Personally, I feel that there are very few cases where businesses cannot gain enormously from using a blog in the key area of interaction with their customers. Clearly they need to focus (and perhaps plan - heaven forbid!) to deliver real results and that, as always, is key. This applies whether they are using the blog as part of their marketing and business development activities, their customer support, their product development or as another key touchpoint. The benefit would then feed back into all parts of the business.

There are also certain “company types” which would particularly benefit from elements that a blog could give them; a few examples include:

Companies needing to differentiate themselves: on occasions, professional services organisations have been accused of all having a rather “grey” image, causing them to blend into the background. By using blogs to help break down these preconceptions, companies can really differentiate themselves as well as reveal some of the personalities carrying out the work together with their expertise - this can only help in developing greater trust with your potential clients in a generally very competitive and customer focused environment.

Companies which rely on their specialist knowledge to attract clients: consistently demonstrating expertise in a chosen field can quickly help to build a positive reputation and encourage potential clients to contact you. Client case studies go part of the way, but displaying both your general and specialised knowledge over a period of time and giving the opportunity to interact helps develop this more than a sanitised case study can ever do. Think of it as multiple case studies on steroids if you like. This is particularly relevant for independent consultants and specialist consultancies.

Companies which have progressed beyond the “hard sell” approach: direct advertising and the hard sell has become less and less successful as a business development approach. We tend to be put off by “interruption marketing” nowadays rather than be attracted by it. However, an educational marketing (or relationship marketing) approach, where you provide potential clients with information on which to make their own informed decision on their purchase, has gone from strength to strength. Help your customers decide they want to buy from you rather than go all out to sell to them.

Companies wanting to become more of a partner than a supplier: engaging with potential clients through your Business Blog helps develop trust and a relationship which can position you as a partner rather than a simple supplier. People prefer to work with and buy from people and companies that they trust - a blog will allow you to achieve this.

Companies wishing to be THE information resource for their market niche: most of the information that your prospective clients are looking for is available somewhere on the web. It’s just a case of finding it! So rather than let potential clients wander round the web looking for it and perhaps finding it on a competitor’s site, provide it yourself or provide links to it on your Blog. Become the preferred place to go for this type of information and let this attract anyone interested in your niche to your blog.

Companies organising conferences, seminars and exhibitions: blogs are the ideal focal point for collating and distributing information to attendees pre-Conference and for gathering feedback from them during and after the Event. You can update the conference details and add new information yourself, and you automatically develop a powerful online Search Engine marketing tool as well.

Companies looking to develop a network or community around themselves: as a networking tool, a business blog can help in many different ways but one of its most powerful is when it allows the creation of a network of like minded people interested in a particular area. It is particularly positive for the company setting this up and running it because they find themselves at the centre of this network and therefore in a high profile position.

Companies developing new products or services: customer feedback and input is essential in the product development process. By taking the step to allow this feedback to take place on a Blog, you are allowing discussions and generating ideas which can be invaluable to the process. Added to this, you have a group of people who have contributed to the product and so are likely to be its strongest evangelists and advocates.

Ah, so many options! What other types of companies would you consider to be ideal candidates to consider using blogs

Tags: Business Blogging, Corporate Blogs, Consultant Blogs, Exhibition Blogs, Expert Blogs, CEO Blogs

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According to Marketing Week, Buzz Marketing is “the practice of creating a buzz around a brand” with the focus generally being on newer online channels such as blogs, social networking sites to create Word of Mouth marketing etc. As it happens, the Law in question (The Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations) doesn’t simply target the fake blogs which is where much of the article’s focus is placed, but rather any activity, online or offline which sets out to deceive or coerce consumers.

Essentially, the Law is there to protect you and me from people making claims which are untrue or representing themselves falsely - an online example might be leaving testimonials on your own site under a false name or submitting a positive review of your company’s service or product without revealing your identity or without making your connection to the company clear.

In the same way, flogs or fake blogs such as the “Walmarting across America” fiasco and the “All I want for Xmas is a PSP” which was more painful than deceitful, will now be illegal rather than simply downright stupid. As it happens, in these cases, the blogosphere did an excellent job of policing itself and the companies in question quickly admitted responsibility and withdrew the blogs.

So is this the end of the world in terms of online Buzz Marketing, now that we are no longer able to lie to and deceive our customers without falling foul of the long arm of the law? I think not and indeed my own opinion is very much in line with Simon Quanse’s comments quoted in the article when he states that

“the new regulations will only have the potential to affect those using “underhand” buzz marketing techniques”.

Spot on.

There are many innovative ways to communicate with, interest and interact with customers without deceiving them. Although not online in this instance, you only have to look at the recent Honda campaign and the “live ad” with the skydivers to recognise that these are great cases of buzz marketing and just because a fake blog or similar is the easy route, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be the best, even if you can get away with it.

So be creative and open and above all respect your customers - with those three things in mind, you’ll be in a position to create successful campaigns and keep your customers’ respect … as well as their ongoing business, I suggest.

Tags: Buzz Marketing, Fake Blogs, Online Media, Business Blogging

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Most of the elements mention here can be applied to all full blown blogs - however, hosted blogs (particularly free ones) are unlikely to offer the flexibility to allow you to change all of these elements. So, if you are looking to really benefit from a fully optimised blog then I recommend you check out what’s on offer before you begin. For me, the full Wordpress system, particularly because of the wealth of specialist plugins, is extremely powerful in SEO terms (and my first choice of blogging system), and so I will be referencing suitable sources from the Wordpress community where possible.

While we will be looking at individual SEO elements, you have to remember that there are very few factors which will cause a major shift change to a post or page ranking on their own. Rather, it is the cumulative effect that has real value – a prime example of “the sum of the parts being greater than the whole”. So on each page, decide on the specific keyword phrases you wish to target and make sure that all of the individual elements come together to support them. Although vitally important, I won’t be looking at inbound links here, but rather concentrating on elements on the blog itself.

Title Tag

Generally considered to be the most important individual item so well worth spending the time and getting right. While opinions vary, general consensus is that you have about 8 words to play with, with greater relevance awarded to those at the start of the tag – to gain most benefit from this, ensure that as a default format, the title tag displays your “Blog post title” followed by “Blog name” so that the keywords in your post title are highlighted at the start of the tag.

However, whenever possible, you should take the opportunity to write a custom Title Tag - with Wordpress you can use the plugins such as Stephan Spencer’s SEO Title Tag or All in One SEO which will allow you to do this easily. What to write? Well, remember where the Title Tags appear – you’ll find it at the top of your browser window and, more importantly, as the clickable link on the Search Engine Results page. So while you should look to include your keywords to appeal to the Search Engines, you also need to write something which will inspire your readers to click on that link!

Post Text

The old adage of content is king still holds true and perhaps is even more compelling in blogs as the writing is intended to be more “personal” than the normal text penned by a corporate website scribe. In any case, what you write about and then the actual words that you write is clearly crucial – in all good business blogs, there should be a clear focus or direction for the blog overall, and it is likely that the content in each post is going to be focused on a certain subject matter as well. This will naturally lend itself to a keyword targeted post but … and it is a big “BUT” … it must be written in a way which will attract and then appeal to your readers. They must be your primary concern and focus!

H1 tag

The H1 tag is usually the formatting tag used for the title (or heading, hence the “H”) of a page – or, in this case, for your post. If the title of your post contains your keywords then you’ll benefit from using the tag, so make sure you use it - though only use it once on each page though. There are also H2, H3 etc etc tags which can be used as subheadings throughout your post – these are also likely to naturally encourage the use of keywords, so make best use of them.

As a word of advice – in most Wordpress themes, the H1 tag is often set up as the title of the overall blog, up in the header image. It would, however, be much better to use the H1 tag for the individual post title - this will therefore allow you to benefit from a different, and specific, keyword focus on each page and therefore support the other SEO elements for each post. It’s a small element, but every little helps!

Meta Tags

There are two metatags which people generally still talk about from an SEO perspective, the Description and Keywords metatags. In reality, the keywords metatag does very little (if anything) from a search engine perspective, mainly due to excessive spamming in the early years – for me, still put them in but use them primarily as a reference for yourself.

The Description metatag does, however, have a certain value, although I prefer to use it for a specific purpose. There are still some Search Engines (including Google in certain circumstances) which use the description metatag as the text under the clickable link on their Results pages. Therefore I suggest writing it as a call to action to help you to get people onto your pages as well as for any residual SEO value. For Wordpress users, the All in One SEO plugin will help you to do the job again.

Friendly Permalinks and URL structure

Make sure that you have activated the friendly permalinks for your blog so that the individual posts are supported by having words in the URL rather than the ?id=20 type of format. Not only are these much more helpful to your readers in identifying posts, but the use of keywords in the URL has an influence on the Search Engines, in the same way as top level domain names do, though of course with less impact. In Wordpress, you can modify the permalink structure by going to Settings >> Permalinks in the admin section.

What is the best permalink structure? I have always recommended using the format of www.domain.com/category name/posttitle/ because I liked to include the additional keywords that the category names can offer. However, I have found that this format can be restrictive if you want to make structural changes to your blog at a later date, so a more traditional www.domain.com/year/month/posttitle/ will serve almost as well and give you more flexibility in modifying categories if required.

Link Text / Anchor Text

Blogs are full of links and, although sometimes overlooked, the majority are likely to be internal links of one type or another, whether they actually appear as categories, post titles, tags, in your blog posts or anything else. Since these links connect to different pages on your blog, they therefore all add something, not only to the page that they are on (as keyword text) but also to the pages that they point to, particularly if you make sure that the anchor text they use is relevant to the target page. Very important!

In case you are unsure, the anchor text refers to the words which actually make up the link that people click on and have a very positive effect on the page that they link to. So think about your links, whatever form they take, and when you are tempted to just put “click here”, stop, give yourself a good talking to and then put in something useful instead.

Category Names

Categories within a blog are designed as a way of indexing your posts according to topic and act as an ideal navigation tool for your readers looking to explore specific subject areas that you cover on your blog. However, from an SEO perspective, the category names will also appear as text links on every page in your blog which, as we have discovered, is good news all round.

In addition, blogs create category pages which bring together all your posts with similar content together on one page – great news for search engines looking for targeted content to deliver to their searchers. To help them further, create an introduction to these category pages which gives a summary of the topic - of course, using relevant keyword terms. You will find that the “sticky” function in blogs like Typepad or a suitable Sticky plugin for Wordpress will do the job nicely if you prefer not to hardcode it. In any case, do make sure that the category names contain your keywords because they are going to appear extensively across your blog … and automatically at that!

Footer Text

While the post text is the area that most people focus on, and rightly so, when they consider the message they want the Search Engines to see, there are other sections of the page which can also be used to highlight text without compromising your focus on your readers. The sidebar is one such are but another, lesser used one, is the bottom of the page. Here, text used as part of the footer – or indeed below the footer – can be used to help support the keywords which have been used elsewhere, or indeed add additional scope to them.

Take the example of a local company looking to promote their wares in the local area. They can and should write posts which focus on the local area and this of course will feature in the body of the text. However, you can re-inforce this in the footer by including, for example, geographic references ( ie. Norwich, Norfolk, East Anglia, East of England etc.) to complement the other keywords in the text. You might also consider adding misspellings of key words which, used elsewhere, would spoil people’s views of the site itself. In an ideal world, consider making these specific to individual pages - however, even as a single site wide footer, there is certainly value to be had.

Blog Tags

In addition to all of the tags that are routinely mentioned with regard to SEO, there are other types of tags which are specific to blogs from generic “markers” through to tags used for specific search engines such as Technorati. They allow the author to suggest additional categories or foci for their own posts and hence effectively highlight keywords that best describe the content or help put it in context. Tags are useful in a number of ways, particularly within Wordpress, acting as a type of subcategory - but importantly, they allow you to add additional specific keyword phrases which appear alongside your post and highly visible to Search Engines without prejudicing your readers.

Image Alt Tags

I believe that blogs benefit from having graphics included in the posts – it’s a good way to break up the blog post or support a point being made in the text. However, since Search Engines effectively cannot “see” them, then make sure that you include some “alternative” or “alt” text – partly because it’s good practice, but also because the text will be picked up by search engines and can help add to the other elements on the page. No keyword stuffing though! Ideally it should describe the image it is applied to but adding a relevant keyword as well can only benefit you.

Index only the important parts

A blog creates and updates a number of different pages each time you make a post, from the blog’s homepage to the individual blog page and then those covering the categories and tags associated with it as well as the monthly archive page! Phew! In many respects, I think that this is highly beneficial (lots of new and updated pages to be indexed) but there have been some worries expressed about duplicated content on a single blog.

In response to this, some people go as far as to block everything from Search Engines except the homepage and individual post pages, often using the robots.txt file - I am, however, against that. Block the monthly archive pages if you like but I feel that the Category pages and the tags pages bring together lots of useful and similar content, therefore providing focused content, useful for both readers and Search Engines. There’s a good article at U the Guru on this and for those WP users looking for help on this, there is a handy Robots plugin which allows you to choose noindex for individual posts or categories etc.

Getting Indexed quickly

Normally, you are at the mercy of the Search Engines as to how long it takes them to index new pages or changes to existing pages though you can use tools such as sitemaps which will help. With blogs, you have another tool up your sleeve which is called pinging and while this isn’t strictly an SEO element, you cannot start to work on the ranking of a page until it is indexed and so I think that it’s relevant to include.

In Wordpress and Typepad, the area you want to look for is called Update Services (Options >> Writing in Wordpress or Settings >> Writing in 2.5) and you need to include a specific address for the sites which you want to inform that you have added a new post – pinging is rather like tapping the search engines on the shoulder and beckoning them over to your blog to index it. Anywhere, there’s a list of sites to ping here. You might as well use the XML sitemap in addition, particularly if it can be done automatically for you – there are a number of plugins for Wordpress users to do this such as this one.

Social Bookmarking

We will look at the main use of social bookmarks in the 3rd part of the series - but bear in mind that when you use them, ensure that the social bookmarking images have the alt tag automatically included which includes the post title hence enhancing the keywords it contains. If there are text links as well then include the Title attribute but, to save the pagerank for your own blog, make these links “no follow”.

Well, congratulations if you have made it through all of these and even more so if you already have them implemented on your blog. Blogs may be inherently attractive to Search Engines because of their structure and being regularly updated, but there are still many things that you can do to help develop their ranking further and I hope you will find the major ones mentioned here. Happy optimising!

Tags: Optimise Blog, Blog Optimisation, Blog Optimization, Blog Marketing, Blog SEO, Wordpress Blogs, Business Blogging, Corporate Blogs, Small Business Blog, Business Marketing, Online Marketing

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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.

So next time you worry about linking to other sites, blogs or resources of any type, try to think instead of the business benefits instead - not just to your readers but to you as well.

Tags: Business Blogs, Blog marketing, Linking Blogs, Blogosphere, Corporate Blogs

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I considered this previously in two posts which looked at the question of where to run your business blog and how to integrate a blog on your site, but I think that it is worth bringing together my thoughts and opinions on this again and developing them further.

Although it can depend on what your intentions are in terms of branding, specific aim and focus, target audience, domain name and general marketing requirements, my take on this would boil down to:

While there are other elements which could have an impact on your decision making, that should be the key aspect on which you make your decision.

But – what about the Inbound Links!!

The other reason often put forward for preferring an external blog is the benefit of inbound links that you can create back to your main site – “I’ve got a blog at mynewblog.wordpress.com and I’m using it to create lots of links through to my main site at www.mymainsite.com which will help me get to no.1 in Google”.

In short, no. A more complete response, no, no, no!

Google is many things but blind in Search Engine terms isn’t one of them. Multiple links from one individual site through to another suffer from what is best described as “diminishing returns”. To explain: the first link you create from the blog you have set up as a separate domain is great and registers a, let’s say, resounding “1” on the Google link scale. The second from that blog (and hence that domain) through to your site is seen as less valuable as you have already “recommended” the site with a link. In this case, it’s given, let’s say, half the value – the next, half again and so on for all of the other links from that blog domain to your main site. Result, as you add more links from your new blog back to your main site, the additional ones quickly become worthless.

Compare that to holding the blog on your own site, taking the time to write content that people consider worth linking to and working to attract links from a number of different sites - as shown on the right above. Each of these will be fully valued and counted, as they are external links into your blog from different domains – in a very short space of time, having your blog as part of your own site and domain will have benefited your overall site more than an external blog ever would, no matter how many links with great anchor text you use. (I’m even ignoring the benefit of higher page rank here, which established blogs linking to you would have but your newly established blog would not!)

So, when faced with the decision of where to run your blog from, if it is relevant to your site and to your visitors then integrate it as part of your own website. But, if you are setting it up to primarily boost your search engine possibilities then … definitely integrate it as part of your website!

Tags: Setting up a, Blog, Where to run a blog, Blog on website, Separate blog, Business Blogging, Corporate Blogs

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Yesterday, I read a news story by Anne Broache at CNet News.com entitled Corporate employee blogs: Lawsuits waiting to happen? which looked at some legal issues that Cisco are currently experiencing regarding one of their managers who had been anonymously running a blog on patents where he had commented on cases regarding Cisco without revealing his connection with the company.

This particular case is quite specific but there are certainly some lessons to be learned from it which have a more general impact on companies, irrespective of their size, which are developing blogging guidelines of their own.

One element which Cisco has added to their own Blogging Guidelines following this case, covers the premise that where there is responsibility then there also needs to be clarity. This may be simply that the blogger works for the company in question or that they have a specific commercial role covering the subject area of their blog which means that their opinion is no longer objective. Their addition states:

“If you comment on any aspect of the company’s business or any policy issue the company is involved in where you have responsibility for Cisco’s engagement, you must clearly identify yourself as a Cisco employee in your postings or blog site(s) and include a disclaimer that the views are your own and not those of Cisco.”

To restate this in general terms, I’d normally advise that bloggers do not hide their identity and certainly not their business affiliations - they should also clearly state on their own blog that the views expressed are solely theirs and do not reflect those of their employer.

This is of course presuming that they are discussing subjects related to their work - if it is on a hobby or non work related topic then clearly there is no potential for professional bias coming into play and hopefully no conflict of interest. This is nicely summed up by Bob Pearson, VP at Dell who makes the comment:

“If someone is a fisherman and they want to talk about fly fishing outside of work, then that’s not our business, it’s personal. But if someone is going to talk about notebooks and anything related to Dell, they have to say they’re from Dell.”

The same is also true of leaving comments on other blogs, something which should also ideally be covered in a blogging policy. If it is a subject related to the company you work for then you would be wise to state your connection - in these matters transparency is everything and it can be potentially damaging if you are discovered trying to pull the wool over the eyes of others. You may remember the fall out from the “Walmarting across America” fake blog - if you are leaving ‘fake’ comments in a close knit community that you want to work with, then the impact on your company’s reputation can be equally damaging. So don’t!

For me, I think that in many respects the less formal take on it that Microsoft adopts is good, and focuses on the use of common sense. However, having said that, I have come across a noticeable absence of common sense from time to time, so their use of a list of FAQs which deals with how employees should apply existing company policies on confidentiality and other matters to the blogging world seems to be a sensible approach to take. When you create your own guidelines, do make sure that they are readable, accessible, understandable and applicable -then you won’t go far wrong.

If you are looking for help or guidance in creating a Blogging Policy or Blogging Guidelines then please get in touch. Alternatively, below you will find some links to documents which cover either internet or blogging policies from a range of companies that you may find useful as well:

• BBC’s Blogging Guidance
• Cisco’s Internet Policy
• Sun Microsystems Blogging Guidelines
• IBM’s Guidelines
• Yahoo Blog Guidelines
• Dell’s Online Communication Policy

Tags: Corporate Blogging, Blogging Guidelines, Blogging Policy, Business Blogs, Blogging Guidance

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First of all, I think that it’s important to look at optimising a blog for the people who really count - your readers! It’s in your interest to make sure that their experience is as pleasant, productive and straightforward as possible. Why? Because these are the people that you want to connect with, the ones you want to talk to, the ones you want to work with and the ones that you want to recommend you to others. Be nice to them!

You need to make sure that you help them to find the information that they are looking for, point them in the direction of other subjects they might also find interesting and generally ensure that they stay around to concentrate on the content you are offering without struggling to find or use it.

So, in this respect, what are the areas that we should be looking at and how can we help our readers really benefit from what we write in our blog:

1. Write posts on topics which interest your readers

I know that we come back to content time and time again, but it really is so key that I’m afraid it’s worth repeating once more here. Write things that your readers will find useful, relevant and interesting! You already do? Great - then concentrate on the rest of this post and the other two in the series because they’ll support what you’re doing every step of the way. If you’re still looking for help then, when you’ve finished here, may I suggest checking out Brian Clark at Copyblogger - recommended. Seriously.

2. Consider the layout of your posts

Try not to have great swaths of text which create an often impenetrable barrier between your readers and the ideas you wish to communicate. Make sure that you break it up, have areas of white space and use subheadings to highlight your points - where appropriate, use bullet points as well and generally make sure that the layout supports your content rather than hides it.

3. Good Navigation

Good navigation should be consistent, easy to find and easy to follow. When your readers are on your blog, the last thing you want is for them to be floundering around trying to find other posts or searching unsuccessfully for them. Why not? Because they won’t keep searching - they will have already left and gone to find it elsewhere.

Try to keep the main navigation menus in the same place on each page and if you use the general blog conventions such as the home page link being in the header, then remember that you are also looking to attract non blog readers who will be looking for a ‘home’ button. Bottom line, make navigation as intuitive as possible for everyone and let them concentrate on your content.

4. Easy Subscriptions

Whatever you may be using for subscription forms, make sure that it is easy for your readers to sign up for - this goes for both your RSS feed and any newsletter sign up you might have. For your RSS feed, offer an RSS via email option (and link to a quick overview of what RSS is and its use to your readers) and for your newsletter sign up, include it on all pages, reassure about your privacy policy and perhaps include a giveaway as a sign up sweetener too.

5. Help them to read more

If someone has been interested in what you have written then make sure they can find other posts on your blog which might cover the same or closely related topics. Either in your sidebar or following the individual posts, give them a list of the most popular, frequently read or other related posts which they would be interested in. Any element of this type, well placed, will help to direct them to other related posts helping, in turn, to keep your blog “sticky”.

6. Use Descriptive Categories

Blogs in general offer you a wonderful automatic filing system in the form of categories and archives - Wordpress also offers you the option of using tags as well to help classify your posts. When it comes to naming your categories and selecting your main tags, choose them carefully and make them descriptive as they will provide another method for your readers to find relevant posts which will be of interest. If the category names also contain your key words then there will be additional Search Engine value as we will see in part 2. As they will also act as a type of secondary navigation for your readers, try to keep them consistent.

7. Search

The Search function is another element which needs to be on every page – if someone has arrived at your blog for the first time and is looking for something specific, then the search box is likely to be their first port of call. So make it visible … and make sure it works!

8. Don’t forget to link out

Although conventional wisdom on normal websites says that linking out equates to losing a potential customer, this is not so on a blog. Links out are of great benefit to your readers because it takes them to sites that you deem to be worthwhile to read, hence developing further the trust they have in you and your recommendations. So when you write posts, don’t forget to link out where applicable either to support your arguments or to direct your readers to other valuable resources.

9. Make Commenting easy

Comments should really be the lifeblood of blogs which enable you to develop interaction with your readers and ultimately a community feel, so make sure that you make it as easy as possible for your readers to leave them. At the same time you do need to safeguard your blog against spammers so what would be the best solution? Making your readers sign up or log in to leave a comment is likely to dissuade all but the keenest commenters and especially first timers. So do your comment moderation behind the scenes and use spam filtering software such as Akismet.

10. Can they contact you?

Try to ensure that you are as easily accessible as possible. I know a number of bloggers who are reticent to do this, but in a business blog it is imperative that your contact details can be easily found, ideally on a specific contact page. You should also have a “Profile” page so that people can get a little more background on you and what you do which again should contain contact details. It might well be to your benefit!!

As a final check, if you are able to make sure that your readers don’t have to jump through hoops when they want to do something on your blog, then incorporate it. What do I mean? Well, look at it from your readers’ point of view – as a test, go onto any blog or website and any time that you hesitate or aren’t sure what to do next on it, try to think why and then make sure that situation doesn’t happen on your own blog.

To paraphrase the well used phrase - “they hesitate, you lose”. So make sure that your readers don’t have to hesitate but can find their way around your blog and around the information it contains.

Tags: Blog Optimisation, SEO, Optimize your blog, Blog marketing, Using Categories, Wordpress plugins

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Each post will focus on one of the 3 key questions that you should have clear answers for as you set up your blog before you start to write it.

Question 3:
What do you want to achieve?

Unsurprisingly, what we want to achieve with our blog is linked inextricably to how we intend to use it and who we are trying to appeal to - the first 2 key questions. If you want your blog to help raise your profile and demonstrate your expertise in your field, then you might be looking to build up references (and hence inbound links) or potential business contacts; on the other hand, if it forms part of your customer service offering, then you will want to see an improved customer satisfaction and reduced customer care calls.

In both of these cases, though, to get the best results from the blog, we need to both write and develop the blog with a clear focus and goal in mind. It not only gives us direction but also gives us a yardstick to measure each decision about our blog against, whether that’s what topic to post about, changes to blog design, positioning of services etc. If it doesn’t help us to achieve the goal, then perhaps we should be rethinking it. It sounds harsh, but ultimately our business blog is an element of our business and therefore needs to be contributing to it.

What we need to know clearly at the start is what we want to achieve with the blog and this, combined with the answers to questions 1 and 2, will help us to decide how the blog should look, where key elements need to be located, what to write, how to market it and so on.

But, what criteria should we be using to see how successful the blog is? Ideally they will be in line with the main objective that you set out for your blog but it’s necessary to have some way of measuring this. Here are some possible ones to consider:

• You might consider that it is the number of new or repeat visitors to your blog;
• It could be the number of comments that you receive on your posts which can indicate the level of interaction you are achieving;
• Number of subscribers to your RSS feed may be important because you feel this shows active interest;
• Number of blogs and websites which link to your blog or refer to your articles via trackbacks;
• Quantity of new customers who get in contact through the contact form on your Blog or specifically the sales generated by the blog either directly or indirectly;
• Number of sign ups to a newsletter which you have as a marketing call to action
• Reduction in support or care calls if you are running your blog as part of your technical support or customer service function
• Number of additional book copies sold if you are using it as part of your book promotion activities
• Comments and suggestions if your blog is being used as a market research tool or product development support
• Press contacts or offline articles generated directly as a result of your

Because the possible uses of a blog are so wide, so are the possible goals you can have and ways to measure them - it’s simply a case of deciding which is the most appropriate for you in accordance with the aims you have for the blog and your business. Bringing them all together should give us a feel for the overall Return on Investment (ROI), at least to a certain extent.

Above all, have your objectives and goals in mind will help your blog fulfil its potential and deliver the results you want. As the refrain goes, “when you don’t know where you’re going, then any road will do” - so keep a careful eye on what you want to achieve and you’ll make sure you’re on the right road from day one.

Tags: Blogging Key Questions, Business Blogging, Starting a Blog

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Hopefully, when looking at how to approach the question of comments, you won’t be deciding whether to allow them or not, but rather how to elicit comments and how to handle the ones you receive. As you are doing so, here are some points that you might want to bear in mind:

a) How to allow comments
Just because you open up your blog to comments doesn’t mean that have to let anything and everything appear on your blog. You have control over comments which appear and, on most blog platforms, there are a range of options open to you – these can range from readers having to be approved and logged in before they can comment at one end of the scale, through to an open policy of no moderation at the other. For most, the right approach lies somewhere in the middle and depends on you, your company’s requirements and the aims of your blog. As a good default position, I recommend starting with a level of moderation (ie. you approve comments before they appear) and then develop it from there.

b) Make sure you respond
When people have taken the trouble to leave a comment on your blog then make sure you respond where appropriate - remember, in most cases, you are looking to engage with the people who leave comments, so if they respond and ask a question then make sure that you reply to it. This gives you the opportunity to develop the conversation and work towards establishing and then building on a connection with your readers.

c) Consider a Comments Policy
Not just appropriate for corporates, any business blog whether its run by an individual or a company can benefit from openly stating what their policy on comments is. If you moderate them, then let people know that there comments won’t appear immediately - at the same time, if you are clear about what is acceptable on your business blog and therefore what is not, you can cut down the comments which contravene them.

d) Encourage comments
Don’t sit back and just rely on the comments simply appearing – actively encourage them! This could be in the way you write your posts or by posing open questions as a closing line in your blog inviting opinions from your readers or simply by asking for them. And if your template just says “No comments” when a posts is still waiting for its first reply, then why not change it to something like “Come on - be the first to comment”! You never know!

e) “Reward” comments
In most blog software, the comments just appear on the individual posts, so why not highlight the people who are commenting and encourage other readers to join them by displaying a “Latest Comments” list in the sidebar of your main pages which will give both them and you additional visibility. For Wordpress users, the Get Recent Comments plugin makes this easy to do.

f) Don’t simply block negative comments
Don’t simply delete critical comments which come in. At least on your blog you have the chance to respond to them, while elsewhere they will go unchallenged and unanswered. You will find that by allowing and responding to them, you are more likely to gain greater respect by handling objections with grace and tact in the eyes of other readers of your blog. Also, if you are able to answer their points and solve the issue they have, then you have the opportunity not only to keep them as a customer but also perhaps turn them into an supporter for your company again.

g) Avoiding spam comments
You’ll find that you do attract spam comments but there are ways to avoid them appearing as well as taking up your valuable time. You could use CAPTCHA methods or registration but, for me, the method that has least impact on your readers will be to use specialist software. In my opinion, the leader in this respect is Akismet which identifies the comments that it believes are spam and impounds them - free of charge, except for commercial use and very good.

h) Help people follow the conversation
Using a plugin such as Subscribe to Comments, you can allow your readers to sign up for an email notification of when any further comments have been left on the post. It’s a good way to help keep the conversation bubbling away and of course encouraging people to participate more. You could also encourage them to use comment tracking services such as CoComment, Co.mments and Commentful.

Tags: Blog comments, Business Blogging, Blogging Quick Guides, Akismet, Wordpress plugins

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