Better Business Blogging » Blog Marketing

Blogs and Search Engines – is the love affair over?

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:46:03 +0000

While there’s always been lots of debate as to what criteria Search Engines use to rank web pages in their search results, what there is little debate about is that appearing high up on the Search Engines Results page has become of key importance to most businesses. Why? Simply because currently, Search Engines are the preferred research tools in today’s marketplace.

As a result, Search Engine Optimisation (aka SEO) has developed into a thriving (if often maligned) industry as organisations, both large and small, strive to gain higher positions and greater visibility in the Search Engine results pages (SERPs).

The other thing that has become increasingly apparent is that blogs (and business blogs in particular) have a number of attributes which help them rank highly in the Search Engines, making them an important or even, dare I say, a key part of Search Engine Marketing. To understand why, first let’s have a quick reminder of how Search Engines work.

Search Engines: a few basics

The main Search Engines – I’m thinking here primarily of Google, Yahoo and Live – collect information from websites using electronic programs called “robots” or “spiders”. They find new sites and content generally by following links and then reading and indexing the code which creates the individual pages (and hence the text they contain). This is all stored on their servers so that when a search is submitted, the Search Engine sifts through all the relevant pages in its index and then ranks them in terms of relevancy using a mathematical algorithm. The result of all this is what we see on the Search Engine results page.

They determine this relevancy using over 100 different criteria, if we are to believe the experts in this field, though some criteria are obviously considered more “valuable” than others. Those considered particularly important include the text itself, the inbound and internal links, focus and relevancy of the information and some key onpage elements such as the Title tag. It is also worth reminding ourselves 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 an overview of what Search Engines are looking for to rank pages highly, it’s clear that blogs do in fact fulfil a number of these criteria perfectly, which goes a long way to explain why they rank so well. Specifically:

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.

Blog Search Engines, Pinging and Instant Indexing

Although blogs appear in the main Search Engines like any other online site, they also have their own set of Search Engines which focus primarily on blogs. This is important because the way that these Blog Search Engines find new content is different to the main Search Engines.

If blogs are set up correctly, they will automatically “ping” these search engines – this is the digital equivalent to a ‘tap on the shoulder’ telling them that there is new content for them to index. This happens instantly and, with one of these Blog Search Engines belonging to Google, this means that Google’s main index can pick up your post almost immediately – my best is 6 minutes.

Of course, if the blog is part of your main website then there is also the greater chance of the rest of your site being indexed more frequently too, let alone all the pages benefiting from the value of the inbound links coming into the blog, linking to your new articles! Ah, is there no end to the benefits!!

Conclusion: keep developing your Business Blog

If, like me, you already use a blog for your business, then these Search Engine benefits will not be anything new – no doubt you will have already have seen the sort of great results that you can achieve. If you haven’t, then we really need to talk! However, they are particularly impressive when you consider that you are probably writing your blog with your readers uppermost in your 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 – 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 lie!

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What makes a successful business blog?

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 15:58:42 +0000

I’m currently writing a series called “The Diary of a Business Blog” (you can find part 2 here) which looks at an imaginary business owner going through the process of setting up and developing a blog for his business. One of the questions that the first couple of posts has elicited from BBB readers (thanks, by the way!) is “what makes a successful blog?” and I guess that this is probably a key question for any organisation looking to create their own business or corporate blog.

My answer: a successful business blog is one which fulfils the purpose and achieves the results that it was created for.

Now that may sound like a bit of a cop out on my part and I suppose that, in one way, it is. However, there is a good reason why.

There’s more than ONE type of blog

The issue is that there are so many different types of business blog, it’s simply not possible to give a single definitive definition of what success would look like or indeed a blueprint for creating one.

To give a couple of examples: if we look at a CEO Blog (such as Jonathan Schwartz at Sun or Richard Edelman’s 6am blog) then the writing style, format and content are going to be very different from one designed as a product blog. So too will be its aims. Likewise a corporate blog which brings together a community of users and developers for market research or product development, will have a very different definition of “successful” from an “expert blog” written by a consultant or legal professional looking to directly improve his/her profile and reputation.

However, what they will have in common is likely to be a clear set of objectives, albeit all different, which they are focused on achieving. These objectives would have been identified as part of the planning process and should always be in the back of your mind (or written on a postit in front of you!) when writing and promoting your business blog. [Aside: I’ll be looking at some possible objectives and metrics to measure them in a post next week.]

Some pointers for your Business Blog

However, having ducked the question once, I’ll try to make amends now. If I had to make some suggestions to organisations starting a blog that would help to achieve the goals that they have set for it, then I would recommend the following:

Don’t try to be everything to everyone: the best type of business blog will often be very targeted in nature. It will have identified the people that it wants to appeal to and should be written in such a way that it attracts, retains and develops that audience;

Plan, focus and stay true to your goals: you planned your objectives when you started, so try not to be distracted from them. If those are what you want to achieve, then make certain that you concentrate on them and don’t get pulled off in different directions;

Write interesting, compelling, focused content: you know the audience you wish to attract and hopefully you also know what will interest them. So try to present them with that information in a way which is authentic and which communicates the passion that you have for the subject;

Make it visually appealing: that doesn’t just mean images, although they certainly play a major role, but also break the text up with sub headings, use a header which supports and shows off your brand and ensure that above all it is easy on the eye. Don’t distract your readers from your content or make it difficult to take in;

Launch it properly: Plan the launch and make sure that you use all of the means at your disposal to tell people about it. Get your Foundation posts in place, use your mailing list, pre-announce it if applicable, create online press releases to support it and ensure that you put some weight behind the activities. If you believe it’s worth reading (and let’s hope you do!) then tell people and enthuse about it;

Vary the style of posts: while the content should be targetted, there are different ways in which you can present it from “expert pieces” to lists and from news stories to links to other key sources. Make sure that you break it up and present the information in different ways – it’ll help get across the points you are looking to communicate. [Some ideas on blog posts here might be of use];

Market it religiously: there is no point in having a blog and just letting it sit there – tell people about it. Use all the methods available both online and offline, generic and blog specific and then use all of them again! While your writing will hopefully attract readers over time, you should still “spread the word” at every opportunity.

Ultimately, the person best placed to judge whether the blog you are running has been a success is … you! However, don’t make it hard for yourself – know what you want to achieve with it and then going all out to make it happen.

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Diary of a successful Business Blog (Part 2 – the preparation)

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:20:11 +0000

Previous Instalment: Part 1 – the decision

At the end of the day, the decision had essentially been taken out of his hands. Daniel could see that his competitors were already benefiting from the type of industry exposure and customer contact that he had envisaged getting for his own company. And this was coming from their blogs.

However, this was NOT about keeping up with the Joneses – that would be pointless. To make it work for his business, he knew that he had to have a clear idea of what he wanted to do with the blog and what results he wanted it to achieve for him. He also needed to be clear about the people he was looking to attract to his blog – if he knew that then he could focus on writing articles that they’d want to come and read, and pass on others. This sharing of content was going to be key.

This was the business marketing side and he felt comfortable with it – after all, it was what he knew and was passionate about. However, he also needed to know how to really use blogs and get the best out of them. How could he engage with his readers, how to set up a blog, what software to use, how to get it into Google? So many questions and much of which he felt he knew little about.

He had to start somewhere. So he decided to check out what similar companies were doing online and how they were using blogs to promote their businesses. His searches on Technorati and Google’s blog search gave a lot of good starting points – he then followed the links they referred to and added the best ones to his RSS feed so that he would receive their news automatically. He could see RSS was going to be a real timesaver and made a mental note to make sure his blog would offer it too.

He also used Google to search on “Business Blogging” and that provided some excellent reference sources – the more information he had, the better equipped he would be to get the best results out of the effort he’d be putting into the blog.

Based on the advice there, he decided that the blog should appear as part of his current website as that would help promote all his other pages as well and that he would integrate it properly. It would give visitors to his site the ability to leave comments and ask questions directly – a great plus in developing closer relationships with them. It would also distribute and promote his information automatically for him, giving his company greater visibility.

Having looked at the alternatives, he decided that a blog system called Wordpress would probably offer the best solution – lots of future development potential and tried and tested on many thousands of blogs. In this instance, going with the crowd did seem to be the best option. He’d need to load it on his own server but it looked straightforward and, during his research, he’d also seen there were people around who could give help if he needed it.

He felt that his readers would appreciate a constant flow of articles but would probably feel overwhelmed if he tried to send information every day. He planned to post 2 to 3 times a week and worked from that standpoint. He also felt that the he had a handle on the sort of information they wanted – a mixture of industry information, links, informed opinion and an insight into what made him and his company tick. He also wrote out a big “Don’t try to sell!” post-it note to remind himself that the blog was not a direct sales tool. That he knew would just be a turn off to his readers.

Feeling much more comfortable about the organisation of the blog, it was now time to put that into action, get it set up and work out what elements would be important to make sure it had a successful launch.

Next Instalment: Part 3 – the launch

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Blogs are not for SEO

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 13:21:01 +0000

It really is a total waste of effort setting up a business blog if your sole intention is to use it to enhance your Search Engine rankings. If you do, then youre not just missing out on the important benefits that blogs offer, youre also missing the point of blogs altogether. Oh, and in the process, youll also be jeopardising the success of your own, right from the word “Go”.

“But I thought a business blog would help my Search Engine rankings!”, I hear you cry. “Absolutely”, I reply, “it will. Enormously so!”

The thing is, thats not the point.

Running a blog will give you the chance to do so much more, whether you are looking to use it to initiate dialogue with your readers, build trust and foster new connections with customers and prospects, carry out market research or customer service, or indeed any of 101 different business uses that blogs can be put to.

And thats where your focus, effort and attention should be directed – your readers – not simply on helping your SEO efforts!

However, if you do spend the time to keep the content of your blog focused on what your target audience wants then, believe me, the much lauded “Google Juice” will flow naturally because of what you write and the way that you write and structure it. However, it will do so as an automatic by-product rather than the sole aim.

The same values hold good in all areas of social media – concentrate on the people you are talking to and what you are talking about and youll go far. Social networking sites, for example, are called that rather than Google Ranking sites for a reason. If Google is your main reason for being there then the networking activity will ultimately die, killing your presence on the site along with it.

I might add that if you use these tools to do nothing more than sell, then youre also missing the point and once again youll find that this comes back to bite you. Using social media to employ the same “old school” marketing tactics that we, as consumers, are rejecting en masse shows a lack of understanding in my book not only of the medium but of people.

Anyway, enough ranting about this – back to my main point. Business blogs are great in providing enhanced Search Engine opportunities but try not to focus on this to the exclusion of everything else or you risk losing everything. Focus instead on your readers and I guarantee that your SEO desires and requirements will follow.

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Blogging survives puberty to reach adulthood

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:45:47 +0000

I’ve been running this blog for nearly three years now and have seen a lot of changes in the acceptance and usage of blogs in business during that time, first in the US and then more recently here in the UK as well.

Unlike many, I never really entered the blogging fray with a truly personal blog which was designed simply to broadcast my opinions – that wasn’t of interest to me. Personally, right from the start I have approached blogging from a standpoint of it being a business tool – hence the name of this blog – and wanted to share those business possibilities with others.

Blogging is Dead, Long Live Blogging

Latterly, I’ve seen a spate of articles about the death of blogging, most notably one on Wired – however, I have been encouraged by the quantity of comments on these posts which in the most part have been supportive of blogging. For me, blogging as I perceive it (ie. in business terms) is not only not dead, it is still to reach its prime – in terms of the Technical Adoption Lifecycle, I see it still very much in the Early Adopter phase, particularly in the UK.

This was made abundantly clear to me last week in two very different situations:

in the first, I was giving a presentation to a group of marketing managers on “Blogging and Social Media” at a workshop run by Generate UK. For most of the attendees, blogging was still something which they were planning and preparing for rather than tiring of it.
Equally, in the second, a meeting with a FTSE100 company demonstrated their desire to fully engage with blogging, but only subject to demonstrable benefits and previous examples. Once again, classic drivers for companies in the early and late majority phase.

In both instances, after discussion, it was clear that there were still huge benefits to be had for them from starting a corporate blog, supported by other social media activity we looked at.

A great response

The best overall response to the “Blogging is Dead” theme, though, came from the Economist in an article entitled Oh, Grow up with “Blogging is no longer what it was, because it has entered the mainstream” as its subtitle.

Spot on – that’s exactly what has happened.

I particularly loved the analogy that was made with PDAs, not least because I was working at Psion as handheld computers went through their initial boom and bust phase and so have first hand experience of the way that particular market morphed into what we see today.

“Gone, in other words, is any sense that blogging as a technology is revolutionary, subversive or otherwise exalted, and this upsets some of its pioneers. Confirmed, however, is the idea that blogging is useful and versatile. In essence, it is a straightforward content-management system that posts updates in reverse-chronological order and allows comments and other social interactions. Viewed as such, blogging may “die” in much the same way that personal-digital assistants (PDAs) have died. A decade ago, PDAs were the preserve of digerati who liked using electronic address books and calendars. Now they are gone, but they are also ubiquitous, as features of almost every mobile phone.”

I see blogging as such. The way in which I see blogs and websites merging more and more reaffirms this small businesses I work with are now deciding not just to set up a blog but rather use the technology to run their whole site giving them control over updates, the ability to post and distribute information as required and of course the all important interactivity.

For me, the research by Gartner reiterates this in their Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies. They also position Corporate Blogging at the start of mainstream acceptance and use as you can see in their diagram below.

Where do we go from here …?

Well, if I had to sum all this up, I think that I would have to say, that if you are looking to start a business blog because you think that itd be a cool and trendy thing to do then youre probably a couple of years behind the times now. Have a look at Twitter instead (in fact you should anyway – follow me for starters at www.twitter.com/BlogCoach) but be prepared to move to the next up and coming technology when it arrives.

However, if youre starting a blog because of what they can bring to your business, and you want a tool that will really help your relationships with customers and prospects as well as generate new business for you, then you have found the perfect time to start a blog for your business. Just make sure you plan ahead and set it up to future proof your investment.

So now, without even an small tear of remorse in the corner of my eye, I can happily announce that blogging is now all grown up – and rearing to show you what it can do!

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Use the 2nd biggest Search engine – that’s YouTube by the way

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:00:19 +0000

Well, according to Comscore’s latest report, YouTube has now overtaken Yahoo and sits in second position (behind Google of course) when it comes to online search. Quite an achievement! But, to be honest, it some respects, it really doesn’t matter where they are in the rankings – the fact is that the 60m+ visitors it attracts on a monthly basis speaks volumes on its own. It also begs the question – how are you using video to benefit your blog and your business?

Where videos prove their worth

Video, together with the increasing use of social media such as blogs, social networking and podcasts in marketing, has been winning new fans because of the extra dimension that it can give to our marketing activities. Using video not only helps to differentiate you from your competitors, it also allows you to convey your message in a different way.

The use of video has had a huge rise in popularity over recent years, with steeply rising user numbers. YouTube, with its estimated 64 million visitors every month leads the way, but its success has given rise to hundreds of other video sharing sites, led by Metacafe and Google Video. These larger sites all attract millions of users a month and have the potential to drive traffic to your blog, help you add another string to your social media bow and build on your SEO activities if you use them correctly.

But it isn’t just about tapping into this existing flow of visitors to video sharing sites you should also be using videos on your own blog. By embedding videos in individual posts, you are creating an additional resource for your visitors and a point of focus which you can link back to. If you have ones which generate high levels of interest then this can attract new visitors and additional links – both very beneficial of course! Having it on your own blog also makes it possible for you to distribute it (and syndicate it) through your RSS feed. Ah, so many opportunities!!

How to help your Video help you

However, there are some elements that you’ll want to consider, particularly if you want to get the best out of a video you are planning to create and use:

i) Creating your video

This is not a technical guide to creating your video but rather some pointers to start you thinking in the right direction. Nevertheless, as a rule of thumb, youll want to ensure that the Video gives the best impression possible, so spend as much time and money as it warrants to do so.

It is always best to keep it short and snappy, ideally under 5 minutes no matter what the subject matter. If you have something which merits longer then divide it up if the content appeals then they will come back for the rest of the series.

Unsurprisingly, content is all important: there is little point in just uploading anything and everything to video. The type of content can vary enormously though – it might be informative (how to guides are usually well received), quirky, funny or any number of variations. What it must be is interesting and something that will appeal to the market you are targeting.

For instructional videos, don’t forget that software which allows you to carry out screen capture will record you walking through a process easily and clearly – ideal business content.

Dont forget to include references to your business in the opening or closing elements of the video lets remember that the video is there to help us create additional awareness of our website and get people to visit it.

In addition, make sure you get a branding message into it at least a logo – but dont let it become the be all and end all of the video. Like blogs, videos are not a tool suited to a hard sell if they try to, they will quickly get turned off.

ii) Video Optimisation on your own website

When you embed a video in a blog post, remember to support it using the same optimisation methods that you might use on any other page … along with one or two additional elements too.

On the page that hosts the video, make sure that the page still has suitably targeted title tag, metatags and all of the onpage SEO elements that you would expect to use elsewhere on your blog.

And dont forget the text! Create a post which talks about the same subject matter and which will complement what you are showing on the video. The text supports the video and vice versa.

In addition, consider including a transcript of the video in the post itself this again will ensure that you have a lot of relevant content for the Search Engines to digest.

Of course, if you wish to take it a step further, then why not consider including a video, a podcast and text covering the same topic. Great for Search Engines and great for your visitors who can choose the medium they prefer to digest your information in.

iii) Video Optimisation on Video Sharing Sites

When you are using websites such as YouTube, you need to work with what they offer you and then make sure it is turned to your advantage.

The title of the video serves a similar purpose to the Title Tag on a web page and is used by both Search Engines and users. So make sure that the title contains a keyword phrase relating to your company or services and where possible also make it catchy enough to catch the attention of users.

You need to give the Search Engines information about the video itself you can do this by using tags for your video and make sure that they follow the keyword terms that you are targeting. Just like an individual webpage, make the tags specific to each video rather than just adding a standard set for all of them.

If you have a number of videos then its likely that you will also have a profile on your profile you will normally get the opportunity to embed your own keyword phrases so use these to support your video content

As an additional element, develop a programme for your videos where you employ social media methods to help build inbound links by using bookmarking sites such as Digg and del.icio.us, social networking sites and forums they are just as relevant when it comes to video promotion as they are for articles and pages.

Are Videos for you?

Not everyone has designs to be a director but you can be certain that the use of videos is here to stay and will continue to grow, so they need to be considered as part of your promotion plans. Check out what’s attracting hits on YouTube in your market area to get some ideas and, to make best use of them, optimise your videos by focusing on who will be viewing them and what they want to get from them. You can then use both general SEO techniques and those specifically relevant to video optimisation.

Above all, consider the use of social media marketing methods to harness the word of mouth and viral possibilities which will ensure that your videos get as wide a distribution as possible. Who knows, if your video reaches the right computer screen, it might even open up opportunities above and beyond great SEO for your business!

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Olympic Cycling with a lesson for bloggers

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 23:00:23 +0000

I love sport and while I may now have changed from active participant to armchair pundit, I am still a fervent follower of a whole range of different sports. With the Olympics dominating our TV screens over the past two weeks (certainly here in the UK), I could have quite happily sat watched 24 hours a day, had the prickly subject of work not intervened!

The exploits of the now global stars that are Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt have been mind blowing and almost as impressive, from a Brit’s point of view, has been the performance of the British competitors in “Team GB” – 39 medals overall with 17 golds as of today and sitting 3rd in the medals table.

Among those golds, the highest number came from the cycling team which has dominated the track events in the velodrome. How come? What has been the difference which has set them apart? Well, according to the Times Online, British Cycling performance director, David Brailsford believes:

there was no specific ingredient or secret that set his sport apart and that success has come by way of the aggregation of marginal gains

Interesting? I think so and it’s something that I think is very relevant to many other areas including blogging. Here too, there is no single “secret” or magic spell which will revolutionise what we do – although that doesn’t stop websites continually popping up claiming they have “The One Secret that will supercharge your Blogging, flood your Bank Account with money etc etc. ...” < yawn >

Instead, focus on getting get all the elements working together so that you can benefit from the marginal gains that each element offers. Clearly the subject matter is all important – without that you’re not going to get off the starting line. But I’m thinking beyond that and more of the complementary elements that help set the blog apart and push it: make your post titles and title tags work for you, illustrate the text with graphics, add friendly permalinks, make social bookmarking easy, offer readers other related posts, consider other SEO factors, add an email a friend option, make your RSS feed work hard for you and so on.

Each of these adds another piece to the jigsaw and helps to develop the blog. So whatever stage your blog is at, take a look at it and see what else could be included to add to the experience of your readers and to increase the benefits to you.

Then go back and repeat the process. You’ll soon find how those marginal gains add up.

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17 types of posts to strengthen your business blog

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 16:44:58 +0000

One of the key worries that businesses have as they start to develop their blog is what to write about and how best to communicate their messages across to their readers. Effectively, what sort of posts they should write. Well, posts can take many shapes and forms according to the authors inclination and the readers preferences I think the skill comes in matching the two as closely as possible.

To help the process, heres a list of 17 possible types of posts that you could look at to develop the conversation on your business blog. They wont all be relevant for every blog but they should help to spark some ideas on ones that would be most applicable for you.

1. Foundation Posts

Foundation posts are the core posts that your blog should be built upon and which focus on the key subject areas that the blog is going to be talking about. They are likely to be longer than other posts, focused in the content and, more often than not, will contain tips or practical advice centred around your main topics. These are posts that you’ll want to spend a bit more time on and which people should want to refer back to and share, time and time again.

2. Expertise Sharing

No doubt a familiar type of post for small business bloggers and a key one at that. These posts will demonstrate and share information on important topics relating to your expertise, with each post focusing on a particular aspect of that topic. The subject will be of direct interest to your readers and should have primary goal of developing or reinforcing the confidence and trust that they have in your abilities.

3. Lists

Lists remain one of the most commonly referred to types of posts and hence a very good way of getting a lot of information over in a short space of time. People can dip in and out as they see fit, so these are also the type of post that often gets referred to and shared in places like Digg.

4. News Delivery / Reporting / News Breaking

Blogs are a great way of sharing news and information and, because of their immediacy, also for breaking new stories. Unfortunately, few of us are able to be on the spot when we get a scoop but we are able to share news and information that we have found with our readers. While you could simply share a link or story as is, if you want to develop your own relationship with your readers, try to add your own perspective and comments to it when you write about it.

5. Guides / Instructional

A “How to” guide is an excellent way of passing on information and creating something which has the ability to go viral. While sharing information in anecdotal form is great, sometimes you just cant beat a clear guide that’s easy to follow from someone who has been there, done it and got the T-shirt to prove it. Think of it like instructions on putting together a piece of furniture from Ikea (hopefully with all the pieces there) and make your “How to” guides the definitive ones for your specialism.

6. LinkBaiting

A post which is designed primarily to attract attention and incite people to link to it, hence link baiting. This might be a post with contentious or provocative content aimed at getting a reaction from readers or might be one based on humour. In essence though, it’s sole goal is to provoke a reaction and generate links.

7. Surveys & Polls

Facts and figures lend weight to an argument and by using figures from a recent survey or report and then adding your own commentary, you can get your message across with up to date information to support it. Alternatively, why not run your own poll in your post and gather information from the people you really want the opinion of your own readers.

8. Article Reply

So youve seen something that caught your attention on some one elses blog or website and left a comment on it but you want to expand on that. Great, write a post which references the original but then goes on to either develop and expand on the points it makes, or to counter them.

9. Rants

Never get abusive or personal, but if you write about something that really bugs you and you believe is worth sharing, then this can come over very powerfully in a blog. It adds to the 3D view of you, the person, and helps tell your readers something more about you. Hey, we also like a little bit of Victor Meldrew, letting off steam now and again.

10. Industry Commentary

You are going to be well placed to pass on information about what is happening in your industry and how events are likely to effect your readers and other players in it. So make sure that you become the place that people visit to get informed opinion about what’s going on by delivering posts which report on developments in your industry.

11. Conferences / Exhibitions / Seminars

A great way of getting across information and sharing with a larger audience is to take information from a conference and report back via your blog. This could be your own conference or one that you are attending as a delegate – beforehand, highlight that you will be there (and willing to meet up no doubt) and then feed back what you found interesting or particularly useful.

12. Company Specific

There may be some specific news about your company which will be of interest to your readers, perhaps new capacity, extra staff or additional clients, all of which reflect favourably on you and your business. A constant stream of these might be considered unimaginative and prove boring, but the occasional one thrown in adds to the information pool your readers have about you.

13. Press Releases

While not to everyones taste, a blog is also an excellent distribution method for information (using RSS, pinging etc) as well as being the platform for conversation and relationship building. Dont use it simply as a Press Release conduit, but if you believe that it is relevant and interesting to your readers then there is no harm in putting PR information out through your blog as well.

14. Guest Post

Ok, perhaps a slightly different angle here, but why not get someone else in to write a post for your blog. Your readers get additional great information on a subject, you can get extra publicity as the guest writer will probably reference it from their own blog and it will add to your reputation in the process. Perhaps a reciprocal arrangement with a number of different authors? [BTW – if you’re looking for guest bloggers, drop me a line! ]

15. Links Post

Theres always going to be information that you have unearthed during the course of the week that youd like to share and is useful to your readers, but which doesnt suit a full post on its own. So create a post with a series of links to articles, information sources, new stories etc. with just a short one line commentary on each.

16. Reviews

Might be of a book or white paper, or perhaps of a service or product which is relevant to your readers give your own opinion on it and then open it to the floor and get your readers opinions as well.

17. Video or Podcast

Its becoming ever easier to integrate either podcasts or videos clips into your posts and they are also a great way to offer something a little extra to your readers. Ideally make them your own but you can of course embed videos from sites like YouTube that you believe would be beneficial. If you put commentary around them (and a transcript for your own) then youll take the SEO on the post up a notch as well.

Of course, a post doesnt need to fall into just a single category this one, for example, is clearly a list post but I would like to think also falls into the area of expertise sharing. At the end of the day, focus on what will appeal to your readers (you could always ask then what they are looking for!?) but hopefully you’ll find some ideas here to be going on with!

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Optimizing your Blog for your Business

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:57:09 +0000

The 3rd part of the series and a lot of what I have been talking about in the first two posts on Optimising your blog for Search Engines and Optimising your Blog for your Readers, will be relevant here. In fact, it probably all is. Generally, when it comes to our businesses, our online relationships with our readers and with the search engines are inextricably linked in todays world.

After all, we use optimisation techniques to try to get a higher profile in the Search Engine results pages and so attract more visitors. Then the optimisation for readers comes into play by keeping them on the blog, getting them to read and enjoy the posts, and ultimately encouraging them to return or recommend the blog. Optimising your blog for your business, ties these two together and supports them through the use of additional elements which further promote what you are doing and why.

So, make sure that you consider these as well if you want your blog to make the impact that it should on your business and support everything that you are writing:

1. Promoting your own services? Keep them above the fold

If your intention is to use your blog to attract people to you and make them aware of the services / products that you offer, then ensure you keep the links to them visible and above the fold, so that they can be seen without having to scroll down. At the same time, don’t make them so in your face that they take over. Balance is the name of the game. Your readers are astute and are likely to judge you on what you write but also on how you conduct yourself and this falls under the latter. Essentially, it comes back to the idea that you should not try to sell to them on a blog, rather help them discover why they want to buy from you.

2. Don’t swamp your blog with adverts

This means both yours and other people’s. If your readers are likely to lose the will to live because of the number of adverts that they have to wade through to find your posts, then they will quickly fall out of love with your blog and you. So if you intend to include adverts and partner links, make them relevant but don’t let them take over your blog.

3. Spend time on your blog design

When I talk about blog design, I’m not just thinking about the graphic design (ie. the look and feel) of your blog and how that relates to your business, but also the placement of the different elements such as navigation, categories, special posts, sign up boxes, offers etc. on the blog. Just as you may well have spent time on your website and possibly worked with a web development company, take the same care with your blog to ensure that it best serves your business goals.

4. Add easy referral methods

Referrals and recommendations are the lifeblood of many businesses and are possibly the best type of business introduction that you can get. In blogs, your posts provide information about your business both through the content and the way in which they are written – help your readers to share this information by making it easy for them to pass it on. Include an email a friend option as well as links to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, del.icio.us or Stumble Upon and, with the current interest in micro-blogging, a link to Twitter might also be beneficial.

5. Can they print it?

Sometimes I wonder if I am not yet fully embracing the online experience because I still often like to print off blog posts and webpages that I find useful so that I can read them at my leisure offline. I know that Im not alone in this. Unfortunately, printers often truncate these posts because the page width is, well, too wide. So make sure that if people want to print off and refer to your article (yes!!) then they can without having to guess what are the missing words. [Wordpress users might like to include WP-Print for this.]

6. Make it easy to comment

I mentioned the need to make it easy for people to leave comments when talking about optimising your blog for your readers, but of course it works both ways. Comments are the start of a conversation which hopefully will benefit both parties and they should also benefit all those who come to your blog – they’ll not only see extra information but will also get a better picture of you through your replies. In addition, you may want to consider using the comments on special pages as live online testimonials, product commentaries, hotel/restaurant rating or whatever use that your business can put it to. If you want to know how valuable this so-called User Generated Content is, just look at companies like Amazon, Hotels.com or eBay!

7. Make use of RSS Marketing (and basic RSS Advertsing)

RSS is a key element of getting our information out into the right places on the internet, automatically and directly – it will also ensure that our messages reach people who have subscribed. However, there are many ways in which you can use your RSS feed to reinforce the business messages that you wish to get across. Presuming you are not hot on XML coding (I certainly fall into that category), then use Feedburner – you can add logos and notes to each post sent via RSS through their service. In addition you can add links after the post to promote/inform about your business, services or special offers using their Feed Flare facility. Think of it like adding a couple of relevant links to your email signature – great visibility without being too intrusive.

8. Include Calls to Action

I know that a blog should really just be about engaging with your readers, starting a conversation with them and creating those all important connections, but you are running a business too, so it’s important to give the process a little helping hand. Make sure that you have calls to action on your blog – it’s not direct selling or straying from the general ethos of blogging, it’s just letting your readers know how to take it to the next stage.

9. Be easy to contact

Just in case you were about to forget, the aim of a business blog is to encourage people to get in contact but you still find bloggers who make it difficult to find out how to do so. Make sure that you have a contact page and that its easy to find and use in this instance, its nothing about being transparent or open, its just good solid business common sense.

10. Want sign-ups? Where’s your form?

If a key goal is to get subscribers for a newsletter or ecourse, then make sure the signup box is given a prominent position on your blog. Email marketing and the use of autoresponders for sequenced messages works really well with blogs and is something that is often overlooked as we keep our head down trying to write new posts. Remember the research which indicates that we tend to read pages in an “F” shape starting with the top left hand corner, working our way across the top and then reading down the left hand side – use that information and judge the placement of the important elements accordingly.

11. Make your blog as sticky as possible

A lot of the stickiness of a blog will come through the content that you write, but there’s no harm in giving it a helping hand. Judicious use of both videos and podcasts, for example, means that you can get your message across in a number of different media, and use them as additional avenues to promote your business through video optimisation and podcasts directories. Consider running online surveys or contests, offer free downloads, reviews of relevant books – all can complement the content you write to help keep your readers on your site and keep them coming back.

12. Use TACT Track, Analyse, Change and Track

Make sure that you know what your readers are really reading, what are your most popular posts and what the Search Engines are referring people back to. Use a program such as Google Analytics or Statcounter to give yourself a good level of visibility of what is drawing attention and whether your calls to action are having the desired effect. Of course, this will only be beneficial if you analyse the information that it gives you and make changes accordingly. The process then starts all over again – it is certainly worth it though and will help make your blog work better for you.

In optimising your blog for your business, what you are really doing is giving it every chance to help promote and develop it. In doing so, you are ensuring that your blog can be found by your readers and potential customers and that they have easy access to the information that it contains. They should then be in a position to act on that information, ideally by getting in contact and by also sharing that information with others.

As ever, don’t get hung up on trying to optimise your blog purely for Search Engines or even purely for your readers. Remember what it is really there for – a tool to market and promote your business. Instead, keep a watching brief on the requirements for both readers and search engines, but make your main focus one of optimising it for your business.

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Optimizing your Blog for Search Engines

Mark White, Blog Consultant — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:00:07 +0000

Warning – Long Post (even for me!)

Remember that when it comes to “Optimising your blog”, looking at the factors which will be picked up by the Search Engines is only one part of the equation. You also need to consider optimising the blog for your readers and optimising for your business objectives – creating a blog which happens to rank highly for certain relevant key word phrases is going to be of zero value to you if you can’t back that up with things that your readers are interested in. (We looked at Optimising for your Readers in part 1 and optimising for your business comes in part 3).

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.

1. 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 Spencers 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 youll 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!

2. 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!

3. 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 youll 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. Its a small element, but every little helps!

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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.

7. 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!

8. 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 peoples 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.

9. 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.

10. Image Alt Tags

I believe that blogs benefit from having graphics included in the posts its 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 its 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.

11. Index only the important parts

A blog creates and updates a number of different pages each time you make a post, from the blogs 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.

12. 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 isnt strictly an SEO element, you cannot start to work on the ranking of a page until it is indexed and so I think that its 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.

13. 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!

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