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.

Related posts:

1. Business Blog Design: Navigation & using your Content

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!

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1. The Blog Coach: new and improved
2. Generating Ideas for your Business Blog posts
3. Generating yet more ideas for your Business Blog

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.

Related posts:

1. The Blog Coach and why hire a Blogging Consultant
2. Linking to other blogs: business benefits
3. The Blog Coach returns

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!

Related posts:

1. Your Profile and contact details
2. Business Blog Design: Navigation & using your Content

When you are starting a blog for your business, it can be all too easy to get carried away, rush into setting up a half baked blog and start writing immediately. If you are in this situation then try employing the Green Cross Code of Business Blogging. I first wrote about this idea at Better Business Blogging but I think that the message is so important that it warrants a reposting here with some additional commentary.

Stop! Wait, don’t rush into writing your blog immediately, you need to plan first and decide the focus of your blog.

Look at some established blogs and see how others go about it. Make sure you read some of these to get a better feel for blogging from those already doing it.

“Listen” to the conversations going on in the blogosphere and to what people are saying in their posts, as well as to as much good advice as you can get.

Think about what you have read and take the time to plan your blog in terms of what you want to say and to whom, as well as in terms of your overall goals for it.

Finally, start to blog with all of these elements in mind but make sure you keep reading other blogs, listening to new ideas and thinking how to develop your blog.

To make a success of a blog, you need to spend time planning a variety of elements on your Blog as you start to develop it, and crucially you should also spend time looking at what is being written about and listening what is being said, before you put “pen to paper” on your first post.

I recognise that there are advocates of a more immediate approach – that of simply starting to blog and gaining experience by actually writing one. I can see the advantages of that and of not falling into the trap of “paralysis by analysis” (ie thinking about it for so long that you don’t actually ever do anything).

But I also know that whatever you write while “gaining experience” will still reflect on you and your business and that once it is out on the internet, then there is no easy way to withdraw it. By taking the time to plan and to read what others are writing about, you will gain confidence when you start to post as well as having a framework to work with – remember that when you start blogging, it is the equivalent of entering an enormous noisy stadium full of people talking rather than sitting down to a quiet one-to-one dinner. It can be intimidating so it’s good to be as comfortable as possible when you start.

So, taking it back to basics, to make sure that you start blogging with confidence, I recommend that when you start your business blog, you follow the Green Cross Code of Business Blogging:

Related posts:

1. Using Technorati to research your future Blog or your Market
2. Generating yet more ideas for your Business Blog
3. Starting to write your Business Blog

We will be looking at all aspects of blogging from the planning and design of blogs and blogsites which deliver on their business objectives, through to their marketing and ongoing development. In all cases, the focus will be firmly focused on the business aspect – not in terms of monetising your blog with adverts and the like, but in using a blog to develop business for your company.

The Blog Coach blogsite is designed and aimed at three main groups:

• corporates, small business and solopreneurs which are either planning or merely thinking about setting up a business blog to work for their businesses;
• those companies looking for ways to develop and/or market a blog which they have already set up for their business;
• anyone interested in understanding more about how to use the Social Media Marketing Toolkit they have at their disposal.

While it isn’t specifically aimed at experienced individual bloggers, I hope that The Blog Coach will be able to offer you something as well and I would welcome comments and feedback from you so that it can be shared with others.

In addition to the main categories which will help you identify areas of particular interest, there are also some guiding categories which will help to give focus to the posts. These will be:

• Planning and Setting up a Blog
• Writing and Developing your Blog
• Business Blog Marketing
• Blogging for your Business
• Corporate Blogging
• New Media / Social Media Marketing Toolkit

Although it will be aimed at and looking at the use of blogging in business sense and how to make it work for you, I hope that people running individual blogs will certainly gain from some of the sections.

So, whatever stage you are at with your Business Blogging, I invite you to dip in on a regular basis – to make that as easy as possible, why not add The Blog Coach to your favourite RSS Reader as well? Hopefully you’ll find the areas that we’re going to be discussing useful as well as interesting, and that you’ll feel the urge to join in!

I look forward to hearing from you.

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1. The Blog Coach returns
2. The Blog Coach is spotted!
3. The Blog Coach and why hire a Blogging Consultant