The Think eBiz Blog

Blogs: Should they be incorporated within your company web site?

We are advising a B2B company about their social media marketing strategy and the question came up: "Should we integrate our blog with the web site, including navigation and look 'n feel, or should it  be a stand alone entity?".  A great question, so we asked the experts on LinkedIn for their advice.

Background: The company sells PowerPoint templates to business professionals. We advised them to create a blog, and leverage other channels, to establish thought-leadership in creating and giving effective presentations. A natural tie-in for their product, yet useful information that business professionals can value (without an obligation for making any purchase).  

Results: The over whelming response was to maintain integration, including branding to the B2B eCommerce site. The blog should not be sales oriented however - the content should be neutral to the templates and related offerings provided by the company. This follows the business networking notion of give and give, and returns will follow. Provide good useful information and establish trust and credibility - sales will follow. Of course, other blogging rules apply including frequent and fresh content, staying on topic and allowing people to comment and add to the conversation and wisdom.

Why would a company not integrate their blog? We aren't sure - please add your comments if you have a compelling reason to dis-associate your web site from your blog.

Selected quotes from the LinkedIn response (we could not have said it better):

“Staking out a thought leadership position in the market for our products is an integral part of establishing your value proposition, and something customers would expect to see from a supplier charging premium pricing. Said another way, if you want to charge premium pricing, you better have a blog site with your subject matter experts providing non-proprietary information on how customers can solve problems.“ (David Wick)

“Rather than the commerce side devaluing the blog, I think a useful and well-written blog enhances the reputation and trust in the company and its products. If visitors come to value the information on the blog, then they will turn to your clients company for templates, before searching out another source, because they already trust them for being an authority in this area.”    and

“…if the content is good, it will build credibility and that will support sales. My clients tell me that they find my blog helpful, and new clients tend to contact me after first exploring my blog entries.”  (Heidi Cool)

“I feel blogs add a personal side to a company and help the (potential) customer to relate to the company and get a feel for their level of passion and enthusiasm.” (Carl Wilson)

"I think that incorporating the blog is a great idea. Why make it stand alone? They are experts, the blog is the place to make their expertise known and have them shine.” (Melissa Galt)

 “The best case for not adopting the same look at the "mothership" site is when the blog is a sponsored blog, rather than the company blog”  (Michael Martine)

SEO, Blogs and Social Media: Creating a killer online strategy

The potential audience reach online has expanded exponentially in the last five years, primarily due to  Web 2.0 and the social aspects of the web. By focusing primarily on an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy to build your sites awareness and ROI, your online success is doomed to fail.

Search Engine Optimization, in its purest state of meta tags, site design and site-based content management is only a one dimension strategy; in a multi-dimensional world.

Blogs, as we know, are great for linking building for a web site, yet many people leave money on the table when it comes to their blog management. Blogs have the potential of very rapid top ranking, especially in lucrative long-tail keywords. We have seen articles ranked high within 15 minutes of release - yea really!  Think about your content and links when creating blog articles - especially in terms of your anchor tagging.

Social media completes the strategy by providing a wealth of link building and brand visibility potential. Twitter (Bing scans, Google will soon), Flickr, YouTube, Linkedin and much more should all be including in your overall plan. Be sure to review these and implement a strategy that makes sense for your site and business objectives.

To learn more about building an effecive multi-dimensional online strategy, please read Lee Odden's "Social Media and SEO: 5 Essential Steps to Success" article. 

 

Think through your optimization strategy

Effective #Blogs: Some basic suggestions

There are many articles (and blogs) about what makes a blog effective, however we believe it comes down to being real, writing frequently and with strong tight content.

Real:

A blog has to be written in your voice, it has to represent your views and passions. Write about what you know and feel - and believe in. And keep your blog on topic. For example, if you are writing about travel destinations, don't write entries about political views or that hot new song you just heard. Focus is important. Staying on point will help add relevance to your blog - which is crucial to search engine optimization (SEO) rankings.

Frequency:

The objective of a blog is to gain readers - who come back time and again to read and learn more from your expertise. Write entries to your blog frequently - at least 2-4 times a week. When a reader comes to a blog - where the last article was six months ago (or six weeks) that reader will never return. Stay true to the first point however - never write for writing sake. Frequently written content is also valued by the search engines. The more often your blog is updated - the more often the search spider will return. Spiders love content and may reward your efforts with higher rankings.

Content:

Most of us are not professional writers and -we believe - that our lack of prose skills are easily forgiven in the blogosphere. However - spell checking and good sentence structure is important. A blog is also not a place for a novel. Entries of 200-400 words are sufficient. Readers have patience for small doses of information - and want nice tight content. Give them the cliff-notes version on the subject - and include links where they can learn more.

The challenge in content writing is the balance between the use of relevant keywords (for the ingsearch engine spider) and sentences that are readable by your human follow. Always defer to readable, but ensure that you use keywords to satisfy the search engines. If your blog article is easily readable, that should suffice.  

Additionally, a blog should not be viewed as a self promotion device. Naturally, the reader can know about your business and brand - but this is not about "I" - it should be about "You". In other words, give of yourself - your expertise. Educate your readers about the topic - without directly promoting your service or product. Your readers will appreciate the information and associate you and your business in a positive light.

Lastly, don't overstress yourself in writing - get your thoughts, ideas and advice out there. Keep it real, keep it tight - and share your wisdom frequently. And - a fnal tip: after you publish your entry, revisit it a few days later and edit it...  we find this an way to ensure that the article is effective - because you then become...the reader. 

Influencer's: Enabling Brand Building and Sales

What makes online marketing so vibrant and exciting is all the new "buzz words" that come into play. The latest that I have latched onto is called - "Influencer's".

"Influencer's" is one that we at Think-ebiz believe represents a major aspect of Web 2.0. Simply put, Web 2.0 is about fostering a conversation and relationship with your customers and prospects online. Influencer's is how one person can affect the branding and buying power of another person through web site enablers.

Recently, I began working with an innovative start-up called StickySurf, where we defined the value proposition as being an "influencer" for B2C (and even B2B) web sites. StickySurf is a tool that can be added to an existing web site that enables easy and efficient conversations with your friends and co-workers.

The premise is simple: You are visiting a web site and notice a product or service that could benefit a friend or co-worker. A digital camera, a unique European Travel Tour, or a new software product that could benefit your Mfg group. StickySurf or a viral enabled web site can help enhance the purchase power of the web site by bringing new visitors onboard - with a friendly recommendation.

Influencer's can exist in other more traditional mechanisms, such as forums and eCommunity advice and image sharing. A web site that enables the visitors to share experiences could increase awareness and sales. A travel web site that allows people to share pictures and advice, and experiences could influence others to sign up for the next tour.

We all know the power of a personal recommendation. Web 2.0 is enabling this capability online, and this is exciting and powerful. Hopefully I am influencing others to consider enabling this capability on their own web property.

Paris Hilton? Google? Libby? Katrina, Brittany Spears, White Sox; a blog title experiment

I read a recent treatise on blog titles and traffic spikes at my ole stompin ground: DigitalGrit. As we know, blogs are great vittles for the search spider; rich content frequently updated. So the question is, will placing some highly topical keywords within my blog and in the title, such as Paris Hilton, Brittany Spears, Chicago White Sox, Google, Google & Google and Scooter Libby cause a marked increase in traffic?

Of course visitors will be highly disappointed that the Paris sex tapes or Brittany's baby pictures, nor the Google record earnings nor the transcript of Libby's indictment - nor the latest news on Katrina aftermath will be found on this blog. But maybe, just maybe a few new readers will stay around to see what I write next. Hmmmm  Harriet Miers? Iraq War? Podcasting? 

I'll let you know the results.

<<<  The answer is not really. As one of the commenters pointed out, the other side of the coin is relevancy. If my blog was about Baseball, then the use of White Sox would provide for a spike. White Sox is a highly topical word due to their World Series success. However, my site is about online marketing. Not a high degree of relevance with the White Sox.  The morale to the story; remain relevant and they will come  <grin>.

Quick update (1/2/2006): My tracking software reports that this blog entry has been found/read in a high number of Brittany Spear web searches. In fact, we reached page three of MSN search for Brittany Spears Baby (and page one for brittany spears new baby).  Interesting that all of these results came from MSN Search.  Does that speak to MSN search relevancy? I'll let you decide.

Podcasting; a viable online marketing vehicle

I'll admit to being slow off the mark on Podcasting. Now I load a dozen 'cast onto my iPod and listen during my commute into the city. These include BusinessWeek's Cover Story review, Danny Sullivan's The Daily Searchcast, CBS's NFL Today Hot Topic and Paul Colligan/Alex Mandossian's MarketingOnlineLive*.

iTunes has nearly 20,000 poscasts available; most not of any real value except to the 'caster themselves. However, Apple makes it easy to get on the list and to subscribe and receive updates. Other directories exist include Podcast.net, iPodder and Podcast Alley.

Great entertainment; but is this a viable online marketing channel? Can a Podcast create  sustainable monetization? The initial podcasts were nothing more than audio blogs. Even today, anyone with a microphone and a dream can be a 'caster. But will anyone listen in? Just like blogs, will anyone visit? Early bloggers were teenagers that used blogs to share their feelings and thoughts with their friends. Podcast has moved up the evolution scale (sorry creationist) very quickly and are now (or about to be) a big channel for business. Blogs may become big for business.

Read about the rush to Podcasting in the Wall Street Journal, "Is Anybody Out There?" by Sarah McBride and Nick Wingfield.

The same rules apply for Podcasters as with Blogs. If the message is self-serving, if the content is not updated frequently, if the speaker is boring, the audience will go away (or worse, bad mouth your attempt). I didn't find any corporate podcasts; but that is just a matter of time (let me know of any you find).

Can Podcasts be monetized? Google AdSense won't work (not yet atleast); so it's about sponsorship and voice-ads (think radio). It can also be subscriptions. At Audible you can subscribe to the daily Wall Street Journal, which provides verbal readings of key stories. And you don't need to learn how to fold a newspaper on the train (something I can never get right). You can also subscribe to educational podcasts, like The AffiliateGuy. For $47/month you gain access to exclusive content for Affiliate Marketers. Even Rush Limbaugh has his own fee-based Podcast.

The BusinessWeek Podcast contains a brief sponsor message, a 30 second spot. The balance of the 'cast is commercial free. And like Tivo (kinda) you can fast forward past the commercial on your iPod or other MP3 devices.

If you have interesting content to share and can establish a following; you can make money as a PodCaster. And if you are an advertiser looking to reach a hip new audience, maybe PodCasting is the way to go.

* I wrote Paul an email about his podcast, and imagine my surprise as I was riding the train hearing  my name over his 'cast. This shows the power of PodCasting as a two-way communications between the PodCaster and the audience (think comments in Blogs).

Blog Maps; cool

I don't know why I find this so cool, but I do; mapping other bloggers in your Geo area:

Get your Blog on the Map here...

Blogs and SEO Strategy; Your Advantage

Back in October we wrote about the power of Blogs as an search engine optimization (SEO) strategy (Think-eBiz 10/2004). Well it seems AdTech and a recent series of online newsletters are all abuzz about blogs and SEO. Maybe for once we were slightly ahead of the curve?

On Topic Content, frequently updated with plenty of links; these are the reason why a blog works so well in a search engine optimization strategy. These three reasons make up the main tenants of an effective SEO strategy!To their credit, these articles have gone further than my discussion; to clearly express the advantages and risks of a blog for your business. Make it an online commercial, and no one will pay attention. Update your content occasionally, and you will lose your audience to more frequently written sites. Even the search engine spiders will ignore you! Strike the right balance of news and information, and your website (naturally well linked from the blog) will garner the rewards.

How does your website reap the benefits of your blogs page rank? When the spider reads your well ranked blog and discovers a link to your related website, some of this page rank is shared with your site. This makes sense; if the blog speaks to a specific topic, and there is a link to your website, with the same or similar content; the spider will consider your website to be important.

One tip on the links to your website (from another website or blog), the hyperlink text should speak to your keyword phrase (your topic). If the link (the text written within the <a> tag) says "click here", then the spider will think your website is about clicks. Instead, structure your link in this manner:  Click here to learn about <a>Online Marketing and SEO</a>.

In a future article we will discuss how taking this single blog to the power of ten will give your website an intense SEO advantage, legally and ethically. We call this strategy; Blogsets.

Blogs and SEO, a winning partnership

When it comes to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Blogs are hot! In the world of SEO, "content" is King and "linking strategy" is the Queen. Google is known to reward sites with highly relevant content with equally relevant linking. Well written and focused Blogs are well suited for both.

Here is why:

Assuming that the Blog is highly focused on a specific subject (i.e. Personal Financials), it will attract the attention of like-minded Bloggers. Like minded Bloggers add links to your site on their own site. Google rewards websites (a Blog is a website) that have links to other similar websites, by giving them a higher ranking. In SEO terms, this tells Google that your page is highly relevant for its assumed keyword. That's a good thing!

Website SEO isn't easy, so why not leverage a corporate Blog to enhance your own websites visibility. As an example, let's stay with the "personal finance" example. You’re a financial institution - so create an informational Blog with a strong call to action right on the Blog! Don't hide who you are, but give your readers worthwhile un-biased personal finance tips & suggestion. Establish a level of trust and present your readers with a "Contact an Acme Financial Consultant today for a free assessment". A call to action right on the Blog. Plus include a link to your company website as well. Thus, some SEO benefits for your website as well!