Great post titles give great reader figures

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

The Blog Coach and the Irish Blog Awards

Well, I am very pleased to say that two of the blogs which have made the short list for Best Business Blog in the Irish Blog Awards 2007 come from organisations which The Blog Coach has been working with over recent months.

Two very different sites as well and it’s nice to see that they have been so well received after all the hard work put in by Krishna De and Ann Greene who write and run them.

Biz Growth News – Krishna De

A traditional blog in terms of format, though one that is absolutely full of information for a business looking for ideas and new information about anything and everything to do with developing business and building a brand online and offline. Podcasts, webinars and offline seminars as well as the blog itself and yet that is still only scratching the surface of what Krishna offers.

In March, we’ll be looking in a little more detail at the thought processes that went on in terms of the modifications and the implementation of the final result that you see now. However, as you read the posts, you will see that all that this does is complement the great content that Krishna provides. A blog which just cries out to be in your RSS reader!

Allagi Consulting – Ann Greene

This is a full Blogsite (that’s to say a complete website including a blog which is all built using Blog software) which has given Ann Greene, who runs Allagi Consulting, total control over the whole of the site in terms of being able to add and change content as she requires, as well as the ability to add pages and so grow the site when she needs to – with little to no intervention from anyone, including me.

The site also incorporates the Allagi Blog which Ann uses to great effect to look at her specialist area of expertise of team building and team development. Although it’s still in its infancy, the blog was already considered worthy of a place in the shortlist and you can’t say fairer that that!

Do check out both blogs and I wish them both the best of luck in the final which will be announced at the Awards Dinner on March 3rd. In the meantime, so as you don’t miss any, I will be listing the nominees in the main categories in a special version of Spotlight on UK Blogs (in this case Spotlight on Irish Award Blogs) this Friday.

Keyword phrase selection: some helpful tools

You should always write first and foremost for your readers – that is a rule which is key to achieving a successful blog. However, a blog is also an important tool in getting good rankings in the Search Engines for keyword phrases which are important to us and our businesses.

We know that identifying the best keyword phrases is going to be key to our efforts to get better rankings through Search Engine Optimisation. This will allow us to focus our articles at areas which we know will appeal bot to our readers and to the Search Engines at the same time. It can also help to achieve a more comprehensive coverage in our chosen area by identifying keyword phrases in adjacent areas that are relevant to what we offer.

To help in this task and find the best keyword phrases, there are a number of tools available to help us achieve this and a lot of them are free!

Here are ones that I have looked at and consider worthwhile.

WordTracker
Probably the best known tool in the field and self styled “Leading Keyword Research Tool”. It is charged for, although there is a limited free trial, but it is also very complete in what it offers across a number of Search Engines.

Google AdWords: Keyword Tool
Gives ideas for new keywords associated with your target phrase but does not indicate relevance or give details of number or frequency of searches

Overture Keyword Selector Tool
Returns details of how many searches have been carried out in the Overture engine over the period of a month and allows a drill down into associated keywords containing your keyword phrase as well.

NicheBot
NicheBot has a mix of Wordtracker and Overture based tools as well as a nice keyword analysis tool which focuses on Google’s results

Digital Point Keyword Suggestion Tool
One of a set of tools available at the Digital Point website – this engine gives search numbers on keywords from Wordtracker and Overture sources

In addition to these, although some of the keyword tools mentioned above already include it, I would also recommend taking a look through a Thesaurus (online or paperback) to open up other avenues. Sometimes you just can’t beat going back to basics!

Will Google and Yahoo find my Blog?

Question

Does my blog only show up in Blog Search Engines like Technorati or will it also be found on Google, Yahoo and MSN?

The Blog Coach replies:

When they first start to run a Business Blog and learn about the Blog Search Engines, some people worry that blogs will only appear in these blog specific Search Engines and not in the mainstream ones. This is absolutely not true.

A Blog at the end of the day is a website which has certain special characteristics – therefore, it will certainly appear in the main Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. In fact, blogs are much more likely to rank highly in

The Blog Coach and why hire a Blogging Consultant

My eye was drawn earlier this week by a post over at Blog Business Summit called Why hire a Blogging Consultant. Professional interest or in search of justification for what I do?

Definitely professional interest.

While it is an interesting overview, I think that it skims over the business side of what a blogging consultant should be able to offer and focuses too much on simply their knowledge of the Blogosphere. Certainly that’s important, as is the passion – you have to know how things work and why they work before you can start to apply them to a business situation.

But you also need to understand the business requirements of the companies you work with, their customers and their other marketing activities if you want to truely integrate a blog and really add value. You should feel comfortable working with both the marketing and technical teams (as well as the general management) with larger clients, and potentially be able to provide both of these roles yourself with smaller clients.

What I did like was the split that was made, between why set up a blog and how to do it so that it really works for your business. In the conferences they are running, they are focusing on the “how” rather than the “why”. I have no doubt that in the US, this is the right way to go.

However, in the UK, we are very clearly in a situation where we need both – the majority of companies are still at a stage where they are learning what blogs can offer them and why they should be considering them. However, there are also a growing number who have identified where they can be applied and now require help and direction in achieving that.

It is for this reason that I now run two blogs aimed at helping companies with their Business Blogging and the split between “Why” and “How” seems like a good one.

• Why set up a blog? – Better Business Blogging will be looking primarily at these aspects by focusing in on the range of business uses/applications of a blog and the issues in business and corporate blogging;
• How to do it? – The Blog Coach will aim to address the need for specific advice on the implementation, development and marketing of blogs as well as offering services and workshops to help businesses achieve this.

As you might imagine, there will be overlap between the two areas as one flows into the other but the differentiation is a good starting point.

So, why work with a Blog Consultant or, dare I say, a Blog Coach? Well, certainly for the understanding of how the blogosphere works and what works best, but also for the ability to apply that knowledge by getting to the heart of your business and ensuring it will produce the best results for you and your customers.