To say that I’m not a fan of Blogger is probably understating things a bit - when it comes to business blogs, their system is certainly way down the list of blogging platforms that I’d choose or recommend.

However, when it comes to their owner Google, then as part of their foray into the world of blogging, Blogger is a crucial part. Firstly, in spite of my reservations, they certainly helped the personal blogger (and splogger - but that’s a different story) by buying and developing Blogger when blogging was still something that the general public knew nothing about and businesses had never considered them as a serious marketing tool.

After that, they introduced a blog specific search engine which, although it doesn’t match Technorati in the level of information that it offers, is still blog specifc and is updated very quickly through pinging. Recently, they have also bought Feedburner which is the preeminent RSS tool - a key element of blogs around the world.

So what have they done now? Well, in many respects, nothing as innovative as the elements that I have mentioned above, but nevertheless, something which is significant … although it may not sound it. They have added blogs to their universal search engine.

So what is good about that? Well firstly, this is the selection that you can make on Google’s homepage which currently allows you to choose images, news, maps … etc or others. In the near future, you should also be able to choose blogs as well as an individual “category”. This is a real change and step forward for blogs because of the preeminence and influence that Google has as a Search Engine which will in its turn benefit blogs more than simply having the blog search engine as a separate entity.

So, yet again, Google leads the way in terms of accessing and referencing blogs … so let’s take advantage of the elements that they offer and use them to our advantage!

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Getting your blog indexed by Search Engines is relatively easy - you write, get linked to and the Search Engines follow the links and find you. Et voila! However, for most bloggers, ranking highly is more important and doing so on Google in particular – for some it’s for bragging rights (‘egosurfing’ and the like) but, for business bloggers, it is for commercial reasons. Let’s be honest, getting found means more potential readers and so more potential customers.

However, although we tend to use Google in the singular, there are many different Google search results for the same phrase, the primary factor being where you are searching from.

We know that Google operates Google.com as the global search engine and then a large number of individual country search engines, the UK one, for example, sitting at www.google.co.uk. The results at Google.com and Google.co.uk vary quite markedly with more relevance given to sites which are country specific in the google.co.uk results. There is also a third option which I am primarily interested in here, which is for “pages from the UK” only, and is activated by a click box as you can see below.

To be included in this listing, Google needs to ascertain where a blog writer is located so that they can decide whether they should appear in these results or not. This they have generally done either using the country suffix on the domain – so for UK results, .uk as in .co.uk or .org.uk - or where the IP of the host server indicates they are based. Result - if you are a UK blogger with a.com domain and host it in the US then there is no way of Google to know that you are UK based and so you are excluded in a uk only search.

With me so far? Good. (Oh and by the way, this is the same for all other countries, US expected)

However, rather than suddenly reach for the UK Hosting Directory, Google it seems has now offered a solution to ensure inclusion, by allowing us to associate our sites (and blogs) to a particular country, no matter what domain name or hosting we have.

As outlined in Better Geographic choices for webmasters:

Starting today Google Webmaster Tools helps you better control the country association of your content on a per-domain, per-subdomain, or per-directory level. The information you give us will help us determine how your site appears in our country-specific search results …

So, pop along to Google Webmaster Tools and get yourself associated with the country you are targetting - you can only do so with one at the moment so don’t try to be greedy, but it’s probably worthwhile and certainly if you are not appearing where you would like in your country specific results.

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When starting a blog of our own or one for our company, hopefully we take time to plan out the content and look at what we want the blog to achieve for us and perhaps follow a process such as the one I advocated in the Green Cross Code of Blogging.

One of the key parts in this process is the “look and listen” phase. This is when you take time out to research what is already going on and what is being discussed around the blogosphere in your industry or area. By following other blogs which address the same subject areas as your own, you should get a better feel for some key elements which will help you with your own blog, such as:

• what others are writing about
• what conversations are ongoing,
• what topics are already being covered and by whom
• who the main players are
• which are the key blogs to read and be seen on
• ideas on how to present your own blog

But of course first of all, we have to find them!

So what are the best places to find what blogs are already out there in the area that you have an interest in. Personally, I’d always start any search of this type with a Blog Search Engine and specifically Technorati which I suppose doubles as a Blog Search Engine and a Blog Directory. Being able to see who is linking to whom allows me to easily trace a route through to find the blogs that I am looking for. Others you could also check are Google’s own Blog Search Engine and Icerocket.

However, there are other ways of locating blogs which would be of interest to you (and then of course adding them to your RSS reader - makes life a lot simpler afterwards!) and here are some which should make the job easier:

• Blog Directories and RSS Directories: check through some of these blog focused directories which are usually organised along business and general interest lines. Choose your sector and start reading.
• Social Networking / Business Networking sites: with the proliferation of the sites such as Facebook, Linkedin, Ecademy, Xing etc, there are a good bet for finding information on relevant blogs. This may be listed on the profile page of the person but it is also worth checking the “signature” text that appears under their posts on the discussion forums where they are often promoted;
• Other Blogs: once you have a blog you are interested in then use the links and recommendations that they provide. These links may well be in the text of the post itself or in the Blogroll (or Recommended sites) in the sidebar of the blog;
• Press Releases: as companies take on board the fact that press releases should contain more social media tools and be aimed at their target audience rather than editors, they are including blog addresses in their contact details. Get a Google Alert set up to include their News section and get a daily email on who’s making press releases which contain your keywords;
• Blog Awards: there seem to be a number of Blog Awards now, either at national level or in specific sectors. Either way they should throw up blogs which are worth looking at;
• Search Engines: of course the main search engines also include blogs along with the other websites and so may throw up different results to the blog search engines. In any case, always worth a look because of their “firepower”.
• Blog Carnivals: Blog Carnivals are generally arranged around a theme so check out ones that might be happening in your area of interest and see who is getting involved.
• Corporate Sites: as more and more companies realise the benefits of a having a blog (or more likely multiple blogs) you will find links to them from their sites. So check the company you are interested in and have a look around!
• Google Alerts: don’t just use Google Alerts for Press Releases, make sure that you cover all the Google sections available - you can find some research ideas with Google Alerts here.

Of course, since these are good places to find blogs, they are also excellent places to promote your own. As a first step, do make sure that you have your blog submitted to the various blog and RSS Directories and that your blog software is automatically pinging the Blog Search Engines every time that you post. After that you can look at some or all of the other methods for your own promotion purposes as time permits.

Try to pick up as much as you can from the ones that impress you most but above all enjoy reading the blogs you find - that’s what they are there for!

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I’ll admit that usually I’m not a fan of lists, hence you won’t find many long ones here at Better Business Blogging. However, when they are recommended by people like Brian Clark at CopyBlogger or Darren Rowse at Problogger then who am I to argue?

Although I have presented this as a single list, there are really three distinct groups of techniques that I would recommend that you consider in here - firstly what I would call “Blog methods”, then the more general online marketing methods and of course offline marketing and PR techniques. We’ll be looking at all of these on an ongoing basis at The Blog Coach.

In the meantime, here are 52 Great Ways to market your blog:

1. Submit your site to the main web directories - you’ll find a good list at Directory Maximiser
2. Make sure that the whole of your blog is indexed on the main Search Engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN/Live
3. Get a Google Sitemap on your blog to help to get it fully indexed
4. Participate in online business networking sites such as Linked In, eCademy and SoFlow
5. Make it easy for your readers to bookmark your blog on the social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Del.icio.us, Furl etc.
6. Make sure you submit your blog to the main Blog directories (Good list here and here)
7. Also submit your blog to the main RSS directories
8. Ensure that you automatically ping the main blog Search Engines and Directories suach as Technorati and IceRocket to get instantly indexed - good list of pinging addresses
9. Join a number of relevant online communities or discussion groups for your market area
10. Maximise the design of your own blog: highlight posts or subjects that will attract and retain readers
11. Add comments - relevant, useful comments - to other people’s threads or blogs
12. Use Pay per Click (PPC) advertising like Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing
13. Advertise on sites such as Gumtree or Craigslist
14. Make sure that you run an ezine (e-newsletter) alongside your blog and make the two work together
15. Make sure that you link out to other blogs in your blog posts and, for special recommended blogs, in your BlogRoll
16. Join MyBlogLog to be able to make contact with other MyBlogLog users and develop relationships
17. Set up a social network part of your blog with Ning
18. Write your own e-book (perhaps using content from your blog) and give away free chapters to encourage visitors or subscribers
19. Start your own meme or viral networking idea (such as 2000 Bloggers)
20. Attend local networking groups such as BNI, BRE etc - tell them about what you do and reference your blog
21. Set up and develop a profile on online social networking sites such as MySpace, Bebo etc.
22. Create a free account on BT Tradespace
23. Interview people for your own regular podcast - perhaps you could make it like your own online radio show
24. Contact other relevant ezines and offer to write articles for them
25. Submit your articles to article directories (Ezine Articles, Article Alley etc.)and link to your blog in the signature
26. Submit your own ezine to ezine directories such as Ezine Directory or Best Ezines
27. Include podcasts as part of your blog to distribute interviews, informational pieces etc.
28. Convert some of your existing articles into podcasts
29. Create a lense at Squidoo
30. Distribute and syndicate your articles and podcasts via your RSS feed
31. Offer free white papers or specialist documents which are branded with your blog and RSS details
32. Set up teleconferences or teleseminars focusing on your main content areas
33. Write a review of books on Amazon.com linking back to your blog
34. Distribute press releases via online news services such as PR Web or Press Box
35. Add a poll or survey to your blog and post/distribute the results - try SurveyGizmo if you are a Wordpress user
36. Read other blogs and leave your own comments on them
37. Use trackbacks when you reference other bloggers’ posts
38. Create podcasts of your best posts and syndicate them, as well as submitting them to iTunes and other podcast directories
39. Sign up to Feedburner and include the Headline Animator in your email signature and the one you use when you post to forums
40. Make sure you include your blog address on your business cards and company stationery
41. Customise and improve your RSS Feed using Feedburner - include special offers, sign up opportunities and make sure the feed delivers the full post
42. Increase RSS feed sign ups by offering a sign up bonus to subscribers - how? Just ask!
43. Offer readers the chance to sign up via email (Feedburner and Feedblitz offer the service
44. Put files and follow ups to presentations, conferences and seminars on your blog for attendees to read and download
45. Offer to become a Guest blogger on other blogs and invite Guest bloggers to write on your own blog
46. Make sure to submit articles to and participate in Blog Carnivals (more on Blog Carnivals here)
47. Optimise your blog where possible and particularly the Categories, Title Tags and Meta Tags
48. Participate regularly in conversations on other blogs
49. Post answers on LinkedIn Answers and Yahoo Answers
50. Try LinkBaiting using controversial subjects or opinions – be careful though!
51. Contact the main bloggers in your market area and introduce yourself or send details of a particular post that might interest them

and above all,
52. Write great content that people will want to read, recommend and link to!

What other methods (or which of these methods) do you find work best for you as you promote your Blog? Please share them with us by leaving a comment!

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The recent survey by Vizu Answers and subsequently reported on by eMarketer was interesting reading but I believe somewhat distorted if we are looking at blogging from a business point of view.

One element that I was surprised at was the fact that the report stated that only some 20% of blog traffic comes from Search Engines (blog specific or otherwise). In my own case, across the blogs that I manage, the split is nearer to 50% which either means that either:

• I am doing something right; or
• I’m missing out on attracting even more readers of my blog; or,
• the report is skewed in some way.

I think that the truth lies somewhere as a mix of all three.

I get the impression that the way that Vizu ran the survey meant that the questionnaires were primarily on personal blogs in which case the figures make more sense. Recommendations from other bloggers are important when it comes to personal blogs - they are also very important on business blogs but, since business blogs should be very focused in terms of content, they also attract readers through Search Engines as people carry out product research or are looking for specific information sources.

You do of course have the added element that there is no reason why the unitiated should have any idea that they are on a blog. A blog is a website with special characteristics after all and the people who arrive there via Search Engines are simply looking for the specific information that they contain rather than a site which is a blog or is not a blog or contains a blog or … well, you get the picture.

So will the Vizu report make me change my focus in terms of marketing my business blog? No. I believe that people will continue to use Search Engines and will continue to focus on finding the information they want rather than worrying if it is on a blog, website, forum etc. However, at the same time I will be looking to encourage readers to refer to my blogs either directly or via social networking and social bookmarking sites.

Of course, the only way to do that is to try to continue to write posts which are worth recommending.

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Back in December of last year, I wrote what I thought was a harmless little post called All Bloggers are Real Amateurs which did a little word play on the fact that the word “amateur” comes from the Latin “amare” - “to love” and that you should ideally be passionate about the subjects that you blog about. All well and good.

I wasn’t targeting any keywords but I do basic optimisation on everything that I write so the Better Business Blogging site is set up with good title tags (using Stephan Spencer’s SEO Title Tag plug-in which is great and takes all coding effort out of it) as well as a number of other tweaks. Thought nothing more of it and it passed into the “Great Archive in the Sky” as posts do.

However, recently while checking my blog stats, I noticed I was getting a number of hits on that post - not massive, but enough to stand out a little. That’s great, I’m always up for some additional, if unexpected, traffic. I checked what keyword phrase was attracting the hits and found it was “real amateurs” and discovered that I was position 2 for a UK search on the phrase and about page 6 worldwide.

The downside was that all of the other sites were, shall we say, adult in nature and this was clearly a popular search term for a certain type of site. Aha … the penny finally dropped. (Took a while … yes, I know) In hindsight, having one of the tags as “blogging with passion” wasn’t a great idea either!

So, the moral to this story is two-fold:

• one, we know that blogs are attractive to Search Engines, but you can’t always dictate what they should or shouldn’t find attractive about your posts; and secondly,
• if you are targeting keywords in your posts, then do your keyword research not only to make sure that they are relevant to your target readers but also that they are likely to produce the results you expect

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There has always been a great deal of debate around Search Engines and how they rank web pages in response to searches carried out by their users. What there is no debate about is that fact that appearing high up in Search Engines Results page has become critical for most businesses as Search Engines have become the preferred research tools in today’s marketplace.

As a result, Search Engine Optimisation (aka SEO) has become an established business as companies and individuals look to get greater visibility in the Search Engine results pages (SERPs). SEO companies in turn have arrived on the scene to make web pages more “attractive” to Search Engines (and hence rank more highly) by giving them focus and using techniques to include as many of the key ranking elements as possible.

What has also become clear is that Blogs (and Business Blogs in particular) tend to rank highly in the Search Engines, making them an important or even key part of Search Engine Marketing. To understand why, first let’s have a quick reminder of how Search Engines work.

How Search Engines work: a few basics

The main Search Engines (I’m thinking here of Google, Yahoo and MSN/Live) gather information on websites by sending out automatic robots or spiders to index sites, which collect the information that the pages contain and register them. They do this by following links and then reading and retrieving the code which creates the individual pages (and hence the text they contain) which is then saved on their servers. Then, when a search is submitted, the Search Engine searches for all the relevant pages in its index and then ranks them in terms of relevancy using a mathematical algorithm. This is what we see on the Search Engine results page.

They determine this relevancy using about 100 different criteria, according to informed opinion. Among these, there are certain elements which are considered more valuable than the rest: this is the text itself, the inbound and internal links, recency of the information and some key onpage elements such as the Title tag. It is also worth re-iterating that search engines rank individual pages rather than whole websites when they create their results pages.

So how can we apply this to blogs?

Armed with what we know about what Search Engines are looking for to rank pages highly, we can see that Blogs do in fact fulfil a number of these criteria perfectly which goes a long way to explain why they rank so well:

• Text: Business Blogs tend to be focused in their content and that is ideal for what Search Engines look for when they are searching for pages which fit with specific search criteria;
• External Inbound Links: the overriding philosophy in the blogosphere is to reference other blogs by linking to relevant sources; so blogs offering good (and often specific) content are likely to attract a greater number of links;
• Internal Links: blogs are automatically structured in such a way that the internal linking is excellent with highly relevant anchor text (the words that actually form the link) which is an extra bonus;
• Up to date information: the most successful blogs are generally ones which are regularly updated and hence offer a growing resource of recent and relevant content;
• Onpage elements: good blogging software has excellent flexibility which gives you the opportunity to have specific onpage elements (such as the Title Tag) for each individual page.

Conclusion: keep developing your Business Blog

For those of us who already use blogs from a business perspective, these Search Engine benefits will not be news - no doubt you will have already have seen the type of results that you can achieve. They are particularly impressive when you consider that hopefully you write and promote your blog with other aims in mind and these benefits are merely a welcome (albeit very beneficial) side effect.

Business blogs however are not a magic solution and nor should they be used in isolation - they are at their best when used in conjunction with other marketing activities, both online and offline. Equally, they are not trying to manipulate Search Engines which is an accusation sometimes levelled at SEO companies. Simply put, well written and focused blogs give Search Engines exactly what they want to provide for their users – good, specific and up to date information on the subject matter that they are searching for.

And providing that is of course where both the challenge and the benefits lay!

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As I suggested in the Green Cross Code of Blogging, an important initial step before you start a blog yourself is to stop and check the blogs that are already in existence - preferable ones which are talking about your own market or subject area - to see what is being said, how they are being used and how they are approaching blogging as a business tool.

It is equally important, whether you have a Business Blog or not, to track what is being said either about you and your company, or about developments in your market. At least you can then join the conversations where they are taking place even if you are are still deciding how best to put together your own blog. But first of all, you need to find out who is taking about this, and where.

So the question is where the best place to find out what blogs exist in a certain industry or cover certain topics. For me, I always turn to Technorati, which is one of the two main blog sites that I recommend anyone intending to use blogs bookmarks immediately. If you want to find out what blogs exist and what is being said in them, then this is the place to start your search.

As you hit Technorati’s homepage, there seems to be a lot going on but, for now, let’s just focus on the main search function. So the main area that you want to concentrate on is the Search Bar:

You can see that you can search through 3 different sets of information: Blog posts, Tags and the Blog Directory.

• Blog posts: this is the widest search and it looks through all of the information contained in the posts of the blogs on Technorati.
• Tags: these are like categories that an author can assign to an individual post (or indeed to pictures or links) and gives the best idea of how the author would describe the content.
• Blog Directory: the directory looks at the individual Blogs as a whole and assigns them to subsections of the directory. When a blogger “claims” a blog on Technorati (we’ll come to that in a later post), then they can add the categories they wish to appear in as well.

I always advise starting with the “Blog Posts” search as it gives you a wide search but the “Tags” are an excellent second bet and are becoming ever more widely used and hence useful.

Once you have your first set of results, Technorati then allows you to refine them. I have used the example of a search on “RSS Marketing” below.

You have 3 options to help you refine the results, each with its own pull down menu - you can use just one or all three of them.

• The first allows you to choose the “additional search terms” that Technorati has suggested which also appear in blue just below and gives you posts which contain both “RSS marketing” and, for example, “Business Blogging”. This helps to narrow your search.
• The second allows you to set a level of authority which Technorati determines by the number of blogs which link to the blog you are looking at - “any authority” will give you all blogs which fit your search terms.
• And the third, allows you to select blogs only in a certain language.

So now we have a set of results which hopefully reflects the posts that contain the information that we are looking for. An example from the excellent Problogger is given below as an example.

However, this gives us more than just this post to use in our research. For example:

• By clicking on the Post Title, we go through to the blog where we can see if there are additional posts which interest us. There is also likely to be a “blogroll” or “recommended sites” section on the blog which will often link to other sites which will be of interest. Blogs often become the hub of a network in their own right so start with one that interests you and follow their recommendations
• By clicking on the Blog Name, you will get additional information about the blog and other posts that as well as an overview of the main areas that it covers
• By clicking on the Blogger’s name, you can see if they write other Blogs which might be of interest to you
• By clicking on the Linked Sites, you can see which blogs have linked to the one you are interested in and also which sites it has linked to in turn. By following these links, you can quickly get a list of blogs to read and return to.

So using Technorati, we can quickly gain an list of blogs which will be of interest to us and also of use in developing our own Business Blog. To save time, make sure you add them to your RSS Reader (you can always delete them later) so that you can follow them easily and keep up to date.

[Adapted from a post on my other blog, The Blog Coach]

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