Thinking of starting a business blog? Consider this …

March 13, 2007 by The Blog Coach | Comments (6)
Filed under Setting up your Blog, Blog Marketing Tips, Corporate Blogging, Business Blogging

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.

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Tags: Starting a Blog, Business Blogging, Corporate Blogs, Blog Design, Blog Focus, Naming your Blog, Domain Names, Blog Appraisal, Blog software, Typepad, Wordpress, Blogger,

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Great post titles give great reader figures

February 24, 2007 by The Blog Coach | Comments (2)
Filed under Writing your Blog, Marketing your Blog, Blog Marketing Tips, SEO for Blogs

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!

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Tags: Business Blogs, Writing a Blog, Writing Blog Posts, CopyBlogger, Headlines, Title Tags, SEO Blogs, Search Engines

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Use Graphics: make people want to read your Blog

February 19, 2007 by The Blog Coach | Comments (1)
Filed under Setting up your Blog, Blogging Basics, Business Blog Design, Blog Marketing Tips, Business Blogging

There is a lot of talk about what you write on your blog being all important (and it is!) – as you can imagine, this is going to be an area that we will be coming back to on a regular basis here at The Blog Coach.

However, it’s also important to make sure that the look and feel of the overall blog (including the individual posts) both support and promote the information that it provides. In fact, through careful use of graphics, we can influence the way in which people react to our blog and make it as easy as possible for them to take on board what we are writing about.

Make your Blog stand out from the crowd

The way your blog is presented also plays a key role in differentiating not only your blog, but also you and your business. After all, that‘s what we are looking to achieve in business, being noticed – so, any way which helps us to stand out from our competitors has to be positive.

I don’t know about you, but when I see blogs which, for example, run Wordpress but just use the basic template - you know the one with the blue box at the top – my first reaction is that there can’t be anything of value there. In fact, I probably write it off as a “splog” (spam blog).

Irrational and quite possibly untrue. Nevertheless I just think that someone who cannot be bothered to spend a bit of effort (or a few pounds) to “spruce up” their blog probably hasn’t spent much time on the content either. Others have told me that I’m not alone in this respect. So spend a little time on the design of your blog and your posts, and help the information that you are carefully putting together get read.

Caveat: try not to get too carried away. Remember that any graphics you include should not be there to distract your readers but rather to help them focus on the information and ideally encourage them to comment.

Some Graphics Sites to try

So where can I find good images to support the information in my blog, I hear you ask! Well, at one end of the spectrum, there are the files that come free with programs such as PowerPoint which offer both clipart and some photos which can be used.

However, these can often be a little bit ‘samey’ or not in keeping with what you want to communicate with your blog. There are, however, a number of excellent sites where you can find quality images covering a whole range of topics. Most of the good stock photos sites charge a small fee now, but the images are well worth it if you choose carefully.

Some sites worth a look are:

• www.dreamstime.com
• www.istockphoto.com
• www.bigstockphoto.com
• www.123rf.com
• www.canstockphoto.com
• www.sxc.hu
• www.fotolia.co.uk
• www.stockxpert.com

A word of caution: as with all images that you use off the net, do make sure that you follow any copyright requirements – the last think you want is to have issues with companies claiming ownership of images which you have used legitimately.

Other ways to break up posts

In addition to the use of images, there are of course many other ways in which you can help to make a blog more readable. Some you might like to consider are:

• break up the posts into manageable chunks
• keep paragraphs shorter than you might do in a written document
• use subheadings so that people can skim to the place and the information they want if required (better than them leaving the blog)
• use bullets where appropriate or indeed create a whole blog comprising of a list - while I’m personally not a great fan of these posts, they do work well

If you mix in some of these and incorporate images which help your blog’s look and feel, then you’ll be taking a big step towards encouraging people to read your blog and take on board the information that the posts contain.

Then of course, it’s just a case of writing something valuable …!

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Tags: Business blogs, Graphics in Blogs, Business Blog Design, Corporate Blogs, Blog Look and Feel, Blog Marketing

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Linking to other blogs: business benefits

February 15, 2007 by The Blog Coach | Leave a Comment
Filed under Writing your Blog, Blogging Strategy, Blog Marketing Tips, Business Blogging

Linking is part and parcel of blogging … and it’s an important part of it as well. The blogosphere thrives on links & connections and those blogs which create those outbound links will tend to thrive with it.

Put simply, linking out is good – good for your blog and good for your business.

As you link to others, you strengthen your own position. Partly because you are validating and supporting the content of your posts but also because you are developing a repository of information which will benefit the readers who are attracted to your blog.

In fact, there are lots of positive reasons for linking to other blogs and sites which I tend to categorise as follows:

Informing your readers and Supporting your posts

Links are probably the sincerest way of recommending other blogs as valuable sources of information - you are effectively giving them a big thumbs up. Equally, they are an important way of providing reference sources to support and corroborate the arguments or assertions you are making in your own posts.

Business & Blog Promotion

By linking out, you will also be spreading the word about your own blog. If you use trackbacks to the sites you link to, then you’ll appear in the comments section of the post you’re referring to, giving more people the chance to find your blog. Owners of blogs are also generally interested in who’s referencing them, so you’ll often get a visit from them, and hopefully they’ll like what they find!

Developing Reputation and Creating Value

You will get more readers using your blog as the start point for their research, primarily because they trust the information and the links that you provide – effectively, in your area of specialism, you act as their online directory and general resource. For them, you become THE person to go to.

Creating Community & Networking

By linking to other sources, you are creating a mini resource in your area of expertise – this in turn can start to generate a community or network of readers using it with you and your blog at its centre. The links you provide help your readers to learn more about the subject and direct them to discussions going on elsewhere. Essentially your blog becomes the place where your readers know they can get up to date information on issues that they consider to be important.

Two good posts on the subject and, just to prove that it works, I found one through a link posted in the other:

Kevin Keefe writing on Lexblog gives a clear example and some no nonsense commentary of why linking to competitors is smart from his perspective in the Legal blogging arena. However, the lessons he outlines are equally relevant in any business sector.

Brian Clark at Copyblogger picks up on this in Why Linking to other blogs is essential and extends the argument slightly further. I tend to prefer Brian’s use of the word “essential” rather than just “smart” to describe linking (though both are valid) but either way the message is the same. Linking out is good for your blog and good for your business.

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Tags: Business Blogs, Blog marketing, Linking Blogs, Blogosphere, CopyBlogger, LexBlog, Blawg, Corporate Blogs

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