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Do you want to become known as an industry expert, attract traffic to your website and boost sales? Blogging just once a month can deliver all that—and more. More than half of companies that blog at least once a month have acquired customers through their blog, according to HubSpot’s The 2012 State of Inbound Marketing. (Sixty-six percent of those who blog weekly, and 78 percent of those who blog daily, have gained new customers.) However much time you choose to invest, here are 10 tips for successful blogging....
When people ask me the No. 1 change they should make to their website, I always the same thing: add a blog and update it often.... ... the reality is starting a blog for your local business comes with unique challenges that can prevent you from gaining the momentum you need for your blog take off. When done right, though, your blog can help you build an audience in your community and generate qualified leads for your business. Here are the traits you want to focus on in your local blog to help you get there....
If you want to learn how to write a blog then you need to understand your customers and write content that they are going to find useful and engaging. Do your homework and you will get more traffic, more click and more leads.... 21 tips for better blogging...
At the heart of developing your blog voice, you need to answer to the following three questions: - Who is your blog? In other words, what’s your blog’s personality? Think of your blog as if it were a real living person. What are his likes and dislikes? What are his priorities? What are his hot button issues? What is his area of deep knowledge? What makes him tick and motivates him to blog? (Money isn’t a strong answer to this question. Blogging is a lot of work and there are lots of other ways to make money.) - Who is your audience? Who are your readers and why are they motivated to read your blog content? What’s in it for them? To this end, it’s useful to create a marketing persona because it helps you to define your target reader. - Who are your competitors? What other blogs are in your category? How do they cover the topic and what makes yours different? As with any offering, your competitors define the market. Where’s your opportunity to stand out? Also, who are the top-level bloggers in other categories that you follow? This helps you see trends and is useful for gathering ideas and places for guest blog posts....
Want your content marketing to stay top of mind for your prospects and customers? Then use photographs to tell your story but understand that the images you choose are important elements that contribute to making your message memorable. 3 Tips to make your photographs more memorable To make your photos memorable, you need a story and context. Here are three simple tips based on scholarly research entitled, “Understanding the Intrinsic Memorability of Images” by Phillip Isola, Devi Parikh, Antonio Torralba and Aude Oliva. - Show people. Images of people are the most memorable. People are hard wired to focus on other people. Use human-scale space. - Provide context for your visual story about your product. Related to this point, utilize product close-ups. - Skip landscapes. No matter how amazing a vista may be, your viewers will find it totally unmemorable. The one exception to this rule that the researchers found was when the image featured something unexpected. In other words, your image needs a story to make the scene memorable. 7 Ways to incorporate images into your content marketing Here are seven ways to enhance your visual content marketing using these three tips. Note that many of the photographs are used on social media....
Use these examples and key points to convince your clients and your peers to rise above the sea of jargon we all navigate every day... . .. So before you reach for jargon when you create content, ask yourself questions like, “What message am I trying to communicate here?” “Will my target audience find it both relatable and compelling, or am I resorting to jargon as a crutch because I don’t honestly know what I’m attempting to say?” Or, even worse, “Am I inventing made-up language to create what can be promptly dismissed as pseudo science?” If the answer to that last question is “yes,” then you’ll risk allowing jargon overload to defeat the purpose of the content by undermining the messaging campaign. An influential teacher inspires desired outcomes from students (i.e., acquired knowledge) by demystifying the unknown. As content marketing professionals, we should push ourselves — and our clients — toward this same standard....
This article is part six of a ten part series by Wishpond. We explore the business benefits of blogging, and how it can help your online marketing efforts. When you are blogging for business, be proactive in getting the most from your blogging efforts. If you blog strategically, your keywords will be a natural part of your writing. Adding a few of these SEO tactics will boost your search engine results – getting you more successes in your social media marketing strategy. Here are 5 tactics to boost your blog SEO: Target your content Google Adwords Link to other sites Link to internal pages on your site Use alt text...
After years of blogging I've learned to love a select assortment of tools that have helped to make blogging easier, quicker, and more fun. Some of these tools may not be "the best", but they are the ones that I love and the ones that I have a strong affinity for; so I figured I'd share in the hopes that they will benefit other bloggers like they did me....
You may have heard that content is king, but the truth is that informational content is king. It’s estimated that approximately 50-80% of search queries are informational in nature (pdf).... In previous articles, I’ve written about the importance of theming content – developing a strategy that truly plays to your customers’ search intent. But usually, very little of that is informational content. The average website has a ratio of 80/20 navigational or transactional content to informational content — the opposite of how people are searching. If you have a blog, the ratio usually doesn’t get much higher than 60/40, and even then, most of that content is either not keyword rich or it’s what we call “time-limited” content. Types of Informational Content There are two primary types of informational content: “time-limited” and “evergreen.” The former describes the category that most blog posts fall into: a summary of some industry event, a commentary on recent news, or an opinion piece that will be outdated in a few months. Evergreen content, on the other hand, will continue to be relevant for many years. The most popular of the latter type is “how to” content; but, that content has unfortunately earned a bad reputation due to sites like ehow and wikianswers, where you are as likely to find content on how to tie a shoe (not particularly useful) as you are on how to tune a guitar (useful). If a how-to is useful, then by all means, you should write it and include it on your website....
Blogging smarter... A blog post shouldn’t just be a blog post. Any time you put the effort into writing a blog post, you should consider how to deconstruct it into several pieces of shorter form content to feed your business’ social media content pipeline....
While social media delivers a potentially more immediate reaction from your audience, blogging delivers long-term value and develops a body of work.... In the past few years, social media has eclipsed blogging in terms of where many writers spend their time when online. Many now choose to tweet, post to Facebook, or review on Goodreads instead of blogging on their own website. While social media delivers a potentially more immediate reaction from others, I am still a big believer in blogging. There are many reasons for this, but let’s just focus on two specific reasons. Then we’ll discuss how to deal with blogging exhaustion—or when to kill a blog entirely....
Every year, Social Media Examiner comes out with its annual social media marketing report, based on feedback provided by thousands of marketers in North America and Europe mostly. One question specifically asks what marketers are most concerned about in social media, or wish to learn more about. In 2009 & 2010, social bookmarking was the key topic, Facebook was the big topic in 2011 while Google+ was the biggest one in 2012. What about 2013? This year, 62% of marketers want to know more about… blogging! It may sound surprising at first, knowing blogging is not particularly recent compared to other social media or collaborative networks. Yet, since blogging is at the heart of any good content marketing strategy, knowing how content is becoming key thus explains the growing importance of this tactic in the marketing communications toolkit. It also ties in to ways of reaching out to influencers, specially when one realizes that 86% of social media influencers blog, according to Technorati. Thus, if a brand wishes to reach out to industry leaders and influencers, or if you are a personal brand or company that wishes to establish thought-leadership and credibility, blogging is certainly a key tactic that contributes to a strong digital brand and content marketing approach. Somewhat ironic to see blogging coming back as a key tactic, after more than a decade in existence, but as some folks say: blogging provides the fire, while social media is the fuel to make it spread!...
At last month’s Content Marketing Summit, hosted by Rise Interactive and my company, Skyword, leaders from IBM, Rise Interactive and Norton by Symantec gathered to discuss strategies for producing “shareable” content to generate brand awareness through search and social media. I’ve included their insights below....
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Internet marketing, organic traffic is web traffic that comes from listings that aren’t paid for. These listings can include guides, search engines like Google or Bing and directories. Typically, when you want to make money blogging, search engines are the best source of organic traffic. Below are 6 smart ways to drive organic traffic to your blog or website....
Relevant content is key to reaching valuable audiences. Outlined are tools you can use to come up with blog ideas for posts to keep your content engaging. Content marketing is helping small businesses generate website traffic, online visibility and ultimately, sales leads. And a business blog is key to content marketing. But if you’re like many in a small business, you may find yourself wondering, “What do I blog about today?” If you have trouble coming up with blog ideas for posts, read on. We’ve collected 16 of our favorite tools that help us here at Small Business Trends generate ideas for blog posts. Try out some of these tools the next time you find yourself staring at a blank screen....
Regularly blogging awesome material does so much for your business. It provides a reason for your readers to return. It establishes new connections, and strengthens older ones. It brings you exposure in front of a new audience. Achieving the right level of SEO for your blog is like walking a tightrope. Not enough or too much, and you’ll fall over on either side. Here are five SEO mistakes to avoid as you continue to write...
Here are four things you should do before starting a blog. These tips and tricks can be applied to someone who has been blogging for years or even days.... The entire concept of blogging may not be rocket science, but there is still a large component that drives a formula for success. If you’re starting a blog and you want your content to spread, you have to do a few things to ensure that the content is worth sharing. You need to focus on creating valuable content and not making the typical content marketing mistakes. Over the last 5 years I’ve learned how to successfully create content for both my personal blog and clients. Furthermore, I’ve learned what not to do and the importance of kick-starting your blogging efforts the right way. If you’re new to blogging or planning to get into it, here are a few things you should do:...
An in-depth overview of the changed buyer journey and how it fits with a content marketing strategy, content formats and buyer personas.... How the customer journey has changed and how content and social are involved We know the customer journey has changed. It includes more touchpoints via different channels than before or in many cases more contact moments via a limited number of touchpoints. The idea of touchpoints originated in the CRM world and is now used by many large organizations. You can read a bit more about it here and view some typical graphical representations here. There are also tools to map the different touchpoints and customer experiences buyer personas have across their buyer journey. So, the customer journey has changed. It has also become more ‘social’ in the sense that people use social mechanisms and networks than before. In B2B marketing most searches for content in the buying journey start on search engines. But, as lots and lots of research (ITSMA, BuyerSphere, etc.) and actual customer interviews by smart B2B marketers such as Kristin Zhivago have shown, many B2B buyers now use social, look more for content during their journey (hence the importance of content marketing) and are what we like to call “empowered”....
Anytime a new visitor comes to your blog and reads more than one page that’s a good thing. It means he likes your blog and he’s finding value in your content. Sometimes those new visitors leave after that first page because your blog just isn’t their cup of tea, and that’s OK. You can’t please everyone. But sometimes they leave because they don’t realize you have a lot more to offer, and that’s not OK. Here are 4 quick and simple ways to increase page views on your blog so those new readers can see what a star you are....
Learn how you can use your blog not just as a traffic and lead generator -- but also as a lead nurturing tool.... When it comes to the role of business blogging in inbound marketing, there's no question that it fits quite nicely into the 'Attract' stage of the methodology. Because blog content makes excellent social media fodder and is naturally discoverable through search engines, it can be a phenomenal way to attract new visitors and prospects to your website. Furthermore, blogging also plays a critical role in the 'C onvert' stage, since we all know how effective it can be for lead generation. But there's another part of the inbound marketing methodology where blogging also fits -- and doesn't get enough credit. And while it may not be where most marketers would primarily put it, it can definitely have a significant impact here, as well. That, my friend, is in the 'Close' stage -- the stage of the methodology in which marketers are actively trying to nurture leads to a point of sales-readiness. Because not all blog readers are brand new visitors, right? I bet many of the leads in your database are reading your blog -- shouldn't you pay them some attention, too? That's right! Not only can your blog help you bring in qualified visitors that you can convert into leads; it can also be a powerful lead nurturing tool. A bit of a marketing Swiss army knife, that business blog. So, are you ready to start squeezing more juice out of your blog in the middle of the funnel? Here are 11 great ways to start using your blog as a tool to nurture your existing leads....
From videos to SlideShare presentations to quotes, consider adding these content types to your editorial or social media calendar. In building my blog over the last four years I have discovered some insights and important principles about creating content that people want to read. Here are some ideas for creating shareable content...
...Towards the end of 2012, WordPress recorded more than 56.6-million blogs on its platform. That doesn’t include Blogger, Tumblr and a host of other blog platforms available.
So why do people blog? Some have an opinion they want to share, others simply enjoy writing and many are blogging because the digital marketing folk are telling them their business needs them to — search engine optimisation, being considered an expert in your field… there’s a variety of reasons they’ll tell you this a good idea.
Blogs beat traditional mainstream media in that there are no fast and hard rules governing them. Bloggers are free to express an honest and unedited opinion. Didn’t like the service you received at a restaurant? Absolutely horrified that the latest skin product you used left your neck in red patches? Well, blog about it.
Brands have realised that the readership of a blog is far more loyal than that of a magazine. Readers have a personal relationship with the blogger, they interact with them on other social media channels and therefore they trust them – far more than their copy of Car or Cosmo magazine. Their opinion matters and it only follows that their opinion sells.
The blogging bandwagon has taken off and it has hit a few potholes in the road....
Tumblr's visually engaging format has inspired brands like IBM, Kate Spade, and Target to publish content on the platform. Here are six tips that will help you get started creating your own content... There are just so many social platforms a marketer is expected to stay on top of — like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, and even Foursquare and Instagram — that it can be hard to justify adding another one to the mix. But wait! Tumblr is a unique platform that encourages your audience to engage with you, and you with them. It can be a great tool for B2C content creation — if you have the right target demographic. And it’s actually not that hard to keep a Tumblr up to date and interesting....
Even Rodin, the French sculptor who created iconic images like The Thinker, (left) might have a hard time getting his opinions published in some media outlets today. That is, unless the artist also possessed a writing style with a strong viewpoint that was provocative or counterintuitive with a catchy, conversational tone. Those were some of the pointers from the editorial panelists at a recent PCNY event on pitching opinion pieces, bylined and contributed content. Other desirable criteria include articles with compelling angles that are well sourced and grounded in facts. Self-serving or promotional pieces don’t make the cut. So if a sculptor like Rodin was intent on seeing his name in print or online, he’d be well advised to write about the fine arts category, not focus exclusively on his own masterpieces....
So you wrote a blog post, but what can you do to get even more reach? Try reaching out to people you mentioned in your post to increase total reach tenfold. ... It’s no secret that pushing out blog content via social media is the go-to method for helping it achieve this visibility. What many bloggers don’t know, however, is that there is a very simple way to potentially increase your blog posts social reach tenfold… I call it a trick because a surprising number of bloggers aren’t actually utilising it, but in-fact it’s more of a common sense way to leverage social media to distribute your message. In a nutshell, all you need to do is reach out to people you’ve mentioned/linked to in your posts to let them know that they feature via social media. This encourages them to either thank you, share or retweet your message (or post itself); actions that their own fans or followers will see and become curious about, eventually leading them to check out your post themselves and, better still, share again. You see how the reach is increasing?...
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10 tips for successful small business strategy leveraging a blog.