WebSite Marketing Strategy

If you have a well established blog then you will probably not need to encourage visitors to stop and comment. If, on the other hand, you are a relatively new blogger then gaining readers and comments can be difficult. A relatively new plugin for WordPress call Keyword Luv may help. When it comes to blog plugins, this is one of the easy ones to use.

Keyword Luv allows commenters to include a keyword with their name when leaving a comment. Rather than just leaving a name and email, the visitor can enter name@keword then their email. The comment link will appear with the keyword rather than just their name.

Blog plugins are designed to add to the functionality of a blog - this one does the job well. The use of the plugin brings up another point. When leaving comment on other sites, do you just leave your name?

It would make sense to use a keyword name such as ‘name at keyword’ when leaving a comment so long as the blog owner doesn’t object. Making small changes like this can make a big change when it comes to comments and links back.

Of course, if the nofollow plugin is not used the whole issue of keywords and links becomes moot.

There are many blog and website services around the net, however most only provide partial services. Reputable services are able to offer businesses, particularly those that have a web presence and want to extend that by adding a blog, a wide range of options. Here are some of the options available:

Blog installation, setup and ongoing maintenance.
Installing a blog can be straightforward however the setup and particularly the ongoing maintenance can be time consuming. If you don’t have any experience with blogs then selecting and using the appropriate plugins can be confusing.

Blog SEO
Setting up a blog is just the start. Using the right plugins to help with your blog SEO is a must. Setting up appropriate categories and tags is also a part of your blogs SEO.

Blog Theme
If you have a website then your blog should either match the websites design or complement it. A blog and website service provider will help to get a theme that does complement both your website and your business.

Blogging Service
If you find it difficult to provide well written regular content for your blog then a blog and website services provider can help by writing regular posts and publishing them on your blog. You are assured of good keyword optimized content.

Social Optimization
With a good blog design  and quality content that is informative to visitors and assists your blog SEO, all that is left is to optimize for the various social media sites. This helps to generate visitors and back links to your blog.

Integration
The final step in the puzzle, and the least optimized for most businesses, is the integration that is required between a web site and its blog. Where to place appropriate links and the correct anchor text can make a big difference.  Blog and website services providers have experience with integration and how to achieve maximum results from that integration.

Blog and website services can help with the creation and ongoing development of your business blog. The long term benefits include extra traffic  - and sales and increases in search engine rankings.

Writing blog or web site content on a regular basis can be difficult.  If you add in a dose of the dreaded writers block, chances are you could sit at your keyboard for hours and not type a single word. Perhaps social bookmarking can provide some inspiration.

For many writers, they have their favorite sites - but do they have their favorite bookmarkers? If you have added individuals with similar niche related preferences then checking items that they have bookmarked can be a good start. To a certain extent, this was the original idea behind social bookmarking.

The alternative is to use a social bookmarking site like StumbleUpon. Set your preferences to your niche then sit back and let SU take you through a random series of popular content. Stop and read what is relevant, stumble through to the next item if it has no interest.

There are several major benefits in using social bookmarking site for inspiration. The first is obvious - you do get inspired by an article. Other benefits include the introduction to new sites you may not have come across before (or a reminder of a site that you had forgotten about) and learning. You will be surprised at how much you can learn just by randomly visiting sites that others have bookmarked.

Many consider social bookmarking and the random viewing of pages as a ‘time waster’ and that this time could be better utilized. Sometimes,  by ‘wasting’ 30 minutes  you may find you have acquired new knowledge, been inspired to write (often more than one post too) and found new and interesting sites. It seems to me, with the right attitude, social bookmarking could also be considered an investment.

Social bookmarking is not just about promoting yourself. Sometimes you can gain a lot more by letting others promote to you.

There is more to running a blog than just content and blog SEO. The blog design needs to be right as well and by that I mean it needs to fit the niche you are writing in. Many bloggers just grab a free theme they like, install it and away they go.

I don’t have anything against free themes per, especially if you are first starting out and are don’t have many readers or visitors. However as you start to build a name and reputation of your blog online you need to think about a theme that is unique for your blog. Your theme becomes a part of your branding - a part of your image.

Free themes come with several problems, the first and obvious being that many others share it. While this may not be a big problem, it can be for your image and branding - remember, you need to be unique - to stand out in the crowd of the millions of blogs active on the web.

Other problem associated with free blog themes includes hidden links in the footer that may go to sites that may hurt your SEO efforts. This can be a serious problem you can lose visitors as well.

Your blog theme is the first thing that visitors see, well before the content. It has to be attractive and inviting while selling you and your brand and image. It needs to convey a feeling of authority, even if your site is just full of jokes; it still needs to sell that feeling.

Free themes won’t cut it in the long run. They won’t support your image and they won’t help to sell you. Getting your own theme designed is not always that expensive, it can however make a huge difference.

I think it’s generally accepted by many social media folks that one characteristic of social media is transparency and disclosure, well … maybe that’s two characteristics but they almost mean the same thing.

Being transparent (or real) in a conversation and disclosing who you are is really the first step in building trust with people online. It’s the same dynamic when building relationships in the real world, not that online isn’t the real world of course but you catch my drift. If I wasn’t transparent with my wife when we were first dating, and then issues began to arise after the fact, there is a good chance that we wouldn’t be married today. Same goes for big companies.

Back in June, I attended a Blog Council event in Chicago and met some really awesome people from companies like Dell, P&G, Nokia and Allstate Insurance to name a few.  It was great opportunity for us to talk about the issues that we face daily within our organizations as it relates to social media, one being disclosure. And, to make a long story short, we began to work on a collaborative disclosure statement (just released today) for companies that are engaging in and with social media.  Here are some key points that explain the statement in detail:

• The disclosure policy is intended to be used as a guideline to help companies create their own policy
• The document is open source; and will change and evolve over time
• The policy covers more than just corporate blogging. It encompasses “all things” social media

The Blog Council is a group of corporate marketers/managers/lawyers (volunteers); and it’s not our intention to set or enforce “blogging rules”.  The disclosure statement is meant to make it easier to share the best practices with each other and the community.

You need to be blogging, if you are not already. Blogs are a very powerful and effect marketing tool.

The pros of blogging are:

• they provide fresh content to your website
• the search engines love them and will index blog posts very frequently
• installation and the “optimizing” of your blog is not too time consuming
• they are tons of ways to promote your blog via directories, link etc.
• they are a social marketing tool, thus can help you connect to others in your field or subject matter

Now there are some cons and the two major ones are:
• they can be time consuming-for writing and/or promoting ones blog
• some technical knowledge is needed to install and properly “optimize” the blog

Now these cons can be overcome but hiring someone to do it for you but of course that cost money

The main point of this post is to share with you a couple of examples of the power of blogging.

A while back, I got a phone from SuperPages asking about my account. I told them everything was fine and not to bother me again. Well after a few more “telemarketing” type calls from them (from an overseas call center) I decided to blog about it and vent.

Not two days later, someone from SuperPages called me and asked for details! I was impressed and amazed that someone actually called. Within a week, they had taken care of the problem and took the time to call me back.

I asked them how they heard about my blog post. They said that someone in marketing saw the post via Google Alerts and took action.

Another great example is from my associate Tim at Convert Offline. I will let you read his blog post but basically he got a new “dream job” because a company looking for someone with his background and experience, found his blog, contacted him and within an hour, offered him a job.

The point is that people and companies out there reading, searching for information on-line and blogs are a perfect vehicle for getting your message across. If you are promoting yourself, your company, or your product and service. The pen is mightier than the sword!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Larry Sullivan has been online for over 8 years – helping small business to increase their online visibility. Larry specializes in local search marketing and blogs about local search and other related Internet marketing topics at LocalBizBits.com.

Is there such a thing as to much content, or in this case, a post that is too long? I would argue that, at times, posts can be to long. Blog content can be fickle and your readers more so.

There are two solutions to a post that is too long. One, break it into two or more pieces and post it as a series, or edit it back to a shorter post. Blog content needs to be bite sized or provide a quick read. These are two options generally suggested to bloggers. There is one further option which can often be the best solution.

People want a quick fix. Occasionally however, a longer article is worthy of its place as a single entity. For a series to work,  each unit of the series needs to be able to stand alone. Many articles cannot be written this way. A good example is a “how to” with many complicated steps. It needs to be followed from A to Z and will not break naturally into two posts - let’s face it, who wants to get half through baking a cake then wait until tomorrows post to find out what to do with the batter?

When caught in this situation, the post is probably better off being a static page and not post. Publish the article and then write a post that summarizes the steps and then points to the static page using appropriate anchor text.

The benefits are many. You now have two items to publish for the price of one. You will have created an authority page and future reference point. Blog content does not have to be about regular posts. If you use a software package such as WordPress, then creating a static page is as straightforward as creating a post. Don’t waste a post because it is too long - put it to better use.

Your visitors are valuable to your blog or web site for many reasons. Obviously, the more visitors you receive the better particularly if they are targeted visitors through advertising, organic search results or through social marketing programs. Visitors can also hold the key to your future successes.

Knowing where your visitors come from, how and where they arrived on your site and what they do on your site is valuable data. This data can be used in a variety of ways. Here are few that might make a difference to your sites future.

Keywords: Knowing which keywords are being used can help to focus your content where your visitors want it. If you provide content in a number of areas, each ranking reasonably well in the search engines, having one or more keywords out perform the others should send a message.  Concentrate on providing content in those areas and perhaps you can be seen as an authority in that area.

Pages:  Knowing which pages your visitors are predominantly landing on opens up a few doors. If some pages are proving to be popular and you have monetized your sites, perhaps placing your best performing ads on those pages can help to increase your income. Be sure the ads are appropriate for those pages.

Origin: If the majority of your visitors are coming from the US then having ads related to the UK could be costing you money. Placing ads that relate to the UK may increase your income. It may also help to fine tune your content concentrating more on what that particular audience is looking for.

Organic Search: If one search engine is outperforming another then you need to see why. If it is Google then it is understandable. However, if you are getting more oganic traffic from Yahoo! you need to check why. Is Google indexing your site or is just a quirk? If there are problems with Google indexing your content, fixing that problem may increase your traffic.

Knowing all about your visitors can be a great help in fine  tuning your blog or web site. Providing what your visitors want will increase the frequency of their visits and perhaps even your income.

The old saying, ‘look before you leap’ is very true when it comes to selecting your blog and website services provider. There are many unethical providers offering services, services which border on fraudulent acts.

This issue was brought home to me recently when I was asked to help a client change from one host to another. The transfer of the web site went fairly smoothly, however, as the domain was due for renewal I thought it wise to check that all information relating to the domain was correct. A simple ‘whois’ check is all that is required and it displayed some interesting results.

Their problem was one that many new website owners face. Starting off with cheap hosting that is unreliable and lacking any sort of support. What really concerned me where the ownership details of the domain. The domains details told me that the domain did not belong to my client. They were the contact, but not the owner. The registered owner was actually the host.

If that isn’t fraudulent then tell me what is! After many emails and finally resorting to threats of further action, the host agreed to transfer the domain over to the rightful owner.  The moral of this story is twofold - first - if the blog and website service is cheap, then cheap is what you are going to get.

When deciding on a blog and website service provider, do a little checking first. Entering the services name into a search engine (inside quotation marks) can provide a lot of valuable information. If there are any forum threads, read them through to see what other users have had to say. Look before you leap and you may save a lot of hassles down the track.

Blogs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are personal while others are trying to sell a product or service. Others are nothing more than spam collectors trying to earn an income through affiliate programs and advertising such as Adsense, Adbrite, etc. Blogs can also be your businesses best marketing tool if they are produced properly.

We live in a digital age and people are becoming used to dealing with unknown faces behind digital walls. That doesn’t necessarily mean they like it. Humans are social creatures - very social. We prefer to be where the masses are - the principle behind the success of Facebook and Myspace and other social networking sites. It can also be the secret to increasing sales on your site.

Your blog can be the perfect vehicle to break that digital barrier particularly now that new communication methods are becoming popular.  The easiest way to break some of these barriers is by including profiles and staff bios together with contact details. I would much rather email a technician by name to try and solve a problem than email a techsupport@ faceless person. To receive a personal email back addressing me by name and signed by the technician also helps to personalize the service - more so if they have also provided a decent solution to my problem.

Having these individuals also write posts on topics from their area of expertise also helps. To this can be added podcasts and videos. Now I can hear and/or see the person I am dealing with. They have a face and personality, they are human like me!

Blogs can serve many purposes, breaking that digital faceless barrier can be just one. It can however be a very important barrier to break.