standard users. A keyword tab was added to the text editor screen you see upon login. This tab now allows users the ability to see a full listing of their companies keywords. It also allows for easy navigation and sorting of large and small keyword networks. Want to know more...Check out the solution in our knowledge base.

As a blog contributor, it is important to know what topics are important to focus on. And while the 20 suggested keywords are listed to the right, for general content ideas. Often in a blog post, a user can rearrange a word or two of natural writing to accomplish the addition of a keyword, helping the SEO of their corporate blog.

As far as blogging best practices, I am of the belief that it is import to write naturally and to write about what you know. My own practice is to write a post, keeping in mind a general topic about Compendium and corporate blogging as whole. I write everything and then, I go back and revise to add in some keywords. I never want my content to be stacked with keywords. Not only does it look spammy to the search engines, but it looks spammy to readers as well.

I would love to hear how what you think of the new keyword tool. Also, tell us about how you write...how do you add keywords to you posts, and what are some of your blogging tips?

Know Your Audience - and the Difference Between an Oven and Range

Thursday, November 19, 2009 by Tyler Bender

This morning, while I was editing some blog content, I ran across something I had never seen before.

(preface: before you make any judgments on me or my lack of knowledge, please understand that I am a 26 year-old guy who isn't that far removed from dormlife in college and has never done the following:

bought a house
bought an oven
shopped for either a house or an oven
used an oven for anything more than a place to see what time it is in the kitchen.
been so intrigued by the names of various components on an oven that I felt the urge to ask the nearest person in my vicinity. )

This blog was about outfitting a new home with new appliances. Particularly a new oven. Only they didn't call it an oven anywhere in their text. Ever. They called it a "range." But I saw the picture in the post! It looks like an oven to me!

When I think "range," my mind immediately goes to golf or guns. Not ovens. Actually, there's only one oven-looking device on the first two google image search pages when you type in "range." So it's not at the top of other peoples' minds either.

I thought to myself, "ok maybe this writer isn't writing to me. Maybe they're writing to a different demographic. Maybe since I've never seen the backend of a kitchen, I should ask someone else if "range" was appropriate and common appliance-speak among regulars."

I asked the people around me (all female coworkers). They told me that "range" is part of an oven, and commonly referred to as "oven range," but most people probably don't exclusively call it a "range" without the "oven" preceeding it - and they certainly don't go tell a salesman "I'm in the market to buy a new range...show me what you got!"

(note: And after doing a little research, I learned that a range is the combination of an oven and a stove-top. Who knew?)

So if I'm not their target audience, and these women aren't their target audience, who IS their target audience? Are they even writing to their target audience at all? If I'm confused by the content in question, who else will be?

Point is - we need to know who our audience is when we're trying to blog for business. Sometimes when we're blogging we're so focused on hitting target keywords, learning blogging best practices, repeatedly having something to write about each day, it can be easy to lose what might be most important - the connection with our audience.

When you're blogging for search, put yourself in your audience's shoes. Use the most common language ("oven" or "oven range" - not "range") that anyone can understand. Don't expect people to know everything you know.

The great thing about blogs is that people can find you even when they don't exactly know what they're searching for. So don't lose them because your content is unclear and not directed toward an audience.

The upside of this morning: at least now I know what a range is. Just wish I didn't have to spend this long learning it.

Click here to learn more about Compendium Blogware and how blogging can help your business.

Blog Content Reality Check

Tuesday, October 27, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

When a client first comes on board here at Compendium we have some that are familiar with blogging and those that are just entering the blogosphere for the first time. In order to help warm up these new waters, we have begun offering user and administrator training 2x per week.

In addition to learning the basics of our simple blog platform, there is a learning curve to the actual content to be written. Many have the misconception that blog posts should be similar to white papers - not the case at all. Most visitors that come to a blog are scanning the content, not reading it. Think to your own experiences - what do you do when you land on a webpage thats full of text?

In reality most blog posts should be:

Pithy and to the point - similar to writing an email to a friend
Keyword Rich - your content should be focused around the keyword phrases your company is targeting.
Engaging - make it easy for readers to skim your content to get the point. effective use of white-space can go a long way.
Directive - tell the readers what to do next (take that next step and convert into a lead).
Remember that most online readers will make a decision in less than 10 seconds after landing on your page as to whether they want to stay or not - make sure you capture them quickly!

In order to help those new to this blog craze, I'll be posting over the next few days the top mistakes new bloggers make. In hopes your business blogging program will be able to avoid them and get the most success from your efforts.

Stay Tuned!

Sustainable SEO

Wednesday, October 7, 2009 by P.J. Hinton

Being prominent in search results has a high value. You're convinced of that and are willing to fork over the big bucks to get there. There is no shortage of consultants who will be all too ready to take your money with the promise of quick results. The question you should be asking the consultant is, "Are the results you offer sustainable?" If you don't ask, you could be setting yourself up for a let down in the long run.

What determines whether a tactic is sustainable? Look at it from the search engine algorithm designer's standpoint. Whether someone continues to use your service depends on whether you can consistently deliver relevant results to the visitor. If you can't, or some other search engine can do a better job, your value as a service diminishes greatly. You can join the pile of search has-beens like Alta Vista and Lycos.

Google pours tons of effort into refining their algorithms to distinguish between good content and attempts to game the system. Chances are, if you are using tactics to game, you're going to get caught and get whacked. That quick bump to the top all of the sudden becomes a rapid slide to the bottom, and even if you clean up your act, it's a very long climb from the basement.

A very good case-in-point can be found in P.J. Fusco's SEO Q&A column from today. She takes on the "build or buy" question for inbound links to your website. She writes:

In one instance, a former client decided to start aggressively buying text links. The business quickly shot up the rankings, but then dropped abruptly when Google caught on to what it was doing. The company abandoned the tactic and eventually returned to its regular positioning...after the better part of a year. In the short term, it had what could be called success on the three terms for which they were buying links. But over the long term, it's hard to call the tactic successful.

If this is where your tactics ultimately land you, then you're not practicing sustainable SEO. She goes on to write:

Imagine where your site could be positioned in the search engines if you took the link-buying budget and developed a widget that helped build links to your site year after year. Or suppose you took that money and invested in creating content that repeatedly added valuable links to your site? Blogs remain a relatively inexpensive way to not only create link-worthy content, but connect with your customers in an entirely different voice.

That's pretty much what Compendium is all about... providing an application that companies can use to do sustainable SEO through blogging.

I would encourage you to read her entire column. It also contains some interesting information on the adoption and usefulness of the canonical link tag, which is something we introduced on new blog templates about seven months ago.

There is so much potential inside a blog!

Thursday, September 24, 2009 by Michael Burton

One of the great things about business blog software is the nearly unlimited ways to use a solution like this... There is no reason to just use your blogging platform as a place to dump a bunch of words when they hold potential to do so much more!

Some things to make sure to include in your blogs:

Pictures & Videos- Let's face it... Pictures and videos appropriately supplementing text just makes the text more intriguing. A huge block of text can seem overwhelming and uninteresting. Just make sure it's relevant. On that same note, make sure to include appropriate white-space in your blog posts. Don't make everything one major paragraph- space out your main points and make it easier on the eyes.

Links- If you're going to throw out stats and references from outside sources, try to link to those places to keep the reader from wondering where you got your information from. Also, make sure to include plenty of links back to your products on your main website.

Current news- Include information that customers couldn't find on your website. The great things about blog software is that it gives you a quick way to get information out about your company.

Don't let the content or layout of the blog stress you out... If you have questions or concerns, feel free to contact any of Compendium's Client Success Managers who will be more than happy to help you decide how to make your blog stand out to readers.

Is Your Blog Program Highly Efficienct?

Thursday, September 17, 2009 by Jess Wehner

Got an email from a client wanting to optimize their blog marketing efforts today. They

asked if we have any recommended strategies for ensuring content is efficiently and effectively created. Of course, having done this for over a year, I had lots to say!

Effective Content Creation: Every organization is different, and I’ve found the same strategy does not work across the board. Here are some various methods our clients have used:

Incentives/contests (this seems to work the best, but requires the admin to be creative and put the effort in): bloggers do not just blog on their own, they usually need an incentive (i.e. food, gift cards, vacation days, etc.) . We do tons of contests here – so if you ever want help brainstorming, let me know. You can also check out my other post on motivating your bloggers.
Scheduling: Set a goal for how many posts you want up per week (more is always better) and then divide and conquer. For example, if you want 5 posts up a week, and have 5 bloggers, schedule one to write Monday, one to write Tuesday, etc.
Send reminder/motivational emails: remember, while the blog may be on your mind all the time, it is not on your bloggers, send them an email every Monday with a reminder to blog, and what to blog about. It’s ok if every single person in your company wrote about the same thing because they are all giving their unique perspective, so share ideas.
Enforce it: Make it a part of someone’s job, i.e. they will be reviewed based on how many posts they are able to get up (this usually works if someone is in a communications/marketing dept and it fits with their job function)

In terms of making sure the content is efficient, here are some things you should try to do in your blog posts to make sure they are doing the most for your search traffic:

Use your exact keywords phrases as much as possible
Use keywords in your post titles
Use videos/pictures to engage visitors
If you copy and paste from another location, put it in Notepad first – this will strip the text of any outside formatting and make sure everything looks consistent
Use bolding and lists to organize your content in a way that is engaging to readers

Hope this helps! If you'd like more information, contact a client success manager to learn how to optimize your blog marketing efforts, or if you're new to Compendium contact our sales team by clicking on the view demo link in teh sidebar.

Where's Your White?

Friday, September 4, 2009 by Sarah Sedberry

In honor of Labor Day weekend and all of the "White" parties happening in the next few days, it only seems appropriate to reiterate the appropriate use and utilization of white space in a blog post. I know that I've talked about this topic before but I think it is an important enough practice to reiterate the finer points below.

Pictures: Use of pictures will grab a readers attention, and give them an idea of what your blog post is going to be about. This will also help give a visual to your point and make your post more aesthetically pleasing.

Lists: Providing lists (either numbered or bulleted) allows a reader to glean information quickly. They can scan your post, get the information they want, and make that decision whether to take the next step with you. Make it easy for them by pulling out the important information, versus leaving it buried in the text.

Font Formatting: Similar to the effects a list has - it brings attention and focus to the important message of your post. Allowing someone the ability to scan for information quickly.

Paragraphs: Let's all be honest, nobody likes to read a computer screen full of text. So break up your text with paragraph breaks, or one of the above mentioned ways!

Its important to note that most visitors to a blog are new visitors, that you've never been introduced to before. They are going to evaluate your ability to solve their problem in less than 15 seconds - make sure you do everything you can to capture that potential customer quickly before they move on to the next guy!

For more blog best practices, contact the Client Success Team and we'd be happy to set up a time to review your current content.

Add ShareThis To Your Business Blog

Thursday, August 27, 2009 by Jess Wehner

If you are looking for a way to take your blog to the next level try adding a ShareThis Widget. ShareThis is a great way to promote your blog and allow readers to share your content.

By putting the ShareThis button on your business blog pages, you’re enabling your viewers to pass along your content to their friends via Email, AIM, and Text Messaging, as well as post it to a large number of social web sites, including Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter. By doing this, you’re allowing your band of readers to spread your content all over the web (which Google really likes!)

If you want more information on adding ShareThis, you can email you client success manager at Compendium or check out the ShareThis website. The best way to get word out about your blogs is to allow your biggest fans to do it for you!

Use PPC tactics in your SEO Blogging efforts

Tuesday, August 25, 2009 by Chris Baggott

I saw this great post by Tom Hallett Campaign Delivery Manager of Vertical Leap. Tom does a great job of explaining how you should be using PPC tactics in your Search Marketing efforts. Business Blog Software of course does all this for you...

Here are 3 strengths of PPC and how you can use them in your organic SEO program:

PPC strength 1: Choose the page that visitors land on

Use in SEO: Don’t try to optimize your home page for all of your keyword variations. Instead, ensure you have a relevant landing page for each of your target keywords so visitors find what they want as soon as they land on your site.

This gets to the core of the Compendium Blogware solution. The very idea of a "Compended Blog" is to create organic landing pages...one for each targeted keywords. A lot of people think of Blog in the singular...this strategy radically pushes that to 'Blogs' (form many to perhaps thousands)

PPC strength 2: Customized targeted link titles and descriptions

Use in SEO: Think of your title tag as your ad link text as that’s what will usually be the link that appears in the search engines. Ensure it’s descriptive enough to encourage users to click on it when it appears in the SERP's. And ensure you have a good meta-description too – this will appear in the search results if the search engine thinks it’s relevant. So use it to convince users to click on the link.

The very definition of an organic landing page starts with the title. Don't name blogs something whimsical, title them with the keywords that you are targeting. Look at the title of this blog as an example.

PPC strength 3: Quick results

Use in SEO: Encourage the search engines to crawl your site more often by adding fresh content like blogs regularly. This, coupled with a good long term SEO strategy, will mean any new pages or products you add to your site will be indexed and ranked by the search engines quickly.

This is the final peice of the puzzle. but instead of 'like blogs' make your organic landing pages actual blogs. What you get from targeting business blogging is a giant boost to your online marketing efforts by following these three steps: A blog for each keyword as a landing page, title your blogs with the targeted keywords and update frequently. Simple advice from accross the pond...Thanks Tom.

Some Helpful Advice on Text and Video Content Creation

Monday, August 3, 2009 by P.J. Hinton

While scanning my RSS feeds today, I stumbled across a couple of great links for content creators.

Perfectionism is the Enemy of "Done"

Over at Copyblogger, Michelle Russel provides five good reasons why you shouldn't let perfectionism overwhelm you into not finishing a post that you're not fully happy with. Because steady content creation is fundamental to the success of blog marketing, this should be required reading of all of Compendium's clients. In fact, Russel's post motivated me to write a post for my own somewhat neglected blog!

Vlogging Software Selection for Beginners

Including some video on a blog post can make for a compelling experience, but creating and editing video might prove to be a bit daunting to someone who doesn't work with the software on a day-to-day basis. Serdar Yegulalp has an article over at Information Week that takes a look at several video editing applications based on the availability of three features -- video capture, editing, and upload to hosting services. Weighing in at six pages, it's a substantial read, but a worthwhile one if you are considering an investment in this area.

Blogging for Business, Not for Your Co-Workers

Wednesday, July 15, 2009 by Allison Bowen

As I sat in traffic on my way home from work last night, I began to think about how weird it is that this many people live in one place and all want to get home at the same time. For a small town girl like myself, the number of people driving out of downtown Indianapolis around 5 o'clock just baffles me. Where do they all come from? And how did they all learn to drive like this?? I mentioned my frustrations to a friend of mine and she, being from Chicago, proceeded to explain to me just how peaceful Indianapolis traffic is. What?!

Traffic during rush hour is a lot like traffic to your blog. Imagine yourself as my friend from Chicago. For you, having four paragraphs of just text seems ordinary. Big words and acronyms are very easy to read because you're accustomed to using even more during the workday. You may think that you're making your post extremely readable when in reality all that industry jargon is not understood by anyone but you and your co-workers. For the "small-town reader" all of your posts may be very frustrating!

The purpose of blogging for business should be to reach out to potential customers. Trust me, these customers will not appreciate a massive amout of text, industry jargon or any confusing acronyms. Instead, you should use simple terms and include items such as pictures, graphs and other visuals to break up your post. Visuals are a great way to explain a topic or even just make the post more enticing to read. You could even try a video!

Don't get stuck in traffic. Potential customers are just like me... small town people trying to get what they need!