Blogging Basics – Page 16

Blogging for Business – 10 Most Frequently Asked Questions

March 16, 2014 By Linda Dessau

Business woman with questions about blogging — © Syda Productions – Fotolia.com

As a business blog writer and consultant, I hear many questions, starting with, “Can you actually make a living doing that?” With customers heading straight to the web to find solutions to their problems, online marketing is no longer an option, it’s a necessity. And that makes what I do a necessity as well.

Here are 10 answers that will help any business owner market more effectively and connect with your customers online. I’ve grouped them into the three themes of blog planning, blog writing, and blog promotion.

Blog planning

1. What is a blog? A blog is a special section of a website that you update frequently with articles, news, and stories. The newest updates appear at the top of the page, with the older ones below. Posts are also organized by category. Example: Ask the Real Estate Team (Barrie, ON).

2. Should I blog/Why should I blog? No one HAS to blog, and you shouldn’t start unless you’re committed to blogging regularly for at least six months to give it a chance to produce results for your business. Reasons TO blog:

Stay visible to your audience so they think of you when they need your product or service. Example: Rooted Naturopathic Medicine Clinic (Barrie, ON).
Demonstrate your expertise about topics related to your business. Example: Rhonda Sherwood, Wealth Advisor for Scotia McLeod (Vancouver, BC).
Produce original content you can share on social media, to accomplish the first two goals in a variety of settings. Example: Summit Insight (Alexandria, VA)
Follow up with new contacts and prospective customers with links to information you’ve already written about questions they had.

3. Where should I blog? Recommended: Integrated into your own business website (Sample: Litchfield Builders, Hamden, CT). Next best thing: A separate site with the same branding, your own domain name, and clear links back and forth from the main site (Sample: Chilis). Not recommended: Blogging on “borrowed land,” like Blogger/Blogspot, WordPress.com, or Tumblr.

4. What should I blog about? A business should blog about things that will be interesting, relevant and helpful to your ideal customers. Start with a list of categories or themes you’ll write about. This helps you stay organized, and it also helps your readers find the answers they’re looking for.

Blog writing

5. How long and how often? While we’re hearing more now about the effectiveness of 1,000+-word blog posts, I still suggest that new business bloggers aim for 500 words for their feature articles. That being said, if you have more to say, and the additional words are purposeful and well-written, you no longer need to cut off your writing or arbitrarily divide it into multiple posts (for example, I’ll definitely need more than 500 words to answer these 10 questions!) For different types of posts (see the next answer for examples), 250-300 words is plenty.

6. Where do I find the time to blog? Blog posts don’t always have to be text-heavy or 100% original content, and these alternate types of posts can be quicker to write. For example, you can interview an expert about a topic that’s relevant to your customers, introduce or summarize a video or audio (your own or someone else’s), or review a book. (Here are some other blogging time management tips inspired by my greyhound Patch.)

7. Is it okay to copy someone’s article if I give them credit? No. Giving credit does not equal permission. You can quote one or two lines, but any more than that and you need explicit permission from the author. It’s better to just write some original commentary about why you like or recommend the content, then provide a link. (More suggestions about business blogging etiquette.)

Blog promotion

8. How do I get people to see my new blog posts?

Copy your post’s permalink (permanent link) from your web browser’s address bar (here is a video about how to find the permalink).
Paste the link into a status update box on a social media site, and then…
Add a brief teaser that tells the reader why they should read your post and how it will benefit them. Be consistent with the culture and norms of each network (e.g., you’re limited to 140 characters on Twitter, so don’t automatically copy the same message you’ve written for Facebook or it will be cut off and won’t make a good impression on your Twitter followers). Some titles, like this one by Debbie Ouellet (Barrie, ON), are compelling enough to use on their own (note that it already includes a question)! Your brand is a country. What’s it like to live there?
Email the link to someone directly if it’s a topic you discussed or you think they would enjoy/benefit from. (WiseStamp is an email signature tool that can automatically pull in the title and link of your latest blog post.)

9. How can I make my posts stand out on social media? Even with a catchy teaser, you still need to get people to notice that amidst everything else that’s constantly flowing into their social media streams. A colourful, attention-grabbing photo is the key to getting people to read even that short text, let alone click the link to read the whole post. ~~Tip: On Facebook and Google+, upload a photo first, before you type your teaser and paste in your permalink. That way readers will see a full-sized photo rather than a thumbnail.~~ [Update: July 17, 2015 – As of November 2014, Facebook is giving more visibility to posts that contain links with thumbnail images, versus those with uploaded photos.]

10. Where can I find photos to use legally? Just as you can’t reprint other people’s text, you also can’t automatically use other people’s photos without permission. To find photos you can share, I recommend Stock Exchange (free) – http://www.sxc.hu/, Photopin (free) – photopin.com and Fotolia (fee-based) – fotolia.com.

Thanks to the organizers and attendees of Small Business Connect in Barrie, Ontario, where I presented this information (with some technical difficulties). I’m glad to be able to deliver all the links and examples I promised!

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Stick to Your Categories and Listen to Your Customers

March 1, 2014 By Linda Dessau

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The Online Marketing Institute was founded in 2007 and provides online courses where professionals, entrepreneurs, agencies, students and teams can learn about digital marketing.

In January 2014 they published their Top 40+ Digital Strategists in Marketing for 2014, and I was thrilled to be included in this very impressive group.

When they notified me, they asked me to provide one insight that will help people improve their online marketing in 2014. It was difficult to choose just one! I wrote about how choosing categories for what you share on social media is just as important as choosing categories for your business blog.

You can read my insight, along with seven others, in this post about social media marketing strategies.

Clean My Space listens to their audience

Have you met the Queen of Clean? She’s my friend Melissa Maker of Clean My Space, a Toronto-based cleaning company (Melissa’s team cleaned my space before I moved to Barrie).

She’s also a queen of online marketing, in particular what she’s created over at The Cleanest Place on YouTube.

I love what Melissa does to promote her business online, and was thrilled to use her as an example in a guest post I wrote for OMI – Customer-Sourced Content: 7 Ways to Turn Questions into Content.

It highlights the importance of turning to your customers and prospective customers for content ideas. You can never go wrong by answering actual questions! After all, if one person is asking, chances are many others are wondering the same thing.

P.S. If you have a subscription (or a free 30-day trial) at OMI, you can also watch my course about customer-sourced content or check out the slides on SlideShare.

How to Help Local Customers Find Your Content

February 22, 2014 By Linda Dessau

In a previous post, I offered six types of blog posts that will attract local customers from your area. While writing high-quality content is the most important way to use blogging to grow your business, there are additional strategies that will ensure more people see your great work.

Set up your content for discovery and sharing

Blogging puts your business in the spotlight — © hanack – Fotolia.com

In a recent article, Jeff Korhan covered how to design your blog post content for discovery and sharing – by both people and search engines.

He explains how to use your blog post’s title (if local results are important to you, find an authentic way to include it in the title), meta description (displays when your post shows up on search engine results pages), internal and external links, and subheadings and key phrases to maximize the chance it will be found online.

For example, did you know that it’s important to feature an internal link (to another blog post or page on your website) close to the beginning of your blog post? “Internal links tell the search engines that your content is relevant to other content on your site, with the first link being especially important.”

Internal linking strategy

I asked fellow SteamFeed author and SEO professional Brent Carnduff to say more about internal links:

“An internal linking strategy really has to be considered from two perspectives – SEO and the user experience. An effective internal linking strategy can be helpful to both.

From an SEO perspective, as Jeff mentioned in his article, internal links do help the search engines crawl your site – ultimately helping them to find and index more of your webpages. In addition, they can pass along some “authority” to the page that is linked to, and the anchor text that is used can help the search engines identify what that page is about.”

(Note from Linda: Anchor text refers to the words that your visitor will actually click on to view the post you’ve linked to. Instead of simply pasting an entire link such as http://www.jeffkorhan.com/2014/02/writing-for-the-web-tips.html, you can use relevant terms (keywords) that would reinforce to Google what that page is about, e.g., Jeff’s writing tips for the web.

“At the same time, internal linking will encourage your user to stay on your website longer, and to become more engaged with your content – which increases the likelihood of them taking the next step in your funnel.”

Get listed in local directories

Though it’s not related to blog post content, when she heard I was writing about getting found by local customers, fellow SteamFeed author Suzen Petitt wanted to make sure I also told you how important it is to list your business in local search directories.

How to Market Your Business With Blogging and Social Media

January 25, 2014 By Linda Dessau

Mindmap of business blogging topics

On a cold January evening in Barrie, Ontario, 20-25 enthusiastic business owners gathered at the Barrie Public Library for my presentation about blogging and social media, including some spirited exchanges about the good, bad and ugly of trying to market a business online.

Good: Blogging is as easy as answering your customers’ questions.
Bad: Starting a blog and then neglecting to post gives a negative impression when people visit your website.
Ugly: According to one participant, promoting your blog post effectively on social media “seems like a LOT of work!”

Here is a brief summary of what I covered in the presentation, along with links where you can learn more about each topic.

Overview – Helping versus selling

I opened with the story of Marcus Sheridan of River Pools and Spas, and his incredible success with blogging and content marketing. As Marcus explained, business blogging is about helping, rather than selling, by answering actual questions from customers and prospective customers.

If you keep up with your blogging and continue to help, this will create and build a connection that can lead to a long-term relationship and a position of trust. Then when it’s time to purchase the product or service you offer, people already have a meaningful foundation from which to choose you.

For more about helping versus selling, check out Is Your Business Blog Serving Up the Right Information?

Coming up with blog post ideas

I encouraged the group to put on their “blogging antennae,” and promised that once they’d identified broad themes (categories) they wanted to write about, ideas would magically start to appear – if they paid attention.

Barrie naturopathic doctors Kerri Fullerton and Whitney Young of Rooted do a wonderful job of answering common questions about their areas of expertise. Here are just two examples on the topic of infertility, and you can visit their blog for posts about improving your mood, living gluten-free, helpful books and more:

Infertility – When Should I Worry?
Infertility – How Can Men Support Their Partners?

I asked if anyone was struggling to think of blog post topics for their business. We heard from a massage therapist, hair stylist, and sign language interpreter, and we successfully brainstormed topics for all of them.

Here is some further reading about coming up with blog post ideas:

Blogging consistently

To keep up with your blogging and avoid turning your website into an abandoned ghost town, I suggest you start with a plan, stick to your categories, and use upcoming events, holidays and promotions as a starting point.

(Just remember, blog posts should be about your customers, not about your business. So if your promotion is a sale on paint, provide tips about the hottest new decorating trends of the season.)

Break blogging up into a series of tasks so you can tackle each of them when it’s the best time for you, instead of trying to sit down and start, finish and publish a post in one sitting.

There’s no way around it – blogging takes discipline and commitment, but please be gentle with yourself in the process.

Also consider other types of posts besides full-length feature articles, such as video or audio recordings, or a review or recommendation of someone else’s content (here is how to share other people’s content without plagiarizing).

Even with these other types of posts, it’s still a good idea to provide at least 250-300 words of text to put your own slant on the topic and remind your readers of your expertise. Also, some people prefer to learn by reading and may never open your recordings.

Here is some further reading about blogging consistently:

Promoting your blog posts on social media

There are three things you need in order to share your blog posts on social media:

The permalink of your blog post – Otherwise people will have to search your website for the specific information you promised (and most won’t bother). Here’s how to find the permalink of your blog posts, or you can use a tool like Buffer.
A reason to click it – With so much competing for your reader’s attention, they have to know, “What’s in it for me if I click this link?” Here are five ways to get noticed when promoting your blog posts on Twitter and LinkedIn.
People to see it – Full-size images really draw people in, especially on Facebook and Google+. On those sites, upload your photo first, and then add your permalink to the text description. Otherwise, all people will see is a small thumbnail of the photo from your blog post. UPDATE (September 13, 2014): Facebook is now giving more visibility to posts that contain links with thumbnail images, versus those with uploaded photos (they consider that “click-baiting“). So put your link directly into the status update box so just the small thumbnail image is displayed.

Here is some further reading about growing your social media network and what/how to share on social media:

Blogging is a wonderful way to connect with new customers, give more value to returning customers, and gain visibility as an expert in your subject area. When you see blogging as a way to help, focus on a few key topics, and stick with it over time, you’ll build a rich collection of useful content to share with your networks and spread across the web.