Archive for the ‘blog’ category
Blog Friday
An associate here who regularly blogs on another website we have commented that today was “Blog Friday,” and it hit me that that is a great concept. Blogging needs to be a consistent part of your Internet marketing; something that you do every week, maybe even on the same days, regularly. It should be a habit. Now, I can’t say that I have done very well with this habit…for a couple of years now. But I’m back, baby! One of my goals for this year is to blog three times per week. So let’s explore this idea.
Why would you want to blog regularly? There are some very good reasons:
- You cause your website to grow with content. Google loves websites with lots of content. The more you have, the better.
- You can re-purpose your blogs. We’ve published a couple of books which have been very useful in spreading our brand and attracting clients. Most of the content in those books started as blog posts. You could do the same thing, turning your blog content into articles, reports, books, or anything you can think of.
- It helps establish credibility. Chances are pretty good that if you blog about a particular subject regularly, those who read the blog will think you know what you’re taking about.
- It can cause people to return to your blog to read your updates. This is a very favorable thing. You WANT people to want to come to your website to read what you have to say.
- It can cause you to think critically about what you do. If you’re constantly having to come up with something to say related to your business, it may force you to have to learn some new things about your industry and keep up with what’s going on. This is a very good thing.
So there you have it. Five very good reasons to have your own Blog Friday…or Blog Monday…or whatever day(s) work for you.
Using Amazon.com for Topic Research
If you’ve read much of our blog (or our articles, books, etc.), then you know that we are HUGE advocates of using content distribution as a primary search engine marketing strategy. It has many benefits: it establishes your credibility as an expert, it gets your name in front of a lot of people, it generates many keyword links to your web site, and it drives direct traffic. However, coming from the perspective of someone who has to write many articles on all different subjects on behalf of our clients, I can honestly say that it can be a grind. Sometimes it is hard to find the research material you need to write an article, especially with all the garbage that you find in a typical Google search. However, we’ve discovered that Amazon.com can be an excellent research tool to help you write your content.
The way this works is by using Amazon’s Look Inside feature. This feature allows you to view and read passages from books for sale on Amazon that contain specific keywords. Amazon, shrewd business people that they are, only allows you to use this feature if you are a registered user on the site and have actually ordered something. So sign up for an account and buy yourself a good book to read. Then you’ll be good to go.
To use this as a research tool, you will search books by whatever keyword you are researching. Then, scroll through the list of returned results and find a book that has the “Click to LOOK INSIDE” logo on top of the book cover image. Click on that book cover.
On the next screen, you will see a search box labeled “Search Inside This Book.” This is the search box that allows you to specifically search in the book, so type your keyword in that box and perform another search. You will now be returned a list of links to passages in the book that contain the keyword. If you are a registered user with an order history, then clicking on the link will show you that passage. Otherwise, Amazon will tell you Sorry, you gotta order something first.
Searching through a book like this will provide you with all kinds of information about a keyword from a real book written by a real expert. This can be a richer mine of information than other types of online searches, such as searching article directories.
Anyone can be a successful writer of online content for distribution if he takes the time to do his research. This process can be tedious, but using the best sources of information will make the process a whole lot easier.
The Thirty Minute Writing Challenge
Write thirty minutes every day. That is one of the challenges to myself at the start of 2010. Day three (not counting the 1st, which was a football watching, beer drinking, chilling out kind of day; the 2nd, which was a Saturday devoted to catching up on chores; and Sunday the 3rd, which was a church and family day), this is day three of my New Year’s writing challenge. Assuming I end up typing for in the neighborhood of thirty minutes, I can check off three consecutive days.
So what’s the point?
When I am finished with this piece, I will have three new blog posts or articles, all dealing with my industry, and all containing keywords and keyword links to my main web sites.
If you do that…if you create a new piece of content every single day that gets posted on a blog, or posted to one or a hundred article directories, or to any one of dozens of high quality social media sites…all with keyword links back to your web site…you will accomplish several things:
You will get your name in front of a lot of people.
You will establish your credibility as an expert in your industry.
You will improve your web site’s search engine rankings.
You will drive traffic to your web site.
That is an impressive list of benefits. In the general scheme of things, thirty minutes doesn’t seem like much, but I can attest (and I’m sure many of you will agree) there are many days when you just can’t find a half hour to do nothing but write. So maybe you do it early in the morning. Or maybe you do it at night (it’s 10:34PM Central at the time of this writing). Or maybe you just pay somebody else to do it. It’s worth the effort.
Normally I write something a bit more technical or specific to some aspect of search engine marketing (see the way I linked the keyword “search engine marketing” to my company’s main web site?). My brain is fried from debugging .NET code all day (.NET programming definitely does not fall under the domain of search engine marketing; however, one of the things that Work Media takes pride in is being able to do WHATEVER our clients need us to do to keep selling), so this is what you get.
I’m at 37 minutes…with a couple of lapses to watch a few minutes of reruns of the Office…so I can call this one done.
Blog Comment Linking: Good or Bad?
Recently, in its Google Webmaster blog (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com), Google posted about spam links in blog comments, and how using these links will damage your positioning. This is a strategy that Work Media sometimes employs, so we wanted to address this subject.
First off, you have to take these things with a grain of salt. Google likes to keep things secretive, and we believe it often does and says things just to create confusion about how its algorithm works. And the Web is built on links. Google uses links to find web sites and as a measure of a site’s worth in assigning it a ranking. So, in general, you still have to get links to your site if you want high search engine rankings.
For another thing, we don’t think it really makes sense to PUNISH sites for having links to it. That’s not to say Google doesn’t do it, and it seems to have done it in the past, but think about this: if Google is going to punish a web site for having links to it contained in blog comments, why wouldn’t I use this against my competitors? What is to stop me from going around to blogs and submitting spammy comments with links to my competitors’ web sites?
Google says this: “…it’s useless to think of harming your competitor’s ranking by spamming comments with their name, since it usually won’t affect their ranking if their sites are complying with Google Webmaster Guidelines.”
Ah, there’s the rub. If you do things the right way, you will be fine. Here is our approach to blog commenting:
1. Use a keyword for the name field.
2. Type a URL in the appropriate field.
3. Type out a well-written, well-thought-out comment that relates directly to the content of the blog post.
The difference between this approach and what Google is talking about is that we are making legitimate comments, while also taking advantage of the opportunity to get the link.
Here’s another thing: don’t rely solely on this or any other SEO strategy to get links. Mix it up. And be credible.
Here’s another thing that we find odd: one of Google’s suggestions is that a way to prevent this is to set comment links in your blog to no follow. However, it was recently revealed that doing that reduces the value of your own internal-pointing or other do follow links. The reason is that PageRank leaks out of your page from the no follow links, even though the pages the links point to do not get credited with the PageRank. So setting your links to no follow is now damaging to your own SEO efforts.
So what should you do? Don’t worry about it. Do your blog commenting like we suggest above and you will be fine.
How to Use Your Blog and Twitter Account to Keep Facebook Updated Automatically
Using a tool like Ping.fm, you can integrate your blog, your Twitter account, and your Facebook account. We’re talking about dynamically combining content from multiple sources into content for a third or more web page.
Here is a hypothetical example.
Let’s say I run an Internet marketing company in Nashville…wait a minute, that’s not so hypothetical is it? Anyway, I update my company’s blog every Tuesday and Friday. A couple of times per day, I also update our Twitter account. Assuming it takes me one hour per blog post and five minutes per tweet, that would represent a total time investment of just under three hours.
At the moment, I am only updating my blog and my Twitter account for those three hours. With a little ingenuity, I can also keep a major social networking site such as Facebook updated with very little additional time.
With an application like Ping.fm, I can have my Facebook status updated every time I post a new tweet. Taking it a step further, I can use the Facebook Notes application to update my Facebook account every time I update my blog. So now, for those same three hours, I am not only updating my blog and Twitter, I am also updating my Facebook page.
One problem is that just having a Facebook account doesn’t do us any good if we don’t have any friends in the account. So I may need some additional time to periodically log into Facebook and search for new friends. I could even automate that part using a tool like Facebook Blaster. But I would still want to periodically log into my Facebook account to check things out. You never really want to automate something and then just forget about it.
Since I’m using Ping.fm, I could also choose to set up some more social media pages and have them update every time I update my blog. In this case, it will be important to separate blogs from update sites using groups. Otherwise, I will end up with a bunch of extremely short blog posts with no titles. I have made that mistake before and it looks really bad.
So, the whole point of this exercise: whereas before I put in the time and only managed to update my firm’s blog and Twitter account, I can now update the blog, Twitter account, AND a Facebook account.
Exciting New Blogger Features that Will Bring Your Boring Blog to Life
Google has been working on some new features of the Blogger blogging platform which are really cool. To try them out, you just need a Blogger account. Then, rather than logging into blogger.com like you normally do, you log into draft.blogger.com. The new features include blog post scheduling, which lets you specify a particular date when a post should go live, and a blog list feature to display information about other blogs you recommend.
The coolest new feature we see is the ability to add Google Gadgets to your blog. This now GREATLY expands how dynamic your blog can be. For instance, I am considering starting a new financial blog. Lucky for me, there are already hundreds of Google Gadgets in the Finance category that can do things like display financial market information or stock tickers. So just like that…bam!…my new blog will be able to display information related to stocks that I talk about in the blog.
There are lots of different categories of gadgets that can be added to a blog. Some more examples include sports gadgets that can do things like feed sports news or photos to your blog, and games that you can add to your blog. Another category of gadgets with a ton of useful potential is Communication. This includes gadgets like Google Talk and Skype, which facilitate communication with your readers and friends. There are currently over 1,300 available gadgets in the Communications category, so you have lots of options to choose from.
Google seems to be working hard to make its blogging platform competitive with other platforms, especially by leveraging Google Gadgets, of which there are many, to add excitement and interactivity to Blogger-hosted blogs. We have recommended Blogger on many occasions and continue to do so. We certainly like the fact that it is owned by Google, so maybe, just maybe, you gain a slight advantage in getting your content indexed for inclusion in Google search results.
If you need some help using your blog for marketing purposes, please contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.
Cool New Google Feature: WebCall
Google has a new feature in beta testing that is very cool. It places a button on your web site that lets visitors instantly connect to you on the phone, without showing your phone number. Calls are routed through an online interface and you have the option of answering it or letting your voice mail catch the call. You can even prevent specific numbers from calling you. The feature is called WebCall, and it’s actually made available through a service called GrandCentral.
GrandCentral is a service that was recently acquired by Google. It promotes itself as “the new way to use your phones.” It provides you with one phone number that rings all your phones and one voicemail box that can store all your messages. It also lets you record calls on the fly. This could be a very useful feature for recording audio testimonials for a web site.
Currently, only select people are being allowed to use the service. Select people, that is, and users of Blogger. We’ve stated before that we think there may be an advantage to using Google’s own blogging platform, and this is another one: preferential treatment from Google with regard to new tools and gadgets.
We will be trying out the new call button. Why not? It may turn out that users who would not otherwise have contacted us will do so just because of the convenience. It is definitely worth trying. You never know what little extra convenience will cause the phones to start ringing.
If you don’t blog, start. If you do blog, use Blogger.
If you could use some help with your company’s content or blogging strategy, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.
Our 200th blog post: Our Very Best Tips for Successful Search Engine Marketing
Well, well…here we are…200 blog posts. Please excuse us while we give ourselves a pat on the back…[pat, pat, pat]…
We thought we would use this occasion to give some of our very best tips for promoting your web site:
- Pick one keyword for which to optimize the front page of your site. Make that keyword the first words in your title. Use it twice in the copy, once in a header, and once in bold. Use it in the alt attribute of the first image on the page. Use it in the text of every link throughout your site that links to your home page. And, if possible, use it in the text of links on other web sites that point to your site. Speaking of links…
- Get lots of external links pointing to your home page. I don’t care what some “experts” say – we have seen time and time again that linking still works as an SEO technique.
- Write articles. This may be the single best way to acquire one-way, keyword-rich links to your site. Do it often. If you do one a week, in a year’s time you will have a TON of links. If you can’t write, there are companies you can hire to do it for you. Or hire a smart local high school kid to do it.
- Publish a blog. Search engines love content that changes often. That’s exactly what a blog is – content that you update often. But you need to post at least twice per week.
- Use paid search. Sure, it delivers targeted traffic to your web site. But possibly even more importantly, it generates mission critical data. It will tell you things like what keywords generate the most traffic, what keywords generate customers, what web page copy converts at the best rate, etc.
- Use your analytics. You need to have a strong understanding of what is going on on your web site. For example, are your visitors using a particular screen resolution that doesn’t work well with your site? Is there a particular location where a lot of your visitors come from? Is there a particular page on your site where most visitors leave? Google Analytics can answer all these questions for you, and it’s free.
- Never stop trying to do better. Using the data from paid search and your analytics, you should constantly be looking for clues as to what changes to make to improve the performance of your site.
If you do these things, you will be successful. But is it work? Of course. That’s why we’re able to be in business. Because it takes time to implement a search marketing campaign and get a feel for what the data means. So if you could use some help with your search engine optimization or pay per click management, call us today at 888-299-4837 or email us at Info@WorkMedia.net.
See ya in blog post number 201!
Learning How to Podcast
Work Media has begun doing a podcast. This is definitely a new area for us. We blog all the time (obviously), but to me, it is more difficult to smoothly convey a message with spoken words, rather than printed words. In print, I have all the time I need to compose my thoughts and structure the copy the way I want it. In audio, even if you have what you want to say written out, you can’t just read – you have to talk. It needs to sound conversational. So we’re still working out how to best do the podcast, but we expect to get better the more we do it.
We have found a couple of podcasting resources that may be helpful to you if you decide to get into podcasting:
http://www.podcastblaster.com The most useful feature of this site is that it has a form you can use to automatically create a podcast RSS file. You just provide the details of the podcast and each individual epidose. The PodcastBlaster creates the file you need to supply to podcasting directories.
http://www.podcasting-tools.com This is a pretty useful site that provides lots of information about how to podcast. It also has a nice list of podcasting directories where you can submit your podcast.
http://www.podsubmitter.com A tool that will let you submit your podcast to multiple podcast directories at once. This could save you a lot of time. The caveat is that they require a link to the podsubmitter web site to use the service.
We are still working on a page for our site dedicated to the podcast. In the meantime, there are links to our first two episodes on our home page.
If you need some help implementing a content strategy for your site, including blogging and podcasting, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or email Info@WorkMedia.net.