Business Blogging Help: Where to Start It

We previously wrote a post about a competing blog writing company (which shall remain anonymous), where we took issue with how their blog writing services are delivered, as well as some of their answers in their FAQ. Below is one of the company's frequently asked questions, and what we think the answer is, versus how this company answered the question. I don't have a blog right now, should I start one on my site, or should I just start one on blogger.com, wordpress.com or one of the others?

The blogging company is correct in saying that it doesn't matter, but the reasons why it doesn't matter are completely different from what they say. Here's what they say, and why it really doesn't matter whether you start the blog on your site or on a free blogging platform.

Business Blogging is Great for SEO. Period.

First, they say that starting it on your own site means that you will have to work harder to for the search engines to find your site. Absolutely not true. If there's one thing that actually makes it easier for search engines to find your site, it's regular business blogging. The reason is that when you start the blog on your own site, you are adding pages to your site. That's more pages for search engines to index, more pages that search engine users can find, and more opportunities for your to come up in results. All that sounds like its easier for search engines to find your site when your blogging in general. Where the blog is started does not affect the difficulty of the blogging or in getting search engines to find it.

Second, the blogging company argues that if you build it on a free blogging platform like Blogger or Wordpress, then you need to make sure that every single post includes a link or two back to your site. Although that's true, there's a way to have your business blog on the free blogging platform without having to include a link in every single post (not that including a link is a bad idea. The bad idea is relying almost entirely on that linking for search engine rankings.) That way is focusing on the domain name.

It's the Domain Name that Matters

What would make it harder is if the blog is under its own domain name (www.mycompanyblog.com), or if it's on the free hosted domain name that comes with Blogger or Wordpress (www.mycompanyblog.wordpress.com), instead of part of your company's domain name (www.mycompany.com/blog). This is a huge point that the blogging company fails to mention. When the blog is under its own domain name or under the hosted domain name, then all the SEO credit the blog earns will go to that domain name and not yours. Sure, you can include an inbound link or two with strong anchor text in every post as a way to get your website to rank, but it doesn't make up the gap that is in between your website and your blog. Those pages aren't added to your site, so they aren't counted as fresh content on your site. If people find those blog posts on search engines, they don't necessarily find your company or site, and you have to hope that the potential customers actually clicks on a link or two to your site.

The domain name issue is much more than getting the SEO credit, it's also getting the inbound links, which this particular blogging company offers as its bread and butter. If you have the blog on the hosted domain name or its own domain name, and it's a great blog that's earning inbound links on its own because people like the content, then you and your site miss out on all those inbound links because they are linking to the blog and not you. In this situation, you could be losing referral traffic as well as high quality inbound links from a variety of places, instead of just getting a ton of inbound links from the blog. If inbound links are what you are after, then the optimum scenario is to have a lot of inbound links from a lot of high quality sites. This is one step above having a lot of inbound links from just one or two high quality sites

Business Blogging Help: It Helps to Have One

It's really simple to have a blog that on a hosted platform to share the domain name of your company. This may be the default option for businesses whose sites are already hosted on these platforms, as adding the blog is as quick as adding a new page or feature. However, the bigger point is the that the blog and the blog posts ought to be used to earn those inbound links, as well as an easy to way to create links back to you, instead of just the former. That way, you're number one goal becomes creating great content, instead of creating content that will please the search engines or will rank well

Why Ordering 30 Blog Articles at Once is a Bad Idea

We're not ashamed to admit it: we troll job boards like Elance, Freelance Writing Gigs, and Craigslist to find leads and potential clients, just about every day. We've actually found a couple of good clients this way. We've also find a lot of horrible "Writer Wanted" ads, and a lot of ads asking for things that are unfeasible or bad practice. One of those in-demand bad practices is ordering blog articles in bulk, say 10, 20 or 30 at a time. We never apply for those jobs, and you should never ask for your blog articles in this manner. Here's why we think you're asking for a disaster when you do this:

What are You Going to Do Next Time?

Okay, you actually find someone who can deliver 30 awesome blog article on deadline, each one about a topic you haven't yet covered on your blog and optimized for long-tail keywords and all that jazz. How long do those 30 posts actually last? What happens with the next 30 blog posts, posts that may cover duplicate topics, or may not be as well written, or may not come in on time, or may optimize for keywords that you don't need optimizing? By ordering in bulk, you risk all of that, and risk any consistency your blog could have (consistency in publishing, quality, content etc.) If you know you need blogging services for while, it's better to hire for the long term than the short term.

No Room to Be Flexible

Let's say those 30 posts last your 30 weeks. Great. However, what if breaking news happens at week 15 that you really want to cover, but don't have time to cover or to get that contractor to cover? With the way that you get your posts, and the way that they are scheduled, you can't be flexible for timely, newsy topics. Sure, you could double up one week and take care of it yourself, but if you're going to do that, then what's the point of hiring someone to do 30 articles for you? It would be better to pay them as you go, so your hired blogger can cover breaking news as well as more evergreen topics.

By flexible, we also mean creating content that speaks to customers and address their pain points. Your customers don't want to wait three months to have their questions answered, and if they can't find their answers online with you, they are going to find out the answer from a competitor. 

Brand Messaging is All Off

We've found that our target market is concerned about brand messaging, and about keeping it consistent across all channels all the time. That can be tough to do if you're ordering your blog posts in bulk. At first, you're stuck with 30 blog posts that might not be consistent, so you have to wait for the next 30 and hope that the writer does a better job this time around. Or that the new writer will get it. But, what's better at achieving that consistent brand messaging is to hire one person (or a few people) to do the blogging long-term, and work with them to ensure the brand messaging is understood and can be delivered correctly and consistently.

Tough to Experiment

It's tough to experiment if you already have 30 blog posts ready to go. If you have a good blog post idea that could be fleshed out into a series of posts, then you'd have to wait a whole year before you get to publish the next part in the series. If you want to try and to include video or an infographic as part of post, then you have to work it in way ahead of time or try to squish it in with a blog post that's already been submitted. Those can be tough barriers if your competitors are already experimenting with these techniques and you want to find out if they can work for you too.

Ordering your blog articles in bulk is simply not the best way to conduct blog management and content creation. It's incredibly reactive, and reactive with a huge time delay. It also means your priorities aren't straight when it comes to your business blog. Your business blog shouldn't be about filling it up with content. It should be about providing something of value to customers and to potential customers, moving them through the buying process so they can build trust in your brand and in what you have to offer. All that is much harder to do when you order your blog articles in bulk, from different writers, and without much foresight into the content that you need to be creating.

5 Common Misconceptions Businesses have about Business Blogging

Business blogging is an ever-changing format of online marketing and content marketing, and with ever-changing formats comes conceptions that are outdated, fabricated, and just plan wrong. Here are five common misconceptions that businesses have about business blogging, and why these particular conceptions are so misguided:

1. Bolding keywords in the text is a great idea - For the thousandth time, bolding your keywords doesn't do you any good. It doesn't help the search engines crawl or index your site any better. It doesn't help readers understand your content any better. All it does is tell readers that you wrote the content for the search engines, because you bolded the keywords and that's what you care about most. Besides, it looks dumb, because there's bolded content throughout your text that seems to be formatted without rhyme or reason. Oh right, the reason was the search engines, which means it's not for the potential customer and they ought to read your competitor's content instead.
2. New blog authors could ruin credibility - We actually got this from a client once. They wanted all the posts we produced to be ghostwritten because they though the introduction of a new author into their blog would jar readers and ruin credibility. We granted the client's wish because it's no biggie, but as an FYI, readers don't quite care about the author. They only care about what the author has written, and whether or not what the author has written is of any value to them. So, focusing on creating value. Creating content that isn't valuable is one way to ruin your blog's credibility.
3. Ordering 30 blog posts at a time is the best way to manage the blog - We see these sorts of job posts all the time on job boards like Elance and Odesk, and we think these job posts and the people putting them up are stupid. So, you get your 30 fantastic posts from one fantastic writer. Then what? Who's going to produce your next 30? What if that person duplicates topics (oh wait, that doesn't matter because your blog is about SEO and not about the readers. Excuse me.) What if that writer doesn't write as well as the first one? How often do you publish that you need so many at once? How long do you wait before asking for the next 30? How do you determine so many keywords and topics at once (you probably did keyword research once, or are targeting general, vanity keywords)? The list of problems can go on when managing your blog in this manner.
4. All My Articles Need to Pass Copyscape - We've expressed our disdain for Copyscape in the past, and although we don't encourage copying/pasting and taking other people's work, simply relying on a tool like Copyscape doesn't cut it. These tools only look at whether the words on the page match something else on the Internet, and they aren't even that accurate. They do not consider if the text was properly cited, or if it's text that needs to be taken verbatim, such as a book title or a direct quote. Unique content doesn't necessarily mean quality content. Focus on creating quality content, and if that means quoting someone else because you take the time to do research and to give credit where credit is do, then by all means do it.
5. Blogging Once or Twice a Month is Good Enough - No, it's not. The magic number for a blog is 50 posts, as that's when the return on investment starts to show up on a business blog (as in noticeable traffic, social activity etc.) That means, at one or two posts per month, it will take two to four years before the ROI will show up on your business blog! That sort of pace doesn't cut it, which is why we recommend posting twice a week at a minimum (this is also where we come in if you can't publish that frequently).

If you're going to get into business blogging, if you're already business blogging, then take some time to do research on the craft to make sure you are doing it properly and implementing techniques that actually help your blog and your business. Doing things that are wrong, or inappropriate, will only make all that effort you put into the blog go to waste.

Why Businesses Need Corporate Blogs

This is a guest post from Farhan Niazi, an IT professional with expertise in the fields of Web and Database Development. Niazi is the founder of SMB Tech Guide and is currently serving Sarhad University of Science and Information Technology, Pakistan as the Deputy Director of Information Technology.

There are many ways to reach your customers, but only a few that actually work. One of the ways that works the best is a business or corporate blog. If utilized properly you have a great reach for new business.

You could advertise on billboards, in magazines and newspapers, on radio and television. These are the traditional ways to attract business, and in the not-too-distant past, that was how you got your company name out there. But then, the Internet happened, which was the death knell for the yellow pages. Yes, there still are phone books, but how much business do you actuall get from the phone book?

The Internet allows an individual to research a problem and to browse different companies before a buying decision is made. Sometimes, that decision will hinge on what information the potential buyer finds, and where it is found. Many decisions can come down to pure feeling—a gut reaction to how much the person likes your web design, or how memorable your website and your information is. All things such as pricing being equal, if the buyer thinks a particular seller is honest and trustworthy—or feels a bond or connection to that seller—then a buying decision is made, and business is done.

A great way to establish that bond or connection is through a corporate blog. They can make a difference in your company’s success, and can market and reach out to customers while you are closed. Here are three reasons why your business should have one:

1) It’s an easily maintained, informal way to connect with your customers. It offers a less formal information-providing approach. It’s so much better than a weekly newspaper ad as it's not as salesy, and costs less than the ad does. You can have a “Forum” section at the end of each entry where customers can seek help, ask questions or express their opinions. Often, when people find that there’s a way for them to leave comments, it helps to bring down the walls that can exist. The blog also offers a way for visitors to learn more about your company and its products, achievements and innovations.

2) It gives your business a “voice”. To continue with the above thought—if you have a landscaping company, you could write a blog entry once a week on the subject of, for example, lawn care. When is it best to water your lawn? When should you apply pesticides, and what kind? When should you “feed” it? This kind of free advice doesn’t take away from your business—on the contrary, it adds to it. Based on your advice, which of these two do you suppose is more likely to receive a phone call from a customer whose yard had gotten out of control while he and his family were on vacation—the landscaping company that advertises on billboards?  Or, the one whose owner takes the time each week to advise the homeowner how best to care their outdoor surroundings? You know, actually answering the common customer questions in the blog instead of wasting time dealing with those phone calls from people who might not even buy from you.

3) It provides a basis for an effective “inbound marketing” campaign. By making available a forum discussion area at the end of your blog entry, you give your customers a voice to comment, as mentioned before. However, to have that voice they must have first signed up on your site for a user name and password, and provided at least some personal information, which is now available as a valuable sales lead.

There are few ways to increase your readership that are easier and less expensive than starting a blog. The sooner you get going with it, the sooner you can begin to see some positive results.

Need to get your business blog started? Then download our guide to learning how to blog below. It will cover everything from writing your first post and choosing your topics to selecting photos and writing meta descriptions!

Corporate Blogs a Great Way to Target Moms

If moms are in your target demographic, then corporate blogs are the way to reach them. A BlogHer survey of US online mothers found that more than two-thirds of respondents trusted the information and advice they found on blogs. On top of that, these women are making purchases based on this information and advice. Over 60% of moms purchased a book based on these recommendations, while 56% made a food purchase and 48% bought a baby product.

How Do Your Make Your Business Blog Influential?

Although this survey only considered parenting blogs and information, a wide array of business blogs consider moms their target audience, and those who do ought to work on their business blogs in order to come across as a trustworthy source of information. The best way to do that is to avoid talking about your own products and services and how great they are, and focus on providing the information and advice that moms are looking for. They aren't going to trust you because you say they should trust you and that your products work. They are going to trust you because you help them solve their problems by offering the information and advice necessary to solve those problems.

But Corporate Blogs Will Only Be Read by Young Moms!

What makes these findings all the more interesting is that this trust in blogs spans across generations, with 60% of moms between the ages of 46 and 64 trusting blogs for parenting advice. This isn't much different from the 64% of moms 18-27 who trust blogs for parenting advice. Blogs aren't just for young people, and blogs aren't something that baby boomers scoff at or don't understand. Blogs can reach anyone of all ages, and you will only make an impact on those you reach if you become a source of information and advice, instead of using your blog as another marketing tool to make sales.

Whether or not moms are your target demographic, this survey offers valuable insight into the impact corporate blogs can have. Corporate blogs are read by all kinds of people, of all ages. Corporate blogs, if managed correctly, can be seen as a trusted source of information, as an outlet that its putting its readers first. Yes, you're a business with a bottom line, but understand that your readers aren't always ready to buy yet, and are merely looking for information and advice that helps them solve their problems and address their pain points. Positioning your corporate blog with that kind of perspective will turn your corporate blog into the trusted guardian angel that everyone wants and needs in their lives.

Is There Anything that Shouldn't Go in Corporate Blogs?

I had a recent meeting with a client where we discussed the business, keywords, and brainstormed business blog ideas. In our discussion, the client expressed that they didn't want ot provide certain information in their blog posts, and rejected some blog post ideas because of that. The client didn't want to give away information that could help their competition, and didn't want to gie away information that would cause potential customers to help themselves versus purchasing the client's services.

These concerns beg the question: is there anything that shouldn't go in a business blog or blog post? Of course, there are the obvious things, like anything that breaks client or employer confidentiality, topics that aren't appropriate to discuss in a professional setting, or topics that have nothing to do with your business or industry. But, is there anything business or industry relevant that should be avoided? Shoudl busienss blogs avoid writing about things that coudl help their competition, or could help their potential customers help themselves to the point of getting something done for free?

Competitors Can Read Your Business Blog

Although I am going to respect my client's wishes because avoiding such information doesn't hinder business blogging in general I would argue that there isn't any information outside of the obvious that should be avoided. The bsuienss blog, in and of itself, will be viewable by the competition as well as potential customers and other readers. The comeptition can use any information you put on the blog to their advantage, even it if's just for business blog ideas that they can use themselves. It's impossible without inside knowledge to know what kind of information your competition would or would not want or need. So, it would be tough to dtermin what shouldn't be given to the competitor.

Potential Customers Need Information, But Won't Take Action

As for potential customers, there isn't much information that's SO helpful to them that you'll be given away the farm. For example, if you're a home repair company, and you do a blog post on how to fix a leaky faucet, it's not as if that one blog post will eliminate any and all business you'll get from people who need leaky faucets. There's more that's preventing customers from helping themselves other than a lack of knowledge, such as a lack of time or ability. Not everyone who reads that post will follow it and fix their leaky faucet. Some may do it wrong. Others may not have the time or patience to follow the instructions. Simply giving them knowledge won't be enough to empower them to take the initiative to solve the problem. Plus, the reason for providing that information in the first place is to present your business as the solution, as the thought leader who can help solve customer pain points.

If there is informaiton that might be considered "too helpful" or might be too juicy for the competition, then you can still present it in the form of a white paper or a marketing case study. Either of these can be offered for free in exchange for contact information, so the person who gets the white paper or case study turns into a lead. This way, you can still get them to purchase your service while giving them information they want.

Keep in mind that the business blog is for customers and potential customers, and that censoring information isn't necessarily in their best interest. Make sure information moves them through the buying process.

If you need help with business blogging in general, then our "How to Blog" ebook could surely be of help! Click the button below to download it and to learn how to blog today!

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Blog Article Headlines: A List of Some of the Worst Out There

I was inspired by this post from Content Marketing Today to create my own list of some of the worst blog article headlines out there. Not only do bad headlines ruin any chance of people reading your awesome content, but bad blog post headlines can also hinder SEO and make your business blog or website look sloppy. Here's a list of some of the worst I could find on the web, and what I would do to make it a better headline:

• Japanese economy on a recovery path while other countries still worry the global slowdown - Not only can this be condensed, but it seems incomplete despite being so long. Are the other countries worrying about the global slowdown? Are they worrying the global slowdown will do something? The global slowdown of what? If I were rewriting this headline, I would say "Japan recovering; others still worry about global economy."
• When You're In Trouble, Just Consult an Expert - Sensible enough, but this headline is too obvious yet completely unclear as to what the article is about. Of course you consult an expert when you need help getting out of trouble, but is this article talking about a certain type of trouble, or a certain type of expert? Or is it a general "ask for help you when you need it?" Whatever case it is, this headline doesn't show how this article is worth reading. As a simple edit, I would have the headline describe what kind of trouble (financial trouble), or what kind of expert (financial expert).
• The State Of The Birds, Ravens’ Injury Update - This is supposed to be a sports headline about the Baltimore Ravens, but if you didn't know any better, you'd think he was talking about actual ravens. The headline tries to be cute, but being cute usually doesn't work in headlines. Not only do you risk confusing people, but cuteness doesn't often translate into an awesome SEO headline. To make this headline less cute and confusing, I would start with 'Ravens' Injury Update', and then list the names of the players I would talk about in the article. So, the blog article headline would be, "Ravens' Injury Update: Pitta, Birk, Smith".
• Gay Persecution in St. Petersburg - Just one problem: which St. Petersburg? It's more like to be the one in Russia, but the story is also a bit more newsworthy if it's the one in Florida. Most cities don't stand alone because of confusion like this, or because hardly anyone knows where these cities are located. There are only a select number of cities, called datelines, that can stand alone in headlines and in the body of an article.
• KMOV and St. Louis Country offer free Abry's shake - Yeah, don't misspell things, especially in the blog post headline. Actually, try not to have misspellings anywhere in your blog posts, particularly ones as egregious as the two in this headline.

As demonstrated, the blog article headline isn't something that can be rushed or treated without a second thought. If you do, you could end up with a headline as bad as some of these. Would you read any of these articles? I sure wouldn't.

Got any headlines that you'd like to add to the list? Please, share them below in the comments section!

Need a little extra help with your blog article headlines? Then download our checklist to great blog article headlines! It'll certainly help in ensuring that your headline doesn't end up on a list like this in the future:

How to Make Your Business Blog a Trusted Source of Information

Using your business blog to build thought leadership and to develop a relationship with customers and potential customers? If so, attitude might be your toughest competition. A new survey from Harris Interactive found that 98% of Americans distrust the information they find online. The survey of 1,900 people found that there were several reasons why they found the information untrustworthy, including:

• Too many ads – 59%
• Outdated information – 56%
• Information is self-promotional – 53% 
• Unfamiliar forums – 45%

“These findings demonstrate that people want online information to be more credible than it is today, and that current web services just don’t cut it,” said Mattias Guilotte, CMO of Mancx, an online information firm that helped to launch the survey.

It's hard enough that small businesses have other businesses to worry about when it comes to winning the minds and hearts of the target demographic. Learning that minds and hearts are competition in and of themselves makes business blogging harder still.

Despite the mistrust, there is room for improvement. The survey also found that online searchers would like improvements in answers always being up-to-date (53%) and less time wasted searching (32%). Small businesses and company blogs can easily make these improvements, and bridge the gap between the information people need and being that trusted information provider that people want. Here's how to bridge that gap and instill that trust in your readers:

1. Do Your Research - Since over half of those surveyed said they'd like their answers and their information to be up-to-date, it would be best to conduct some research before citing a statistic or even writing your blog article. If the ideas you are working off of are from a few years ago, it's likely that there could something new or just some tweaks. However, if you were to just cite your statistic or to write your post, your information would be out-of-date, with a competitor possibly writing something that is up-to-date and getting that trust you so badly want.
2. Keep it About the Customers - It is overwhelming had badly people want something that isn't self-promotional and covered with ads. Therefore, keep your business blogging about your customers and their pain points instead of about yourself. After all, the whole rest of your website is about your products, services and/or features, so keep just one place on your website for customer. That place is the business blog.
3. Consider Your Amplification Strategy - A reason cited for distrust in the information is finding that information on unfamiliar forums. Forums can be great way to amplify the content you write and even to showcase your expertise. However, you have to put some consideration into which forums you use. If you are using forums that your target market typically doesn't frequent, or is perhaps brand new, then you might not get as much traffic from these places as you had hoped. Stick to the popular forums, or forums on popular websites. LinkedIn is a good choice for just about any business or industry.
4. Move Readers through the Buying Process - To make this whole building trust idea simpler, think of your business blog as the place to move readers through the buying process and not the place to make the sale. A vast majority of the people who visit your website will not be ready to buy anyway, so don't spend so much time focusing on getting them to buy. Focus on their needs and pain points. Discuss the problems you actually solve for your customer. This way, you are more likely to provide the information these people actually need, wasting less of their time and positioning yourself as trustworthy source.

Just because people don't trust the information they find online doesn't mean all information that's online is untrustworthy. It's very possible for your business blog to be a trusted source of information and to ease the qualms people have about what they are reading. By having the right attitude about your business blog, readers will have the right attitude about you.

You only have a few seconds to instill trust and to capture the attention of a reader with your blog or blog post. Those few seconds are centered on the blog article title, and it must be a good one in order to accomplish those two things. If you need some help with your blog article titles, then download are ultimate checklist to writing blog article headlines:

 

What’s the Buzz about Business Blogging?

This is a guest post from Farhan Niazi, an IT professional with expertise in the fields of Web and Database Development. Niazi is the founder of SMB Tech Guide and is currently serving Sarhad University of Science and Information Technology, Pakistan as the Deputy Director of Information Technology.

Small and medium-sized businesses are clearly developing a new born fascination with the idea of business blogging. Blogging itself is a concept commonly known to us as a personal online journal, as something that teenagers and political pundits do. However, blogging is becoming more and more of a business tool, and an invaluable one at that.

Business blogs are not very different from the regular ones that we are all well aware of. The technology is the same, and the style of writing may be similar. The difference, however, lies in the fact that the subject matter of business blogs tends to be more focused and targeted to a predetermined specific niche/market area. Effective businesses, in fact, ensure that their blogs are created with a two-way consideration, with both an audience perspective, as well as the business focus. This is ultimately what will get the audience’s attention and give the business confidence and an affirmative guarantee that the readers are likely to share it and recommend the blog to others. Think of the business blog as a way to connect, instead of as a way to advertise.

Why are business blogs gradually becoming the new ‘it’ marketing tool amongst businesses? The answer is pretty simple: a well defined, informative and easy-to-read blog acts as the perfect marketing and communications tool for a business by very reaching out to all kinds of buyer personas and potential customers. There is no restriction to the visibility of blogs, so businesses can reach out to their target demographic while possibly getting the attention of new potential customers when engaging content is shared on social media, emailed to collaegues, and commented on to create conversation.

The marketing purpose of a business blog can vary. It could be used to:

• build brand awareness
• position the business as a thought leader in the industry
• inform customers of the information they need to move through the buying process
• build a relationship with readers and potential customers
• generate leads and customers
• all or some of the above

Regardless of what the purpose is, if used effectively, business blogging guarantees a better relationship with customers as well as better results from the effort. Business blogging is an easy idea to adopt since there is no complicated software that is required. However, it isn't easy to implement, as it takes consistency and commitment to build a business blog from scratch and to publish enough engaging content to get attention and to build a following.

Moreover, it is essential for a business to have online presence. Blogging is a great way to start that online presence, and to improve one’s website so it can be found on search engines. With the rapidly evolving technological era, the importance of effective communication is only greater than ever before. Business blogging is just one such way of properly and effectively employing valuable communication.

If you're already engaged in business blogging, then consider this list of 101 business blog ideas! That's enough ideas for one full year of blogging!