Your Small Business’s Blog and You

So, you’ve set up a blog for your small biz. Maybe you’ve had one set up for a while but haven’t really used it, or haven’t really seen a return on your investment in it. Hopefully, you realize that a blog’s overall purpose in the grand scheme of Internet marketing is to serve as a social tool, not necessarily a sales tool. You can use that blog to sell your goods and services, sure, but using it as a way of engaging your client or potential customer, and as a way for interacting with them is a much better use of your blog, and your time. Small business bloggers often get lost in all the confusion that is online marketing. And that’s where we’re here to help. With these tips for small business bloggers, let’s see if we can’t clear up some of that confusion, shall we?

First of all, your blog should be part of an overall Internet marketing strategy. It shouldn’t be your only Internet marketing effort, but it shouldn’t take a back seat to Facebook or YouTube or other “sexier” forms of marketing available today. In fact, it is quite possible that if you are just starting out in the online marketplace, your small business’s blog might just be the most important piece of your Internet marketing puzzle. It’s where loyal customers and potential new ones can find out about you, your firm, and your products. You can engage in conversations, answer questions and dispel doubts or myths all while dispensing information vital to your clients’ needs and buying decisions.

Secondly, your blog isn’t there to sell. Sure, that’s a major function of all marketing efforts, but it isn’t the only thing your blog should be doing. Today’s customers want to be informed, both before and after making a purchase. They also want to know that there’s a real live person behind the monitor. They want to know who you are – what you care about, what makes you tick – just as much as they want to know about your products and services. It’s called relationship marketing, and what it all boils down to is that you and I are more likely to establish a customer/merchant relationship with someone we can trust, someone we can like, and someone we can get to know. Your blog is the ideal channel to do just that.

Lastly, your small business’s blog should be treated as not so much a marketing tool, but as an extension of you and your small business. After all, it may be the first, and sometimes only, contact a client has with you. You don’t want it looking like something your kid threw together for a class project (unless your kid is a web design student, and maybe not even then.) Nor do you want it to give a stuffy, standoffish appearance. You want your blog to represent your small business in the best possible light. Keep it friendly. Keep it topical and relevant to your small business’s products or services. And by all means keep it updated regularly. New, fresh content is key to all your blogging efforts. Even if that means hiring a professional blogger to do it for you.

Your small business’s blog can do great things for you. You just have to know how to use. And how to use it right.

How to Optimize Your Blog Using SEO

It seems like everybody and their cat has a blog these days. (Don’t believe me about the cat? Google “Mr. Puddy.”) How in the world do you make your blog stand out? How do you get it high enough in the rankings so as to be found by clients, customers or fans? The same way you let them find your site – by using good sound SEO strategies.

1.)    Good content – every web writer knows that content is king. And well-written optimized content is the High king. Don’t let your SEO work stop with the site, though, and treat your blog as a throw-away. Keep the content high quality. Keep it rich, keep it fresh and keep it optimized. Use keywords shared by your site. Use your business name as a keyword. Use all your best SEO tactics and strategies to keep your blog content ranking high in the search engines. And keep that content coming. Blogs have to be updated frequently, or at least with a standard regularity, or the search engines get bored and look elsewhere.

2.)    Use descriptive titles – We all know that keywords belong in the title of SEO pieces, but your blog may required some extra effort. Some blogging software actually makes your blog titles repetitious by insisting on inserting the blog name into the title – typically preceding the title. This constant repeating of “Joe’s Tangential Rantings and Ravings” before every new blog post’s title can send the search engines down the road, as they think it’s the same-old-same-old from you.

3.)    Be careful with anchor text – We all love to link from our blog posts – to others’ blogs, to interesting articles and news stories, to our own site even – and that’s a good thing to do from an SEO standpoint. What we need to be careful with is the linking text. If we simply put “here” or “there” the backlink will not be as strong as if we use a unique anchor text related to the post at hand. So instead of simply linking “here” we’ve linked from “Joe’s Latest Ranting That’s Not Quite a Raving.”

4.)    Categories – The categories in which you place your blog posts can act as extra keywords, especially if you use category names unique to your blog or keyword set. These repeated terms associated with your blog will help the bots find it again and again, ranking it higher for those category terms.

5.)    Write with the reader in mind – Most readers seem to prefer blog posts about the same length as a typical SEO marketing article – 400 – 500 words. They aren’t going to wade through 1500 word essays when there are other blogs out there to read. If you have something to say that’s longer than that, they’ll want you to write a follow-up post, or turn it into a series of posts. On the other hand, if you know your readers prefer to sink their teeth into your long-lasting juicy entries, go for it. Just keep the SEO writing going, whatever the length. If you’re not sure, try varying the length of your posts and then track to see which are the best read.

Optimizing your blog isn’t difficult, and doing so can make all the difference in the blogosphere between a once-read and a royal win.

Blogging is no easy task. Once you set up a blog, you need to keep it active and engaging. This means that you need to decide on a topic, write a post, edit the post, schedule the post, promote the post, and monitor comments on the post on a regular basis. The first step to becoming a successful blogger, whether for business or otherwise, is to set up a blogging schedule and then stick to it. For some, this is difficult to do. The blog posts go from a few a week, to one a week, to one a month, to one a quarter. Before they know it, the blog is completely inactive. For others, they go into blogging full force and master the art of successful blogging. They can see the positive results, like increased traffic and leads, that comes from blogging and it gives them momentum to keep moving forward. So what’s the next step after proving that you can operate a successful blog? Start blogging for others! Here are 4 reasons to submit guest blog posts:

Forms Relationships
Before there was Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIn, individuals and businesses took to their blogs to share their thoughts with others. Blogs are, in a way, the original social media outlets. In order to become a true part of the blogging world, you need to be accepted by established members. This can be done by leaving thoughtful comments on their blogs and responding to comments that they make on yours. This may eventually lead to guest posting opportunities. Don’t submit one post and then disappear, maintain that relationship and loyalty over time and continue to guest post regularly.

Builds Brand
Blogging to your established audience is important, but it’s also important to establish new audience members and visitors to your site. Guest blogging on relevant blogs provides an opportunity to get in front of new people that may be interested in the products or services that you provide.

Traffic Generation
If readers like what they see in your guest post, chances are pretty good that they will click over to your blog and/or website to learn more. Always include links to your own content in the “Author Bio” section of a guest post. Make it easy for someone to find further information.

Link Building
To make things perfectly clear, guest blog posting should never be done just to get a link. However, it is a side benefit to guest blogging. For SEO purposes, link building is important because the search engines favor sites that are trusted. The number of relevant inbound links pointing to a site is a way for the search engines to determine whether you have that trust or not. A link from a respected industry blog can help boost that trust factor.

About the Author:

Nick Stamoulis is the President and Founder of Brick Marketing, an SEO services company. For more information please call 781-999-1222 or visit http://www.brickmarketing.com.

How to Deal with Negative Comments on Your Page

Tip 1: Never Delete a Negative Comment. The #1 rule of responding to social media comments is never to delete a negative post. If you must delete a post, due to certain circumstances such as it’s profane, threatening or violent, provide an explanation on the site so that followers that did see the post can see why it was removed. The best way is to mitigate the situation as much as you can, rather than completely ignoring it.

Tip 2: Address the Problem. Listen to the respondent’s side of the story. More than anything when someone is upset it’s most likely they want to be heard and wish to have the company’s attention on fixing the situation.

Tip 3: Apologize and Fix the Problem. Sounds simple right? That’s because it usually is. Addressing the situation in a calm manner and showing empathy for what the customer is saying can make the difference when resolving a complaint. By reacting quickly with a solution to the person’s problem, the issue can usually be resolved peacefully.

Tip 4: Respond Positively to a Negative Commenter. When other followers can see how you fixed the problem quickly and professionally, it cannot only sustain your reputation but improve it. Not to say having several complaints is going to boost your reputation, but if more than a handful of people are having complaints some company changes may need to be made.

Tip 5: Dilute Negative Comments with Positive Ones. Run campaigns to get customers who have had a great experience, with your business, to post about it. A few negative comments can be overlooked when there are outweighed by positive comments.

Tip 6: Not Everyone is Going to Like What You Say. Accept the fact that not everyone is going to have the most positive experience they can, even when complete customer satisfaction is the goal. Dealing with unhappy customers will happen in any business. As long as you are prepared with a plan on how to deal with customer service issues and negative feedback, a successful social media network can be maintained.

Tip 7: Keep the Conversation Going on the Same Medium. Keep the conversation going on the same medium that the negative comment was posted. For example, if the negative comment was put on Facebook, allow the conversation thread to be seen underneath the complaint. Followers that have already seen the complaint can read how the company dealt with the problem and fixed the situation.

Below is a great example of how a company should respond to a negative comment. The best part about this is that a customer jumps in and defends the company, which shows customer loyalty to other fans reading the page. Another way the company could have improved this situation is to respond stating that they would be sure to emphasize the rescan procedure when someone signs up for the program. Apologize for the inconvenience and satisfy the customers need for a change.

Is there a time when someone posted a negative comment on your company profile? How did you deal with this situation?

Blogs are a growing tool for businesses. And for good reason. It’s a platform that offers organizations much more flexibility than traditional communications and other social media outlets. Blogs are engaging, authentic, and effective at persuading and influencing customers.

Is Blogging for you?
If you are a business owner, corporate executive or solopreneur, your blog offers an opportunity to drive dialogue in personal and insightful way.  Other advantages to business blogging include:

Credibility
Sharing knowledge about your business, industry, services and laws lets prospects know you are not only selling something, you are a credible resource; a fountain of knowledge in your field. Let’s face it, they are evaluating you against your competitors and looking for a thought leader who understand their needs and responds.

Speed
Updating your website, branded marketing materials, email and direct mail materials take time to update. If you are launching new products or services, breaking news or sharing new industry developments, what a better way to let your readers know quickly through a blog.

Boosts Web Traffic
Adding new content to your blog, using keywords, brings search engine spiders to your blog where a link to your website.

Sales
Blogs are excellent way to draw attention to your ecommerce site where you sell products. Whether you’re selling via your private website or online stores like Amazon or Ebay, promoting your products with a photo and optimized content, you are adding more SEO dimension and casting a wider net.

Getting Started
Today, setting up a blog is much easier now for non-technical web users. There are several free- hosted blog sites to choose from. Depending on your needs and requirements for control, the most popular free blogging software includes Blogger.com, WordPress.com and Typepad.com. Of course, if you have IT programmers on staff, they can retrofit embedded blog functionality into your existing website.

To keep on track and ensure you are blogging regularly, developing an editorial calendar and assigning one main blogger and several guest bloggers will be first call to order. Once you start fleshing out a list of topics for your editorial schedule, you will be surprised at how easy it is to come up with content.

Attracting Readers
Your blog on its own can spur traffic through browsers if you optimize your blog content to include your most relevant key words. Other ways to draw in readers to your blog is through your website, blog directories and social media tools.

Set up a business profile on Facebook, Twitter and Linked In and link to your blog and website. Research blog directories focused on your target audience so you can cast the net even further.

Keep your reader’s interests in mind. Be authentic, be accurate, and be informative.

Why invest in blogging? There are billions of blogs already. Every college kid has a couple, every business tries it, and every government considers it. So what makes you different? How can you be different in blogging? How can your business make money online?

What is blogging? Well, most of us have an idea of what blogging is. Blogging might be a simple article. Blogging can be coded copy. Blogging can be profit. But how do you make sense of profitable blogging? How can you make money blogging? You hire a professional. You start making connections.

Blogging is a portal to another spot. It helps people, it keeps readers curious, and it allows you to sell information.

Where can you blog? Simply put, you can blog everywhere. For businesses, blog consulting is a power play. It’s obvious, right? It may not be obvious. If you go WordPress, you need the right host. If you go blogger, you lose some design power, some resiliency, and you have to use their host or use their advertising (Adsense). There are many other hosts, but this takes research the find the right one for you.

Why is there money in blogging? Because it’s a social world. People love reading well written blogs all the time, from dusk till dawn, from chair to bed. You make money blogging by giving info, links, and connections. The best way to make money blogging is to power your blog with the right information, valuable information you have to monetize. Links are always power for blogging. And connections – we all Facebook – and you can make you a dream boat.

Who should you hire as a blogger? Can you do it yourself? You should hire a professional. You might consider family and friends, but the truth is you should hire someone who has true experience writing.

In the final analysis, you might consider something other media vehicles. You might consider eBooks, white papers, or even email marketing. Ebooks can sell, but you may try your blog to sell, if not give away, for profit. White papers are a more business oriented vehicle to get you going, where you can sell powerful information to powerful people at the right time (and you can sell it on the short too). Email marketing is second to blogging. If you want to invest in your blog, using emails is powerful, if not contrived. Stay true to your roots, and don’t get too greedy. Give out information, give out help, and try to monetize in the way that best suits you.

Hi Rustin, tell me a little about yourself and your background.
I’m the co-founder and CEO of BlogFrog. BlogFrog is a Boulder-based internet startup that turns blogs into communities. I got my start in online communities when I was 12 years old by hosting computer Bulletin Board Systems (BBS) out of my parent’s closet. I have a Masters Degree in Electrical Engineering and after college I designed next generation imaging systems for satellites. I started working for Ball Aerospace which prompted my family to move to Boulder, Colo. To keep our friends and family up to date with our growing family, my wife started blogging and I noticed she and her readers would try to have conversations via the commenting application. There was no great way to enable readers of a blog or website to really connect and interact with each other. I left the aerospace industry to launch BlogFrog. I am also a blogger myself and frequently speak at venture capital, technology and marketing conferences around the nation.

I understand that you founded a startup called BlogFrog. What inspired you to start this new company?
My wife’s blog inspired me to start BlogFrog once I realized there had to be a better way for her readers to interact with one another. I started working on a beta product of BlogFrog during nights and weekends that would turn her blog into a community where her readers could not only connect with each other, but engage in like-minded discussions, and share photos and videos. BlogFrog became a hit on my wife’s blog so I recruited Holly Hamann, a start-up and marketing veteran (and blogger), to help me launch the service to the blogosphere in the spring of 2009. Within months, our community platform was being installed by thousands of bloggers each month, and rapidly adopted within the women’s space.

What’s the mission of BlogFrog?
BlogFrog is a community platform that turns blogs into interest-based social networks. Our mission is to own the interest graph online. Free for bloggers to install, BlogFrog is now home to over 65,000 mom bloggers powering thousands of women-centric niche communities. We are one of the fastest growing women’s media networks in the nation and are now reaching close to 6 million women online per month. In addition to facilitating communities and conversations among women, BlogFrog understands that women represent the most powerful influence on consumer purchase decisions. Research shows that despite their purchasing power, women still feel deeply misunderstood by brands and advertisers. BlogFrog’s vision is to create a mutually beneficial ecosystem where brands and bloggers both win through lasting, loyal, trusted communities.

In addition to serving bloggers, BlogFrog offers online engagement solutions to brands to help them reach influential women consumers online. Brands recognize that they can’t reach all women online via advertising and the best strategy is to create real relationships with the influencers – those with blog readership and social media followings on Facebook and Twitter. BlogFrog works with household brands like Kenmore, Dove, International Delight, Living Social and others to build relationships by creating and maintaining communities and sparking conversations with these influential women online.

As a newer social network, what do you believe is your sustainable competitive advantage?
Here at BlogFrog we have two distinct competitive advantages. Not only are we completely focused on enabling niche communities online, we have specifically focused on the women and mom demographic for the past two years. This audience is intuitively community oriented and has a very specific culture around connecting online. We knew if we could serve this demographic well, we’d learn a great deal about how to make it easy to create, discover, join and monetize interest-based communities.

We also have smart, custom-built technology to connect bloggers with each other and with brands as well as a loyal following of thousands of mom bloggers. For example, we recently launched “Sponsored Conversations,” an automated conversational marketing platform. Sponsored Conversations helps household brands ignite meaningful conversations among thousands of women online to maximize visibility, drive web traffic and increase viral social buzz. By engaging with content-generating customers where they already live (on blogs), brands have more power to mobilize these influencers.

As a woman looking to monetize her blog, how does BlogFrog compare to other publisher networks like Google’s Adsense?
The biggest differentiator is that BlogFrog is not an ad network. While we do offer community owners the opportunity to generate revenue by turning on advertising in their communities, our real focus is on community-building and creating a beneficial ecosystem between brands, bloggers and readers.

BlogFrog offers engagement solutions for brands that enable brands to form deeper relationships with brands. Top mom bloggers serve as brand sponsored community leaders in topical branded communities and also enable brands to amply an online discussion via Sponsored Conversations. These are compensated positions for bloggers and offer brands more than just a contextual, sidebar advertisement or sponsored blog post. This is an ongoing relationship with well-read bloggers who start discussions, lead live chats and actively participate in conversations with their readers to engage brands.

As an advertiser, why kind of companies do you think BlogFrog would best cater to?
Given BlogFrog’s expansive reach into the mom and women space, BlogFrog is best suited for household brands that appreciate the influential buying power of women online. BlogFrog currently works with brands such as Kenmore, Dove, International Delight, Living Social and many more. Brands that benefit from BlogFrog engagement solutions include brands in verticals such as consumer packaged goods, food, parenting, travel, fashion, fitness, health and beauty, crafts, entertainment and finance.

Where do you see BlogFrog in 5 years?
BlogFrog’s vision is to own the interest-based social graph. For example, Facebook is the platform where people connect based on who they know. LinkedIn is the platform where people connect based on where they work. BlogFrog is the platform where like-minded people connect based on what they are interested in. In 5 years, I see millions of people being able to instantly create, discover, and join communities where like-minded people can gather and connect over topics they are passionate about, all networked together and powered by a common platform.

We’ll also be reaching beyond the mom market to power all niche-based communities, whether they are focused on fashion, politics, movies, art, sports and more.

What excites you the most about this new venture?
Since I was 12 years old I have been working to connect like-minded people online, no matter where they were located. With BlogFrog, we have the ability to leverage existing like-minded audiences, and make true interest based connections a reality. It’s not just about “friending” someone on Facebook or following them on Twitter. It’s also not about the number of people we are connected to, it’s about what we do with those connections. BlogFrog removes the limitations that get in the way of connecting like-minded people, whether it’s geography or technology. We are powering thousands of niche communities now in 2011 and hope to power millions more in 2016 to enable those communities to amplify how they mobilize their audiences to educate, inspire, motivate, and entertain.

What’s the best way for Mom’s and advertisers to get a hold of you or sign up?
Visit us online at TheBlogFrog.com! You can also contact me directly at rustin@theblogfrog.com or find me on Twitter at @rustinb.

Welcome to iBlogMarketing, an online Internet marketing blog updated by TMA E-Marketing.  We launched this blog early 2006 as a place to share online marketing articles and resources.  As you may have noticed, this appears to be the first post to iBlogMarketing.  Hence, if you are reading this post 06’, you may be wondering where all the content is.  To keep a long story short, iBlogMarketing has been through a series of several sever migrations which in turn had affected much of the quality content that we had provided.  Additionally, we decided to change the scope of iBlogMarketing to be more future forward thinking versus providing online marketing tips and resources (which is now located on our sister online marketing blog.)

iBlogMarketing’s face lift comes from a combination of the latest version of Mimbo (a magazine/news inspired theme), the latest version of WordPress, and several new features aimed at sharing our core mission further.  Yes, it’s been a bumpy road to say the least.  However, we deeply appreciate your support through the years and in making this transition.  If you like what we have offer here, we also encourage you to take a look at these fine resources which we own an operate:

TMA E-Marketing- A Minnesota based full service online marketing agency.
TMA E-Marketing Blog- The online marketing blog that gets you more business!
iBlogBusiness- The web’s largest collection of business blogs.
iBizRadio- The Web’s largest collection of business podcasts.
Radiospective’s- A Minnesota based business podcast radio show series aimed at interviewing successful business professionals from around the globe.