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Jan
12
2009

Do You Have a Blogging Strategy?

By | Content, News & Notes

8 Comments

thinkinghiimhmichealMany businesses have blogs.  Many businesses feel they should start blogs.  Why?  Because everyone else is doing it. This isn’t a really strong reason to do anything in business – unless you want to be just like everyone else.

If you have a business blog or are thinking of starting one, take a few minutes to ponder why you are blogging.  Hopefully your reasons involve helping and connecting with your customers, which should increase revenue and savings.  Using these reasons as goals to form a blogging strategy can really help direct your efforts and produce better results.

Once you have an endpoint (your goals), it will be much easier to work backwards to figure out how to achieve your goals.  What will you write about?  Who in your company will be blogging?  What will you incorporate into the design of your blog?  How will you connect with your customers?  Where will you syndicate your blog content?  Will you use social media to increase awareness of your blog?

Do you have a business blog?  What is your blogging strategy?

(photo by hi I’m h micheal @ Flickr CC)

Jan
05
2009

Moving to WordPress.com – What to Consider

By | Content, News & Notes, Reviews

4 Comments

wordpressOver the break we moved Sazbean.com and some of our other blogs over to WordPress.com from self-hosting WordPress on our own server.  Most of the process was relatively easy and overall we’re pleased with the results.  We made the decision to move for a few reasons: saving time and effort from updates and support, saving hosting costs (much cheaper), and additional syndication across WordPress’ network.

If you’re thinking of moving to WordPress.com or using them as your blogging platform, here’s what you should consider:

Advantages

  • WordPress.com takes care of all the updates and support
  • Cheap – you can have a blog hosted for free, but their low cost upgrades for control over CSS and domain name are worth it
  • Additional syndication of your content throughout the WordPress network – we’ve already seen a jump in traffic from this effect
  • Good selection of widgets to add functionality to your site – no need to worry about getting them working properly
  • Integrated dashboard – makes it easy to work with multiple blogs and the interface is very easy to use

Disadvantages

  • Limited control over the design and functionality of your blog (you have full CSS control with a paid upgrade)
  • No javascript allowed – which limits your ability to use custom widgets and other services that require a script tag
  • No outside site analytics – WordPress.com provides integrated statistics, but you won’t be able to use any outside analytics services since you cannot add any script tags to your blog
  • Limited control over your domain name – unless you have control over your name server, you have to point your blog domain to wordpress.com so you’ll lose the ability to add any subdomains.  They have allowed some ability to host your own email or use Gmail. Hosting multiple blogs from the same domain is also limited.
  • Limited control over files you can add to your blog (only images unless you purchase an upgrade – and then only movie files) – not too much of a problem with the various types of web services available to link to

Summary

After we moved to WordPress.com there have been some things that we could no longer do on our blog (in design and some in functionality).  But, overall, the tradeoff in terms of cost and time savings as well as additional exposure has already been worth it.  We’ll update you on our thoughts again after we’ve been here for awhile.

We want to hear from you – Do you use WordPress.com?  What are your thoughts?  If you have a self-hosted blog, why did you make that decision?

Nov
05
2008

11 Tips for Getting Readers for Your Business Blog

By | Content, News & Notes

4 Comments

readerpedrosimoes7You’ve set up a blog for your business and started writing.  Now, how do you get readers?

  1. Content, Content and more Content – Did I mention content?  The only way to attract and keep readers is with great content.
  2. Share – You started a business because you have some specialized expertise.  Share that expertise with your readers.  They will respect your efforts and look to you for advise.
  3. Consistency – Readers need to know that there’s a reason to check back from time to time.  Choose a posting schedule and try to stick with it.  Ideally, you should be posting at least once a week.
  4. Stay on Target – While straying off the path occasionally is ok, readers generally expect you to post on a certain subject matter (whatever your expertise is).  You may want to keep a personal blog for other posts (remember you’re representing your business).
  5. Listen & Respond – Encourage readers to interact with you through comments and email.  Listen to what they say and respond intelligently.  Your blog should be a place to have a conversation with your customers.
  6. Be Helpful – Related to #5, anywhere you see a question you can answer, answer it.  Help people out with problems and concerns, not just on your blog, but anywhere you see people post their issues.  If it’s something you can write about on your blog, you’ll also help out others who may have the same problem.
  7. Market – Add links to your blog on your website, your business card, your brochures, your email signature, and anywhere else you can.  You’ll need to let customers know that you have a blog.
  8. Be Social – Join social networks and socialize with the members.  Most social networks will also allow you to link to your website and blog.  Some will even automatically import posts from your RSS feed.
  9. Blogosphere – Read other industry blogs and comment on their posts.  Link to posts you think your readers would be interested on.  Write opinions about posts on your own blog.
  10. Keywords & SEO – Don’t go overboard trying to get keywords into your posts, but do take good SEO practices into account.  Knowing the keywords you want to target can help you incorporate them into your posts.
  11. Patience – It takes time to grow a readership on a blog.  It can take over a year to get a decent following, so don’t expect your blog to take off right away.  It takes a regular commitment to great content and a lot of patience.

Do you have a business blog?  What tips can you share for getting readers?

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(photo by pedrosimoes7 @ Flickr CC)

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Oct
30
2008

Business Blogging – What to Write

By | Content, Marketing, News & Notes

5 Comments

blogginghummyhummyOnce you have your business blog set up, what should you write? We mentioned briefly in the Business Blogging Startup Guide that you should write about anything your customers would want to know, but what is that exactly?

Showcase Your Expertise

One of the easiest ways to get started is to write about what you know.  Try to get tidbits of information out of your head and to your customers in short easy-to-understand posts.  Come up with subjects that your customers would be interested in and then break them into smaller topics that you can cover in a series of posts.  Write posts for whatever topics and subjects you mention on your business website, taking the time to explain them more thoroughly.

Tap Into Customer Support Requests

Both product and service companies get customer support requests.  Take a look at what your customers are asking and cover issues on your blog.  If there is a larger problem that affects your customers, address it frankly in your blog.  Covering problems will help your customers help themselves.  More importantly, you’ll let them know that you’re listening so they’ll be more likely to let you know when there is a problem.

Review Sales Info & Quotes

By taking a look at your sales information and quotes, you can find out what your customers are interested in purchasing right now.  You can cover topics regarding those products and services to help customers make informed choices (just don’t sound like an advertisement).

Look for Hidden Gems

In all your sales information and other business statistics you probably have some hidden gems that would be of interest to your customers and to the industry.  Maybe you also belong to an industry association that provides industry statistics you can summarize for your customers.  Look for information that your customers may not be able to find elsewhere.

Have an Opinion

Take a look at industry trade sites and other blogs to see what’s going on.  Feel free to choose topics and post your viewpoint on your blog.  Blogging is about having a conversation and being able to easily find many different viewpoints on any one issue.

Ask Your Customers

This is an easy one.  Just ask your customers what they’d like to know more about.  Sometimes it won’t be a direct question about what to blog but a conversation you’ve had recently at a conference or networking event.  If one person asks a question there are probably others who are interested in the answer.

Have a Conversation

Encourage your customers to comment on your posts.  Listen to their opinions and answer them honestly.  Ask for input with leading questions on your posts.  Take a look at other blogs to see what people are saying about your company and address it on your blog.  Having a blog is a great opportunity to connect with your customers.

Have a business blog?  Where do you get writing ideas from?

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(photo by hummyhummy @ Flickr CC)

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