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A to Z of Business Blogging: A is for Archives

The Blog Coach — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:00:29 +0000

This a series of posts entitled the A to Z of Business Blogging which take a look at the some of the elements and benefits of company blogs or corporate blogs.

A is for Archives

A blog’s archives are effectively anywhere that posts are stored once they disappear from the blog’s front page. The two main areas which I consider as archive areas are the “Archives” themselves where the posts can be found according to the date they were published and “Categories” where the posts are kept according to the subject matter that they deal with. Both of these are organised so that they are easy to use for your readers and help posts to be easily indexed by the Search Engines – for both these reasons, they are very important.

The archives in a blog, whatever their format, are also particularly helpful to the author because they are self-organising – this allows us to focus on the posts and the message that we want to communicate rather than worry about the structuring of the blog. The Archives are usually organised by month (though some systems do so weekly) while we have control over the naming of the Categories. This of course allows us to include the main keywords that we wish to focus on as well as making them descriptive.

But don’t just leave it to the automatic archives to promote the posts that have disappeared from the front page – make sure that you promote your own posts from within your blog as well as encouraging other blogs to link to them as well. To help this:

Highlight your most popular posts: make sure that the best or most popular posts you have written are not lost in your archives, so highlight them by linking from a separate page or from your sidebar. A “Top 10 of your Best Posts” is always going to get good results and encourage additional readers;
Link to related posts: at the end of a post, link to other posts on your blog which cover similar topics which might interest them. You can do this automatically within Wordpress or manually with a little effort – but it’s well worthwhile;
Write a Series: By writing a series of posts on a topic, you will have the opportunity to interlink all of the posts and so encourage your readers to make sure that they read all the posts in the series;
Link from within posts: you should reference and link to your own posts as well as posts on other blogs or websites when you want to add weight to what you are writing about.

Whichever way you decide to go about it, use the blog’s archives to your own advantage for both readers and Search Engines alike. However, at the same time, make sure that you don’t leave your posts to simply disappear into your archives – work with your archives and keep the posts they contain as accessible and active as possible.

Business Blog Design: Navigation & using your Content

The Blog Coach returns

The Blog Coach — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:27:40 +0000

Well, I hardly consider myself “prodigal” but, with a return to updating The Blog Coach being massively overdue, I’m pleased to announce that I will be once again blogging here again as from this week.

From the questions I get asked every day, I see that more and more people, both as individuals and as representatives of their companies, are looking for help in making sure that their blogging is working for them. It might be for an individual blog, or for one as part of their main website or for one that’s taking a leading role in their social media campaign. All are out there and being developed on a regular basis.

Of course, there’s a huge amount of information scattered around the internet about blogging including my own blog at Better Business Blogging – so where should people start looking? Well, my goal here is to make sure the answer is at “The Blog Coach”!

I’ve been writing about blogging (and doing it!) for some four years and want to bring all of that knowledge and experience here to you at the Blog Coach whether you’re coming to it for the first time or are looking for help to make it work better for you.

In fact, here atThe Blog Coach, I’ll be providing help and advice in response to a whole raft of questions from people including:

those already blogging who are looking for new ideas, hints and recommendations to take it to the next level
people looking for additional ideas on how to promote the blog and improve their Search Engine optimisation
those looking for ways in which it can work better with the other social media tools and techniques which are available
organisations wanting to learn how to improve its use for their business and attracting more customers.

In addition to the articles and advice, there are also a series of services which I offer either to create for you a blog which will fulfil the role you want it to and others where you can get the help and consultancy individually at the pace you want to help you develop you own blog and get the most out of it.

But for now, we have the opportunity to ask anything you want and I’ll try to answer it in a blog post over the coming weeks. Just send an email to mark@theblogcoach.co.uk

It’s good to be back sharing information here so do get in touch, ask those questions you’ve been wanting to and share your own experiences here with others! I look forward to chatting wih you!

Check out Better Business Blogging

The Blog Coach — Thu, 03 May 2007 09:52:37 +0000

I wanted to let you know that, for the time being, I will not be updating The Blog Coach site with further articles and posts. The arrival of my first child has meant that I don’t think that I can maintain two blogs in the manner that I want at this time with everything else that is going on.

Instead I will be focussing on the Better Business Blogging site where you will still be able to keep up to date with the advice, tips, thoughts etc. on blogging and new media that would have appeared on these pages.

You will also be able to find me on the BT Broadband Office blog where I will be writing on the use of blogging as a marketing and business tool for small and medium sized businesses.

I hope to be able to return to posting here at some point but, as I say, if you come over to Better Business Blogging then I’ll make sure that you’re kept up to date on that!

In the meantime, thanks for reading and participating and see you over at BBB.

Blogging in the News – w/e 11 February

Thinking of starting a business blog? Consider this …

The Blog Coach — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 22:50:10 +0000

It doesn’t matter whether you are a small business, an independent entrepreneur or a large corporate organisation, when you are looking at starting a Business Blog, there are going to be some key elements that you need to look at if you want to give it the best possible chance for success.

While the specific requirements will vary according to the goals and expectations, you should be able to answer the following questions from the start:

a) What do you want to do with your Business Blog?
It’s really important that you have a clear idea from the start of what you want to do with your Business Blog – this will help it to have the focus that will benefit it with both readers and search engines alike. The more focused it is, the more successful it is likely to be.

b) Who is your target audience for your Business Blog?
Avoid trying to make it “all things to all people” – it’s just not possible. It’s all about focus again and so decide on who your target audience is and then write the blog for them with content they’ll be interested in and a style that they will warm to.

c) What results are you looking to achieve?
It’s all well and good for me to say that you should be considering these elements if you want your blog to be a success, but just what is “a successful blog” for you? What goals do you have for your Business Blog and just as importantly, how are you going to measure them? You will need to show results for the time and effort involved – therefore, from the start, make sure you know what results you are looking for, what criteria you want to work with and how you wish to measure them.

d) How will it integrate with your other marketing activities?
Blogging is an excellent marketing tool. However, it is not a magic wand to cure all marketing ills, so take time and effort to use as well as possible with your other marketing, business development and customer service activities. (Check Marketing and Promoting your Business Blog.

e) What Blogging software to choose?
There are a number of options available, each with their own plus points and negatives – what you need to do is decide which is most appropriate according to the control, customisation or future-proofing you require. Probably the best advice I can give is to choose one which will grow and develop with you as well as fitting with your current business and technical requirements. Free hosted software (such as Blogger) will seldom do this or give you sufficient control, so look at Wordpress (full version) or Typepad as good starter points. [My own preference is for Wordpress.]

f) What to call your Business Blog?
Rule of Thumb: choose something which you are still going to feel comfortable with in a year’s time. Either let it reflect your company and branding, or make sure it contains your keywords … or preferably both. You might like to check some additional ideas on choosing a Business Blog name here.

g) Host it on your website or on a different domain
As a general rule, if it sits comfortably alongside your website and complements the information on it, then integrate it into your website. That will be good for your company both from a branding and a Search Engine point of view. If, on the other hand, you are looking to present an objective view on your industry or want to create a separate identity then a separate domain name would be more appropriate.

h) What domain name or subdirectory name to use?
Try to use something descriptive – if you are using a separate domain, then choose a domain name which either reflects the branding you wish to achieve or contains your main keyword (or preferably both!). If it is a subdirectory then describe the purpose it will be serving such as “Information Centre” for example. Please, please, please … only use “blog” as a name as a last resort!!

i) Look and Feel of the Blog
If you are using it as part of your website, then integrate the look and feel with the rest of the site. There is absolutely no need for your visitors to know that they are on a blog – and of course they really won’t care! Remember it’s the benefits that blogs offer that is important, not the technology. If it is on a separate domain, then design your Business Blog with the image you want to portray but don’t use the default template that comes with your blog software. Default template = zero differentiation!

With all of these elements in place then you are starting off on the right track and should have the foundations in place to create a successful Business Blog. By doing so, you will find that it will save you a lot of time and inconvenience in the future and will make the blog that much more effective in achieving your business goals.

Business Blog Design: Navigation & using your Content

The Blog Coach — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:36:20 +0000

Making it easy for readers to get around your blog is essential – it’s also very sensible. You put a lot of time and effort into writing your posts, so you want to make sure that they can be found easily and any associated information also highlighted to your blog readers.

If you have special elements – these could be promotions, services, products, giveaways etc. – that you are looking to highlight, then these should be positioned accordingly at the top of your blog, above the fold. This will make these elements easy to locate and additional variations to the blog, as they will no doubt vary over time as your business priorities change.

However, the rest of your content also needs to be shown off to best effect! The main methods will be via the individual categories and the archives and, from personal experience, the categories which will be most frequently used, so make sure that they are prominently positioned.

There are some other ways and means that you can include to help encourage people to explore your blog further and therefore allow you to gain maximum benefit from the time that you invested in your posts. Some that you might like to consider are:

Link to other posts on your blog which contain information related to the post that they are currently reading – they are clearly interested in the topic, so help them find more details about it. In Wordpress, you can do this with a plug-in called Related Posts.

Links in your posts

Within your posts, reference other posts on your blog so that you make it easy for people to find them. Just as you should reference other people’s blogs in your posts as sources of additional information, there’s no harm in referencing your own as well.

Key posts

You probably have set of key posts (which I call Foundation posts) and which contain information that is key to your services and your business in general – so highlight them, perhaps by creating a list under the heading of “Key information”. If you can’t specifically identify ones, then check your stats package for the posts that attract the most hits or appear most prominently in the Search Engines and then highlight them.

Most Popular posts

Check which posts attract most comments or which have the most visitors (again a plug-in can help Wordpress users here) and make sure that they are highlighted so that more people can read and share them. The sidebar is a good place to create this list although you could alternatively make a special page.

Show Categories in the Post headers

Include the names of the categories that the post appears in alongside the title or at the bottom of the post. It will help people to find other posts which are related and that you have categorised in the same way.

By using these methods, you are giving additional value to your readers by helping them find further information that is relevant to them – at the same time, you are of course promoting more of your own content and so helping the marketing of your blog. As an added bonus, you are also extending the internal linking within your blog which the Search Engines will be pleased to use and give you an extra “plus point” for.

Professional Services Companies: blog well and prosper

The Blog Coach — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 22:25:14 +0000

Business blogs are an excellent business marketing tool for professional services companies. In fact, organisations such as consultants, lawyers and accountants are some of the best placed groups of professionals to capitalise on the key marketing and business development benefits that blogs can offer.

Since business blogs can be both quickly and easily updated, and because they are inherently interactive, they provide the perfect medium both to display expertise and to help to start a relationship with clients. The additional benefits such as a more prominent profile with Search Engines is a clearly a plus but the ability to clearly demonstrate what you can do and the knowledge and experience that you can bring to a client’s situation are critical.

Looking at it from an overall business perspective, some of the main benefits that can be achieved through business blogs are:

Differentiate your business: help to break down the impersonal corporate wall that can surround professional services companies and provide a personal face to what you do. The knowledge and expertise that you bring is of course, but who you are and your personality are also key to a successful commercial relationship, as well as being critical branding elements and business tools – so USE them!
Educational Marketing approach: use the developing content of your blog to show your potential customers what you can do. This is a much more powerful approach than traditional direct selling methods and it will help to build better relationships with your marketplace. It will also help you to become a “partner” rather than simply a “supplier”.
Demonstrate your Expertise: as you offer a specialist service, then gaining recognition as an expert in a certain field and being able to demonstrate real credibility is hugely beneficial. A blog can act as a shop window to these skills and is doubly effective if it is THE place to go for information in a specific niche. Using the internet for research, potential customers will certainly find the information they are looking for – so make sure that they find it on YOUR blog!
Interact with your marketplace: open up the services that you offer and the benefits they provide by letting people interact with you by commenting on your articles, case studies or news releases. When your service offering is strong, then the more that people know about you and have the chance to talk with you, the better your situation will be.
Knowledge Leadership: when people are interested in what you are writing about, they will want to hear more and will recommend you to others. By expressing your ideas and thoughts openly you will encourage this and help position yourself as a leading exponent in your field. But to be considered a leading light in your area, first you need to communicate your ideas with others.

There is still a reticence on the part of companies and individuals alike to open up and share more about what they can do – they prefer to keep that under wraps until a contract is signed or reveal parts only behind closed doors.

In today’s environment where information is readily available, the likelihood is that there will be many others in the marketplace offering similar services to you. To ensure that customers find you first, it is critical to broadcast the knowledge you have – the greater the level of quality information that you share, the greater the chance of being found and your services being demanded.

Your blog can help you to achieve just that.

Business Blog Design: Profile and Contact Details

The Blog Coach — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:00:27 +0000

While I’ve written on this subject before, I feel that it is worthy of inclusion again as part of the Business Blog Design series.

It’s all about communication!

When we talk to someone face to face, either at a personal or business level, there will be a point when the conversation turns to questions such as “what do you do?”, “where are you from?” or something akin to “what team do you support?”. Why? Because we are interested in knowing more about the people that we deal with – it’s in our nature.

In the same way, blogs are really all about communication too, as well as interaction and conversation. Personal blogs approach this with certain goals in mind – getting in touch with people with common interests or just wanting “to be heard” for example – while companies using business blogs have a different agenda and may be looking to generate trust, differentiate themselves and ultimately develop additional business.

In both cases, you need to make sure that people can find out more about you … and also find you! When you are reading a business blog and find what is being said interesting, it can be very frustrating if you want to contact the person or find out where they are based only to discover that that little (but crucial) bit of information is nowhere to be seen. Not only is this frustrating but it can also be damaging from a business point of view too!

Make your details easy to find

So make sure that you provide your readers with a clear way of finding out about the person who is writing the blog and who they are communicating with. They’ll already have a good idea but what you write and how you write it but help them on their way – always remember to put up a profile up on your Business Blog as well as a way for your readers to get in touch with you, though of course those can be on the same page.

If you prefer to include your details as part of your sidebar then keep it short and sweet – that’s part of your “prime real estate” that we talked about in the original post so you’ll have lots of business specific stuff that you also want to be highly visible there. I personally prefer a link through to a separate page where you have a little more space to include whatever details seem appropriate to you. And a photo … always remember a photo! Most of us work visually, so that help your readers picture you, even if you’re not totally comfortable with it like me.

What to include?

Some profiles will focus on past work and experience ( no CVS though, please), others will have more of a current focus and outline future plans. What ever you put there, try to make it personal though and don’t forget that picture as well! Remember that from a networking perspective, your Business Blog acts as the hub at the centre of that network – people are therefore going to be interested in the “real you” and what makes you tick so give them some insights into the person behind the Blog.

You also want people to be able to contact you. They can do this by posting comments on your blog, but they may also want to get in contact with you directly. So, make sure that you also have your contact details on your blog, either as part of your profile or in a separate section – or both!

Don’t forget your legal obligations

Finally, in Europe at least, a new law which came into force at the beginning of 2007 requires that emails and websites (and hence blogs) to display certain details about the company and/or individual that is writing them so make sure that you comply if necessary. There’s more information about this here.

Make sure that your profile and your contact details are clearly visible on your Blog – make it easy for others to find out more about you and contact you!

Blogging in the News – w/e 25 February 2007

The Blog Coach — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 21:21:06 +0000

Some articles which have appeared in the UK online press over the past week which looks at blogging (primarily business blogging) and its uses. If you find any good articles that could be highlighted here, then please post the links below or send them to me directly at news[at]theblogcoach[dot]co[dot]uk and I’ll do the rest.

Should PR try to “sway” online opinion?

talks about another product aimed at monitoring brand mentions in blogs and other social media. Key thing to take on board though the price tag on this product is only for the bigger players, one feels.

Best of Brit Blog Awards 2007

announced by Metro which is jointly sponsoring them this year. But, horror or horrors, no Business Blog category!! What is the world coming to … will they never learn … oh dear …!

Irish Blog Awards attracts international voters

in contrast to the Brit Awards and across a wide range of categories which encompasses a whole range of areas … including Business Blogs!! [Have I got the message across yet?]

Top 10 Marketing Blogs

A nice run through of some excellent marketing based blogs, some of which may take your fancy.

Lufthansa supports blog program

shows how advertising on blogs is taking off (sorry!) in the mainstream press as larger companies consider their benefits.

LIVE BLOG: Ireland vs. England

Not exactly a business blog but a nice use for one and a clear demonstration of the immediate publishing ability that it offers businesses. Pity about the result of the match though!

Great post titles give great reader figures

The Blog Coach — Sat, 24 Feb 2007 21:02:57 +0000

As you sit down and write the next post on your business blog, you’ll no doubt have a clear idea of what you want to communicate and hopefully how you want to do it. Nevertheless, unless you can entice people to read this latest offering, then all your hard work will be in vain, so take care with the title you use for the post as it plays a key role in that process.

Why are Post Titles important?

Well, they’re important in the same way that a newspaper headline is – they attract our attention, offer an insight or a “teaser” as to what the post contains and hopefully encourage us to read the full article. With the huge amount of information that we have nowadays, it is so important to grab people’s attention in the short space of time that we are given before they move on to something else … and generally we only have the post title at our disposal to achieve this.

However, there is an added complication. We need to remember that we are in fact trying to attract the attention of two groups: readers (or should I clarify by saying ‘human readers’) and Search Engines.

If they both reacted in the same way to words then things would be easy, if a little boring. However, they don’t and nor are they attracted by the same things. While human readers are attracted by humour, nuance, plays on words as well as information, Search Engines are attracted purely by the words which we provide.

Where do we see the titles?

However, we also have to bear in mind what people actually see in different situations and places – bear with me here, it’s important! The first obvious place is on your blog itself – at the top of your post is the title which will hopefully inspire you to read the post below it. Nevertheless, you are already on the blog, so in some ways the battle is already half won!

The title of your post also appears in the main Blog Search Engines such as Technorati or Google Blog Search and in the RSS Feeds that people receive in their readers. As people browse here, then the title is critical in attracting their attention as they skim through the articles on offer. The more information that we all try to process in as short a space of time as possible then the less time we’ll have to attract attention and the more critical it will become.

Post Titles and Title Tags

However, when it come to the main Search Engines, things are slightly different. What appears on the results pages of Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo is not actually the title of your post but the “Title Tag”. This is distinct from your post title and something which you can control separately. The “Title Tag” is doubly important because it is an important element that the main Search Engines look at when ranking pages – they do take note of the title of your post, but they take much more interest in the “Title Tag”.

So which way to go? My own preference is to keep the title interesting without making it too cryptic, and I always try to include the main keyword for the article. In addition, I make sure that, where necessary, I modify the “Title Tag” to ensure that that is keyword rich. (More details in my SEO series on Better Business Blogging and a great Wordpress plug-in from Stephen Spencer to help you).

In other words, I try to appeal to both audiences. You are best placed to know what will appeal to your readers and you can guess that, for Search Engines, the principal keyword phrases for the post are going to be key. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to combine both as well as you can.

This you have to read

So where to find more information about titles, headlines and how to write them? Well, if you only go to one place, then head on over to Copyblogger’s posts on Magnetic Headlines. Highly recommended!

Spotlight on Irish Blogs: Irish Blog Awards finalists

The Blog Coach — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 19:51:15 +0000

In a slight change to the normal Friday fare of putting the spotlight on UK Blogs, here I am passing on a list of the Irish Blog Award finalists for your delight and delectation.

This year, as I have already written, I am particularly chuffed because two of the finalists in the Best Business Blog category are businesses that I have worked with and so I am naturally very pleased to see that they are so highly recognsied here. While I haven’t included all categories (I do after all focus on Business Blogs and their benefits), I have included as many as possible.

I hope that all the finalists – and indeed everyone else who goes along – has a great night at the Irish Blog Awards night!

Best Business Blog

Best Blog

Best Blog Post

Best Political Blog

Best Group Blog

Best Technology Blog/Blogger

Best Designed Blog

Best News/Current Affairs Blog

Best Specialist Blog

Best Newcomer

Best Podcaster

Best Podcast

An Lionra – 06 12 06
Arseblog – Episode 1
IT@Cork – Eddie Hobbs
Letter to America – The Irish Blog Awards Podcast
Oldbones – The Favour
Twenty Major – Scientology