Blog Coach - Blogging Consultant » Business Blogs

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.

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!

Use Graphics: make people want to read your Blog

The Blog Coach — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:54:41 +0000

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:

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.

Blogging in the News – w/e 18 February 2007

The Blog Coach — Sun, 18 Feb 2007 21:52:31 +0000

Well, as the TV people would probably say, this is now back to its normal Sunday evening slot. So, without further ado, here are some UK based news articles on blogging which have graced the media this week.

Forrester Research report identifies blog strengths for marketers

which focuses on the ROI of Blogging which is a subject that taxes us all. I have a couple of posts coming up on the subject for my corporate readers which I hope will be of interest.

UK consultancy calls for training and HR companies to start blogging

is an appeal that I am not likely to disagree with from Righttrack. “A communication and community-building tool”, you say? Spot on again.

I blog, therefore I am £70,000 richer

Not what you might exactly call a business blog but clearly a way to attract publishers with your writing and do that book deal you’ve often dreamed of. Solopreneurs take note – a blog is a great way of spreading the word on that book or indeed getting a deal to write one!

Analysis: the future of user-generated content

is a predominantly MySpace based article on what will undoubtedly be the growing area of user generated content online and a subject which includes the area of blogging and the business side that it embraces.

Web offers dream of riches

has the Financial Times reporting on the rise of Personal Finance blogs in the UK. A lot seem to err on the side of “personal” rather than “business” blogs (and some just seem to err, to be honest) but its clearly a growing area and business related so takes its place here.

Famous Cartoonist and “UK’s Most Influential Blogger” Dupes Tesco Into Helping him Find a Dream Date for Valentine’s Day

is nice twist of a Press Release for Stormhoek but I love the way Hugh McLeod (he of Gaping Void fame) does it, hence the mention.

Linking to other blogs: business benefits

The Blog Coach — Thu, 15 Feb 2007 21:25:11 +0000

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.

Generating Ideas for your Business Blog posts

The Blog Coach — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 21:15:45 +0000

In the early stages of writing their business blog, I find that a lot of people often worry about how they will find topics to write about. Don’t! I can guarantee that this will not be a problem. You know your subject inside out (or else the likelihood is that you wouldn’t be writing about it) and so you’ll find your main task will be picking the right topics for your readers.

For me, there are two main sources of ideas: you and everyone else.

Blog Post Ideas – You

You want to make sure that you capture all the ideas that come to you and personally I use a nice and easy solution for this: I keep a notebook with me at all times. Why? So that I can note down ideas that occur to me during the course of the day – and, believe me, they can come at the weirdest moments. They could be triggered by any event, by something that I see which sparks a connection or by a comment that somebody makes to me. I note down the idea and any associated thoughts that crop up at the time and then I go back, review and use these ideas as and when I need to.

Blog Post Ideas – Everyone Else

When it comes to “everyone else”, the best people to take ideas from are your customers, your prospects and your partners – these are all the sorts of people who are likely to ask those questions which others would benefit from as well, so can be a great source of inspiration.

So, make a note of the main ones and make a point of talking about them on your blog. Treat it in the same way as you would when you take questions from the audience during a presentation – that’s to say, repeat the question that has been asked so that the rest of the audience can hear and then go ahead and answer it.

Do the same in your blog – you will be providing information which will answer relevant and real questions that should help your customers use your product better and help your prospects to understand its potential better.

So that you have this resource developing on an ongoing basis, I suggest that:

you keep a folder in your email system and make a copy of both the question you receive and the response you send back – this will in itself form the basis of your business blog post;
after meetings with clients, prospects or suppliers, note down some of the key questions that they asked and which were clearly on interest to them;
at Conferences and Exhibitions, keep a record of the questions or the areas that visitors to your stand keep asking about and are showing most interest in.

You’ll soon find that you have topics for your posts planned out well in advance and as you write the posts, you will hopefully also start to receive comments which will start to take the discussions and questions in other directions as well.