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You’ve even read articles (here) about why you should have a blog. And these articles make sense and spell out the benefits that a blog can provide in terms of helping you market yourself on the web. But how do you get started? If you’re ready to pull the trigger, what are the things you need to consider so that your blog is not set up for failure?

Let’s break this process down into three key considerations: developing your blog content strategy, blog setup and ongoing content development. Ready to dig in?

Your Blog Content Strategy

Before you dive head first into the blogosphere, it’s vital to think through the overall marketing strategy of your organization and translate that into a blog content strategy. Ask yourself these questions:

• Who is your ideal buyer?
• What are their needs/pain points as they relate to your offering?
• What types of content would they find most valuable?
• In which formats should your content be created (written word, video, audio, all of the above)?
• Which words or phrases would they use when searching for your offering online?
• Do you have the capabilities to create this content in-house?

With these questions answered, spend some time brainstorming content topics and ideas that fall in line with your buyer’s informational needs. Your goal should be to consistently and frequently provide content that will attract buyers/influencers and move them to the next step in their buying process, which may be a phone call to you.

Blog Setup

The first question you need to ask yourself here is whether your blog will be seamlessly integrated within an existing website, or will this be a separate entity that you are starting from scratch. For most companies, it’s recommended that your blog be seamless with your website. This scenario typically requires programming assistance, but if you are building your entire website on a blogging platform (ex: WordPress), programming assistance might not be required.

Important note: Search engines love blogs. The backend structure of blog websites is very search-engine friendly and the content you post is like food for search engine spiders. If you keep feeding them good food, they’ll reward you with higher search engine rankings. But there’s a caveat to this. Housing a blog on your website domain (ex: www.YourSite.com/blog) ensures that your website is getting the credit for feeding the spiders, thus higher rankings. If your company blog is hosted on a blog platform (ex: yourcompany.wordpress.com) separately from your company website, the search engines won’t put two and two together and you won’t get much credit for the food (content) you’re dishing out.

Another piece of blog setup is your blog’s design and layout. Design/brand consistency is always important and you don’t want new blog visitors feeling like they just jumped out of the trunk of a car and have no idea where they are. Try to incorporate your brand image into your blog design as much as you can and if you have the budget, hire a designer to create a custom theme that integrates your brand seamlessly. If you’re starting from scratch, there are also some amazing, inexpensive, pre-designed themes out there that can provide a high-end look for chump change.

Best Practices / Things to Avoid

As blogs and the practice of blogging have matured, several best practices have developed relating to the setup, usability and function of blogs. Here are a few to remember:

• Make sure to provide interested readers with both RSS AND e-mail subscription options.
• Create topic-based categories for your blog content so visitors can quickly locate the blog posts that match their informational needs.
• Offer content sharing mechanisms that allow visitors to share your content via e-mail, social networking sites and social bookmarking tools.
• Include links to your own social media profiles to build your network of followers.
• Include links to your most popular blog posts so that visitors can see your best stuff.

Ongoing Content Development

Can’t think of anything to blog about? Step out of your box and listen to your marketplace. Engaging in and monitoring the social media realm is great for content inspiration. Subscribe to industry blogs. Follow industry experts on Twitter. Identify online forums and groups that might be the virtual stomping grounds of your buyers. Take note of the questions they ask or the comments they make related to your offering.

If you’re still struggling, try this exercise. Keep a notepad next to your phone. After every prospect or client phone call, jot down the topics you covered during your conversation. At the end of the day, you’ll likely have noted a few common questions/topics that would make great blog topics.

As more and more content ideas develop, write them down! Start an editorial calendar that helps you organize your blogging schedule. Then develop some internal processes and dedicate some time for content development each week.

If you can’t get it done yourself, hire a professional copywriter to help you with content ideas and copywriting. A sit-down session with them once a month may be all you need to knock out several blog posts. Then space the posts out according to your desired frequency.

A Final Word of Advice

This is not an “if-you-build-it-they-will-come” scenario. Don’t expect too much, too soon. Between regular blogging, valuable content, promotion of your content via social media and the search engines, you should see a gradual, steady increase in traffic and opportunities each month. Conversely, as your blogging drops off, you’ll probably see a steady decrease. Keeping an eye on your traffic statistics can be a great motivator!

Here comes the sales pitch…If you need assistance with creating a blog (or a website, or both!) for your company, we’d love to help. Sometimes it feels like that’s all we do these days. Give us a call or submit our inquiry form and we’ll talk through things. No obligations.

• Part 1 – Series Introduction & Personalized Search
• Part 2 – Bounce Rates Will Affect Your Rankings
• Part 3 – Online Conversations (Social Networking) will Foster Offline Connections
• Part 4 – RSS Feeds Will Go Mainstream

Part 5: Got Video?

Video is the fastest-growing form of marketing on the Web. eMarketer estimates that in the next four years marketers’ spending on online video advertising will reach $4.6 billion, more than seven times the amount spent in 2008. And no wonder. Video lets you demonstrate your idea — with action, with humor, with the credibility of a great presenter. Ask yourself: Which would you rather do? Read 5-6 more paragraphs? Or watch a 90-second video that visually explains the topic?

Just in the last two months, I’ve engaged in six video projects with my clients. When you take a minute to think about your business from a video perspective, there is so much sitting right under your noses. For instance, I encouraged a real estate client to do a quick YouTube search on “olathe real estate”. From the quality of the resulting videos, my client was quickly encouraged to undertake his own video effort.

Video Ideas for Small Business

• Introductions – Introducing yourself and your company via video is much more engaging
• Education – Film your next educational seminar or diagram a concept on a whiteboard
• Sales – Record your next sales presentation
• Product Demos – Give prospects a closer look at your products, their features and benefits
• Video Blogging – Instead of writing about the latest industry happenings, mix it up and talk about them on camera.

Low-Quality, Guerrilla-Style Video is the Norm

As the popularity of web cams, hand-held digital video recorders and video-sharing websites like YouTube, Vimeo and Blip.tv has grown, so has the volume of videos created by people with little-to-no video production expertise. Much in the same way the MP3 file format desensitized us for music audio quality, this wave of online video has lowered our standards for video quality. In fact, great content shot in a lower-quality fashion is often perceived as more genuine vs. the same content with professional polish.

Having said that, you still need to understand the basics of video creation, which can go along way in making your viewer’s experience a pleasurable one…

Other Factors to Consider

Several other factors are also pushing marketers to take a serious look at online video.

• A Massive Audience - Just look at traffic numbers…YouTube – 60 million unique visitors/month, Yahoo Video – 23 m/month, Myspace – 16 m/month…The list goes on. If/when you start putting videos out there and they are optimized properly, people will find it and it’s author.
• Quality Website Traffic – Video makes great bait. Fishing in the video-sharing and social-media ponds can be huge for reeling in quality traffic and links to your main website.
• Universal Search Results – With the advent of univeral search, video is going to start gobbling up real estate within search engine results pages (SERPs). For example, a search for your most important keyword might be returning 10 webpages on page one of the SERPs. And your website is currently in the 8th position (page one). But a month from now, three videos find their way onto the first page of results and you find yourself on page 2 in the 11 spot.

Small Barriers to Entry

I think the only barriers to entry for small businesses lie within the perceptions of video quality and technical requirements associated with getting a video on a website. Both of these barriers are almost non-issues these days since average-quality videos can be created easily with modern hand-held video cameras, uploaded to YouTube and immediately embedded into any website with a little snippet of code.

Want video? Learn more about Something Creative’s online video development services for Kansas City small businesses.

• Part 1 – Series Introduction & Personalized Search
• Part 2 – Bounce Rates Will Affect Your Rankings
• Part 3 – Online Conversations (Social Networking) will Foster Offline Connections

Part 4: RSS Feeds Will Go Mainstream

When I give presentations on internet marketing, Web 2.0 and social media, very rarely do I have an audience that understands the concept of RSS (Real Simple Syndication). There might be a few that raise their hands when I ask the RSS question, but even then I notice the worried looks on their faces that say, “Please don’t ask me to explain it.”

According to an October 2008 report from Forrester, consumer adoption of RSS is only 11%, while roughly 50% of the interactive marketing community is using it. I guess it’s pretty safe to attribute this to the tech-savvy nature of internet marketers, but as mainstream marketers and consumers learn about RSS’ many benefits and get more comfortable with the initial set-up requirements, I believe adoption will really take off. So, I’m going to take on a little of the educational burden and try to explain the RSS concept with an analogy of a technology that has seen much more widespread adoption…

RSS Feeds: Like DVR for Your Favorite Websites

RSS is a lot like DVR, but for the web. Just as we record our favorite TV shows on our DVR boxes to watch when our schedules permit, RSS technology delivers the latest content updates from our favorite websites to our RSS reader, a simple aggregator website that displays the updates. You can then pull up your RSS reader at your leisure to read, listen or watch your latest updates from your favorite websites.

On the flip side, your DVR can record any TV show you want, but some websites do not offer RSS feeds and therefore can’t be “recorded” persay. Standard, HTML-based websites typically don’t come equipped with RSS technology, while CMS/database-driven websites, blogs, forums and social networking sites often do. Does your website utilize RSS? Would one of your customers want to get your latest updates on their DVR (RSS reader)?

Getting updates from your “favorite, RSS-capable websites” is just the tip of the iceberg though. RSS-capable websites within your industry or local community may be crawling with sales opportunities. Your competitors may have a popular “TV show” that needs to be monitored. And don’t forget that there are websites popping up everyday that may help you do your job better. The web is wrought with powerful intel and many sites offer RSS feeds. As an added bonus, you can even set up your RSS reader on any web-enabled mobile device.

Stay tuned for a special series I’m writing called “A Small Business Guide to RSS”, which will be published in April. If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to my “Isn’t That Something” blog and receive this upcoming series via e-mail.

Here are a few major factors to think about. Social media websites (blogs, forums, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) are built specifically to enable users to interact. Instead of coffee-shop conversations, people are talking about everything online. From the mundane (what they ate for breakfast), to the more substantive (“I was just in a car accident! Can anyone recommend a good chiropractor?”); opportunities abound for those who are listening.

Depending on your industry, company, product and service, casting your fishing poles into targeted social networking ponds could get you some serious bites. In this case, your “bait” should be genuine participation in conversations and adding value through objective assistance. This approach generates a natural trust between you and other members, which typically leads to soft-selling opportunities as members dig deeper into your professional offerings (a.k.a. quality traffic to your website or blog).

Traditionally, three key elements of successful selling are building relationships, keeping your activity level up and “timing is everything”. Social networking is no different. The more you genuinely participate and keep yourself and your products and services top-of-mind, the better your chances of being there when the need for your product/service arises.

Part 2: Bounce Rates Will Affect Your Search Engine Rankings

Another new ranking factor that Google is starting to integrate is bounce rates. A “bounce” is determined when a visitor lands on one page of your site and then leaves. Web analytics software programs track these occurrences and tally them up to establish your site’s “bounce rate”. If people are consistently landing on your site and then bailing, but they stick around and peruse your competitor’s site, what would we logically surmise from this situation? Their site must be more engaging. Google is going to give them credit for that and rank them higher. Can you blame them?

Google has done a spectacular job of flooding the web world with their free Google Analytics (GA) platform. On the website owner side of the coin, GA offers a plethora of analysis and reporting tools that provides an enormous amount of insight into how a website is performing. On the other side of the coin, Google is storing and mining all that data. And since GA has been so widely adopted, Google is keeping tabs on hundreds of thousands of sites.

I’m a GA user. They know my site’s bounce rate. I can only hope my bounce rate is helping my rankings.

Might your bounce rate be negatively affecting your rankings? Are you monitoring your bounce rate? Need help?

2009 Online Marketing Trends for Small Business – Introduction

 I came across a report the other day on Online Marketing Trends for 2009, developed by Strange Media, and the opening statement really hit home with me…

“2009 is likely to be a challenging year for many businesses as the global economic slowdown takes hold. Digital marketing, however, looks set to continue its rapid growth, as its many solutions and advantages become even more apparent when marketing budgets are subjected to even greater constraints.”

As industry giants feel the pinch and scramble to maintain market share and mass appeal, small businesses are uniquely positioned to move quickly and flourish within the emerging marketplace of online consumers.

Let’s face facts…Tough economic times means more people using the internet to research products and services, and more people searching online for the best deals. Small businesses that focus on continually building a strong online presence will be positioned well to chip away at the market share of their slower, larger competitors.

The Strange Media report mentioned above lists 16 online marketing trends for 2009, several of which I will touch on here. But many trends within their report may be “over the heads” of most small businesses who are still getting their online legs. Instead of throwing a bunch of advanced digital marketing topics at you, I’d like to focus on 10 internet and search marketing trends that I feel small businesses should understand and can take advantage of quickly.

Part 1: Personalized Search

Also referred to as behavior-based search, personalized search is a set of ranking factors that Google and other search engines have gradually implemented within their already-complex search algorithms. For years, Google has been keeping tabs on how we search, what we search for and the types websites we frequent. They also know where we live (think “Big Brother”). Therefore, in an effort to provide us with the most relevant search results, they’re factoring our search patterns and location into their algorithms and presenting us with web pages that are not only good matches contextually, but also good matches geographically.

For example, I type “underwater basket weaving training” in Google. Before personalized search, top web page results may have been dominated by top trainers in San Diego, Tampa or even Cancun. Well, I live in Kansas, and when I’ve done searches with the term “training” in the past, I’ve always clicked on Kansas City-based companies. With personalized search, an underwater basket weaving trainer based in Kansas City may find themselves on the first page of the Google results when I’m searching for them.

There’s an additional wrinkle to this that I should mention. For those companies who have been hanging your hats on top Google rankings, realize that personalized search may throw off your analysis. Searching from your computer may be returning top rankings for your key terms, but doing the same search at another location may return a very different result. Just remember that a certain ranking position doesn’t necessarily dictate success. Converting website traffic into customers dictates success. Focus your success metrics on conversion rates and know that personalized search may play a significant role in bringing higher quality traffic (fewer bounces) to your site.

Does this make sense? Did I miss anything? Feel free to comment…

Stay tuned for Part 2: Bounce Rates Will Affect Your Search Engine Rankings – Subscribe to the series via e-mail or my RSS feed.

By definition, Google Alerts are simply e-mail notifications that list the latest and most relevant website pages, blog posts and videos that have been found by Google’s search engine spiders related to a particular search term or topic. Note that I included “most relevant”. This is important because if Google sent you EVERYTHING they find on a particular topic, this list could get out of hand real quick. They actually only send you the most relevant website pages, blog posts or videos that make it into the coveted top 20 search results. You can also specify the frequency in which you want to receive these e-mails (one a day, once a week or once a month).

So Why Should I Use Google Alerts?

Let’s get an example started so you can wrap your brains around the benefits. Say you’re a consultant specializing in training clients in the art of underwater basket weaving. As a specialist in this niche field, you obviously want to stay on top of the latest underwater basket weaving techniques, industry happenings and competitors that may be offering new services. And don’t forget that you will want to find out if your own internet marketing efforts are paying off in the form of other websites and blogs linking to you or using your name or company as an expert reference. All this is valuable information, but just imagine how many hours you’d have to spend surfing the web to find it all?

Let’s Get an Alert Started…Step By Step:

1. Go to http://www.google.com/alerts. 
2. In the “Create a Google Alert” box on the right, insert your keyword in quotes, i.e. “underwater basket weaving training”. Using quotes will help ensure relevant results.
3. Select the Type of alert (news, web, blog, video, groups or comprehensive (all)). 
4. Select your desired e-mail frequency.
5. Enter your e-mail address and you’re done!
6. And repeat…Enter your next keyword phrase, i.e. your company name, your name, a competitive company name, etc.

If you select daily notifications under the category of “web”, tomorrow you will start receiving the latest website pages that are being indexed by Google for your specific keywords/phrases. If you input very specific, niche terms, you may not get much on a normal basis. But if your keyword/phrase is more generic, you may find that you are getting too much and you need to refine your alert keywords.

Valuable Intel
After setting up a few alerts, here are some ways my small business clients have used the information to monitor their industry and improve their overall marketing efforts.

1. Keep Tabs On Your Own Internet Presence – Besides the obvious egocentric notion of this, Google Alerts are very helpful for monitoring your online reputation, backlinks (other websites that link to you) and search engine optimization efforts. For example, as you develop new content for your website, sign up for a new social networking website, or another website references an underwater basket weaving article on your website, all this content will eventually be indexed by Google. Alerts will notify you the day that it happens.
    
2. Keep Tabs On Your Industry – Whether you want the latest news and announcements related to your industry products/services, or you’re looking for opportunities that might spark new business, Google Alerts does the work for you.
    
3. Keep Tabs On Your Competitors – Spying on your competitors has never been easier. Creating alerts with their company name, products or services is a great way to find out what they’ve been up to. You can also find out in which forums, blogs or industry websites they are participating.
    
4. Get New Content Ideas – Do you provide industry news on your website or blog? Google Alerts brings you timely news and industry information that might just be the creative spark that you needed to write your next article.
    
5. Save Time Surfing – As I’ve already mentioned, Google Alerts’ e-mail notification functionality brings the most relevant content right to your inbox. No more long hours surfing the web looking for the latest happenings.

Stay Ahead of the Curve

As Ferris Bueller always said, “the world moves pretty fast…” Keeping up with your daily marketing and sales activities is hard enough, let alone trying to stay abreast of everything that is happening around you. Google Alerts is a wonderful tool that does a lot of the legwork for you and may just provide a piece of intel that lands you a big sale.

First off, let me start with a few Wikipedia references so we’re all on the same page:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords.

Search Engine Algorithms – The set of rules, instructions and equations used by search engines to analyze online content and determine relevancy.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in the search engine result pages (SERPs) through search engine optimization, paid placement, and paid inclusion.

Internet Marketing (a.k.a. Online Marketing) – the process of growing and promoting an organization, and its products and services, using online media.

Grab Your Partner Doe-Se-Doe

In our ongoing quest to keep up with the latest search engine and internet marketing strategies, we often hear about the dramatic and sometimes devastating effects that a slight change in Google’s algorithms can have on companies’ bottom lines. These stories serve as good examples of why you don’t want to put all your eggs in the SEO basket.

While an initial SEO effort during the development and launch of a new website is definitely needed in today’s online marketplace, ongoing internet marketing strategies can be executed that will not only complement your SEO efforts and improve your overall traffic, but also help shield you from the ever-changing search engine algorithms.

That Was Some Good Squid

Talking about internet marketing strategies with clients often takes me back to the summers of my youth when my family used to all pile in the van and drive to Tampa, Florida to visit my retired grandparents. Their home backed up to the intercoastal waterway, which always meant great fishing. Immediately upon our arrival, my grandpa always broke out a plethora of fishing poles, grabbed some squid from the freezer and the whole family headed out on the dock to cast our lines. I tell you this story because within minutes, we’d have eight fishing lines in the water and my grandpa would say, “The more hooks we have out there, the more fish we’re gonna’ catch.”
Internet Marketing is no different. The more lines you cast with sharp hooks and enticing bait, the more fish you’ll bring in. Said another way…The more targeted online mediums you participate in and offer high-quality, original content, the more traffic you will generate for your site.

And as an added benefit, the fish you release back into the water are going to go tell their fish friends about the succulent squid they just tasted.

Internet Marketing Strategies That Work

Just like any successful marketing campaign, doing some research to get your bearings is a good place to start. We typically start with an audit of your industry’s online offerings to determine who is participating, what they are talking about, which websites are successfully providing these arenas, what your competition is doing and how you can get in the mix.

Using this information, it’s time to sit down and map out a plan for which internet marketing tasks are appropriate, feasible and within your marketing budget. Here are a few that typically make the cut:

Website Directory/Buyer’s Guides Submission – Getting listed in online industry directories and product/service buyer’s guides can help you hook influential industry practitioners and is a great source for backlinks, which increases your site’s overall page rank in many search engines.

Participation in Industry Blogs and Forums – Niche blogs and forums are powerful communication tools used by industry enthusiasts to converse about companies, products and services. Your genuine, consistent participation in these sites can reap significant rewards.

Corporate Blog/Forum Development – Is your industry behind the times? Can’t find blogs or forums that are covering your industry, products or services? If you build it, they will come…Being the first to offer an arena for candid discussion about your industry positions you and your company as the thought leader.

E-mail Marketing – When compared to traditional advertising, printed newsletters or direct mail, e-newsletters and e-blasts (electronic direct mail) are almost no-brainers since they can be executed quicker, are more cost effective and provide almost immediate customer feedback and marketing analysis.

Other Search Engine Marketing Strategies that Work

Comparing internet marketing tactics to search engine marketing tactics is a lot like comparing public relations to advertising. Public relations takes some work, but is often high-quality, free publicity, whereas successful advertising campaigns can be a significant expense.

That being said, search engine advertising (paid placement, Pay-Per-Click (PPC)) is among the most effective form of advertising on the planet today. Combine a well-funded Pay-Per-Click campaign with a high-quality website and you may find yourself swamped with new business in a matter of days.

A Consistent Effort Wins the Day

Regardless of your industry or marketplace, your potential customers are increasing their use of online mediums to research products and services everyday. And with all those fish swimming about, why not cast as many lines as possible, everyday? Many of the strategies and tactics outlined in this article can be executed affordably and come pre-packaged with powerful analysis tools that will show you real-time ROI. Please let us know if you would like help in implementing any of these programs for your company.