Building a successful business blog takes commitment, persistence and patience.  Most importantly, there are a few fundamentals that you need to make sure you address if you want your business blog to thrive in the long term.

Five of the most important fundamentals are described below to help you take your business blog to the next level of success:

1. Unique design and branding

Don’t start a blog using one of the free templates that comes with your chosen blogging application.  Doing so does nothing to communicate your brand promise and makes your business look “small-time” because there are likely to be many other blogs of varying calibers across the web that use the same design.  Instead, invest in a premium theme or custom design by working with a freelance blog designer to make your business blog match your business brand and instantly communicate your brand image.

2. Well written About page

Take the time to write a concise yet compelling About page that describes who you are, what your business does, and what sets you apart from competitors.  Also, make sure that your About page communicates what value your blog brings to your audience.  Consider working with a professional copywriter to make this page really shine.

3. Contact form

Your business blog needs a good contact form.  If you use WordPress.org as your blogging application, check out the free Contact Form 7 for an easy-to-use solution.  If you use WordPress.org and are willing to invest a bit of money to get a powerful contact form tool that you can use for far more than just contact forms, check out Gravity Forms.  This plugin has a price tag, but it’s excellent!

4. Social links

If your business has a presence on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, SlideShare, or any other social site, make sure you promote those destinations on your business blog by including prominent links and inviting visitors to connect with you on those sites.  You can even include social media icons to cross-promote your other social profiles.

5. Subscription area

Take the time to create your business blog’s feed using a tool like Feedburner, and then include an area on your business blog where you can invite visitors to subscribe to your blog via feed reader or email, which gives you an opportunity to stay top-of-mind amongst an opt-in audience who has already made it clear that they are interested in you, your content, and your business.

Image: stock.xchng

With that in mind, you can use your business blog as a tool to collect email addresses.  But proceed with caution!  You don’t want the process of obtaining opt-in email addresses to damage the user experience on your business blog.  Remember, successful social media marketing stems from the removal of the gateways to content sharing and conversations.  The last thing you want to do is insist that people provide their email addresses and opt into receiving email messages from you in order to view your shareworthy content.  That content should be freely accessible without barriers.

Therefore, your goal in collecting opt-in email addresses through your business blog is to make the process not seem disruptive.  Here are 5 easy ways to do it:

1. Hold a blog contest.

People love contests, and a contest offers a perfect time to request email addresses and invite people to opt into receiving your email newsletter and marketing emails.  If you use WordPress.org as your blogging application, I recommend Gravity Forms to help you create the entry form to meet your specifications.

2. Include a message at the end of your blog posts.

The message can invite people to sign up for your emails for special offers and information.  Link the message to an opt-in form page on your business blog.

3. Include an ad in your blog feed.

Many bloggers monetize their blog feeds with ads.  Why not advertise your special offer emails with a link to your opt-in form page on your business blog?

4. Include an ad and link in your business blog sidebar.

You should already have links in your business blog sidebar for visitors to subscribe to your blog or follow you on Twitter, Facebook, and so on.  Why not include an ad or link to the email opt-in form page on your business blog or create a form that’s available directly in the sidebar rather than on a separate page (just keep it short).

5. Use an email opt-in plug-in.

If you use WordPress.org, there are a number of plugins that allow you to easily add a double opt-in form to your business blog.  Check out WP-Opt-in or WP Email Capture or conduct a search in the WordPress Plugins Directory.  For example, follow the link to check out the results for a search on “email opt-in“.

Image: stock.xchng

Therefore, if you’re a U.S. business or using images on your blog owned by an individual from the United States, then you need to either have permission to use that image or pay to use that image.  Alternately, that image needs to hold a copyright license that allows you to use it on your blog without paying a royalty or asking permission.

That’s a lot to consider.  How do you find images to use on your business blog without violating copyright laws and without having to pay or ask for permission all the time?

Fortunately, there are website that provide free stock photography or images with Creative Commons licenses that allow you to publish them on your blog as long as you provide attribution with a link back to the owner (as well as any other requirements listed with the image).

Following are several trustworthy websites where you can find images that you can freely use on your business blog as long as you follow the requirements published with each image:

1. stock.xchng

Stock.xchng offers a variety of royalty-free images that you can use on your business blog for free as long as you follow the restrictions provided along with each image.  The site also offers a lot of premium images, but you have to pay to use those.

2. morgueFile

MorgueFile, like stock.xchng, offers a variety of stock images that you can use for free as long as you follow the specific requirements attached to each image (typically just providing attribution is enough).

3. Picapp

Picapp is a great solution for people who need images of celebrities or current events for their business blogs.  Images are published on your blog with a link back to Picapp where visitors can find more images (it’s like a form of advertising for Picapp and how it’s how they’re able to allow you to use the images for free).  Image owners are paid when their images are used by publishers and bloggers like you.

4. FreeFoto

FreeFoto offers a wide variety of royalty-free images that you can use for free as long as you provide attribution.  These images do include a small FreeFoto watermark.

5. Dreamstime

Dreamstime is another good source that you can use to find free images that you can legally use on your blog.  You can also access Dreamstime images through morgueFile.

Image: stock.xchng

There are many factors that affect how much a professional blogger will charge you to write blog content for you.  A dozen of the most common factors are as follows:

1. The blogger’s experience with blogging
2. The blogger’s experience on the social Web
3. The blogger’s experience in your industry
4. The blogger’s online reach and reputation
5. Whether the blogger will be ghost blogging or get a byline with links to his/her own site or blog
6. How long posts need to be on your blog
7. If you’ll provide post topics or the blogger will have to find topics to write about
8. If images are required in posts
9. If the blogger will have to categorize, tag, and manage add-ons or plugins that add time to publishing a post
10. If the blogger will have to moderate and respond to comments
11. If the blogger will have to promote the blog to drive traffic to it
12. How often blog posts need to be published

Each of the factors listed above affects the amount of time it takes for the blogger to write and publish a post on your blog and will therefore, affect how much a blogger charges you to produce that content.  Furthermore, the old adage, “you get what you pay for,” certainly holds true in blogging.  Experienced bloggers might charge $50 per 300-500 word post while an extremely popular blogger might charges hundreds of dollars per post.  On the other end of the spectrum, an inexperienced blogger might charge just $3-$5 to write a blog post for you.

The goal for your business is to hire a blogger who can write well, autonomously, and consistently in a voice and style that matches your business.  The blogger should also have experience in your business or the ability (and willingness) to learn about your business in order to write effectively for your audience.  Finally, the blogger you hire should be reliable and write well.  It won’t help you to hire a blogger whose posts need to be completely edited for grammar, spelling, and formatting.

Just remember, publishing content that is substandard, inaccurately reflects your brand, and is not helpful or shareworthy isn’t going to help your business grow significantly.  It’s worth it to pay for quality content from a blogger who knows what he or she is doing.  It’s your business’ reputation and future on the line after all.

Image: stock.xchng

By using search engine optimization techniques as you write your business blog posts, you can attract more search engine traffic to your blog.  Following are five steps you can employ as you write each post you publish on your business blog to make your posts more search-friendly.

1. Use keywords in your blog post title.

First, do some keyword research to learn what keyword phrases related to your business blog are attracting traffic, and select the keyword phrases that you want to focus on to increase targeted traffic to your blog from search engines.  Then, use that keyword phrase in your blog post title.  Following are suggested tools for keyword research:

• Google AdWords Keyword Tool: free
• Google AdWords Traffic Estimator: free
• Wordtracker: free trial available before fees are incurred
• Keyword Discovery: free trial available before fees are incurred

2. Focus on specific keywords in a post.

Pick a keyword phrase that best suits the blog post you’re writing and focus on that one keyword phrase in that post.  Attempting to stuff a single blog post with multiple keyword phrases is likely to do more harm than good.

3. Use keywords in and around links in your blog post.

Search engines like Google value text within and around links higher than other body text in your blog posts.  Therefore, try to use keywords in hyperlinks when you can.

4. Use keywords at the beginning and end of your blog post with a sprinkling within your post, too.

Try to use your keyword phrase within the first 200 characters of your blog post, several times throughout your post (depending on the length of the post), and near the end of your post.

5. Use keywords in images.

Search engines like Google use the text included in the image HTML Alt-tag (the alternate text that displays online if an image cannot load) as part of their search ranking algorithms.  Therefore, it’s important that you take the time to name your image files with keywords in mind and use those keywords in the Alt-tag when you publish those images in your blog posts.

Whatever you do, don’t sacrifice the quality and readability of your blog posts just so you can fit your keyword phrases.  Remember, much of your business blog’s success comes from writing amazing, shareworthy content that people want to write about, talk about, and link to.  If your blog post quality suffers because you’re trying desperately to fill it with keyword phrases, no one will want to write about it, talk about it, or link to it, and you won’t benefit from the compounding effect of blogging.

And of course, be sure to read about the 5 easiest ways to get banned by Google and avoid committing those wrongs on your business blog.

Image: stock.xchng

In simplest terms, Google uses a proprietary search algorithm as well as human analysis to detect sites that use search engine optimization techniques which artificially inflate the results Google returns for keyword searches.  If your business blog is caught doing any of the things listed below, your blog will be flagged as spam and may very well be banned from all Google search results going forward.

In other words, don’t do the things listed below if you want to get traffic from Google:

1. Keyword Stuffing

Keyword stuffing is when you stuff a bunch of keywords or links using specific keywords as the linked-text in an effort to boost your Google search traffic related to those keywords.  For example, including a list of links with your keywords in your  blog’s sidebar or footer for no other reason than to stuff your keywords.

2. Scraping Content

Your business blog could be banned from Google if you’re caught scraping content, which means that you copy content from other sites without publishing your own original content.  Not only can scraping content get your business blog banned from Google, but it can also get you in trouble with the law if you violate copyright laws (i.e., you don’t want to commit plagiarism).

3. No Original Content

If your business blog is filled with ads, affiliate links, and so on but no original content, it could get banned from Google’s search results.  You must publish more original content than anything else on your business blog.

4. Hiding Text

Don’t try to hide lists of keywords by making the text the same color as the background of your business blog or making them the tiniest font possible.  You’re likely to get caught and banned from Google search results.

5. Paying for Text Links or Accepting Payment for Text Links

Google uses links that appear in Web sites as criteria in its search result ranking algorithm.  Therefore, Google believes that sites that pay for text links to be published on other sites or sites that publish links in return for payment are artificially inflating search results.  Therefore, both the site that pays for the text links and the site that publishes them can be banned from Google search results if they’re caught.

Google views each of the above techniques as spam techniques.  Once your business blog is banned from Google search results, it is nearly impossible to get back in — even if you’re not guilty of intentionally spamming.  Don’t give Google’s algorithm or human analysts a reason to suspect you of committing any kind of possible spamming.

Image: stock.xchng

Comment spam is bad.  It’s that simple.  Not only does it detract from the conversation happening on your blog, but it also makes it seem like you don’t really care about your business blog, audience or conversations because you can’t even take the time to identify and delete those spam comments.  People who spend a lot of time on blogs can identify spam comments faster than blogging novices, so it’s important that you educate yourself to identify, flag and delete spam comments.

If you use a spam filter or tool like Akismet on your business blog (and you should) then you need to understand that taking the time to flag comments as spam is important because doing so “teaches” the spam filter how to identify future spam.  Simply deleting a spam comment works, but you’ll help yourself in the long run if you flag spam comments that your spam filter or tool doesn’t catch.

So how can you identify a spam comment?  There are a few very common types of spam comments that often make it through spam filters but do nothing to hurt your blog and could even hurt it by cluttering valid conversations or leading your audience to inappropriate sites via links that don’t effectively reflect your brand image.  For example, if you write a blog to support your child care business and a spammer continually leaves comments linking your audience to a pornographic Web site, then that’s something that could definitely offend your audience and negatively impact your business.

With that said, be on the lookout for the comment spam tricks described below that are often used to hide spam comments from spam filters and unsuspecting bloggers:

1. The “Great Blog” Comment: Comments that say little more than “great blog” or “good info” could very well be spam.
2. The Whole-Lotta-Links Comment: Comments that are filled with links are often spam.
3. The Nonsensical Comment: Comments that make no sense or are filled with unrecognizable characters are often spam.
4. The “Your the Best” Comment: Comments that are over-the-top complimentary are often spam.  Be on the lookout for comments that say, “I’m so glad I found this blog.  It’s the best.  Keep up the great work,” which are, unfortunately, often spam.
5. The Unrelated Comment: Comments that have nothing to do with the blog post are typically spam.

Always check where the links included with a suspicious comment lead to before you approve comments like the examples above.  Often spam comments are simply phishing attempts by spambots to find sites that actually publish those comments, so they can exploit that site in the future.  Furthermore, an increasing amount of comment spam is coming from individuals who are paid to leave specific text links across the Web in return for payment.  I see a lot of the “Great Blog” Comments and the “Your the Best” Comments that are clearly left for no other reason than to publish a specific text link.  By flagging spam comments appropriately and deleting them, you can save yourself from the headache of dealing with that spammer in the future and save your business blog’s reputation.

What type of blog comment spam do you think is most annoying?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

Image: stock.xchng

Honestly, all of the data you can collect about your business blog’s performance is useful in some way, but you have to start somewhere.  Instead of feeling overwhelmed and confused by the volume of data at your fingertips thanks to your new Web analytics tool, start small and focus on the most impactful data:

1. How are people finding your business blog?
2. Do people stick around once they find your blog?
3. What other sites are sending visitors to your business blog?
4. How many people are finding your business blog?
5. What content on your business blog are people visiting?

Keep track of the statistics below to answer those questions and learn about what is and is not working on your business blog.

1. Visitors and Unique Visitors

There are two statistics you need to understand when it comes to determining how many people visit your business blog in an effort to gauge your blog’s current and growing popularity.  First, the number of visitors to your blog includes everyone who viewed a page on your blog, meaning the same person can be counted more than once if he visits your business blog multiple times.  On the other hand, unique visitors is the number of unique individuals who visited your blog during a specified time period.  While this number gives you a better indication of the number of different people who visit your business blog, it’s not perfect.  If people clear their Web browsers’ cookies or visit from different systems, they’ll be counted more than once.  Keep these imperfections with both pieces of data in mind as you evaluate your business blog’s performance.

2. Page Views

Page views is an important piece of data because it tells you how many unique pages on your business blog were viewed by all visitors during a specified period of time.  Advertisers consider Page Views to be a more accurate representation of a blog’s popularity than visitors or unique visitors.  It’s also a useful statistic to trend analysis to gauge your business blog’s overall performance over time.

3. Referrers

Referrers is a very important piece of information because it tells you what other sites, blogs, search engines, and so on are sending visitors to your business blog.  Over time, you might notice spikes in traffic from specific sites or blogs or a growing trend in traffic from a specific site or blog.  Both of these occurrences should raise a flag that something good is going on that you should investigate further in order to capitalize on it.

4. Keywords

Aside from referrers, you should also track the keywords that people are typing into their search engines that leads them to your business blog.  You can use this data to tailor future content to exploit those keywords or tweak content to better attract the niche audience you’re looking for — depending on the trends you identify and your goals for your business blog.

5. Top Content

By tracking the Top Content data provided by your Web analytics tool, you can find out what content is attracting the most visitors (and track that data against your referrers and keyword data for a more in-depth analysis) so you can create more of that kind of content that your audience seems to want.

You can use your Web analytics tool to track both trends as well as short term traffic spikes or dips to identify opportunities or problems early.  The data is there (and most of it is available for free).  Use it!

What do you think is the most valuable piece of data to track with a Web analytics tool and why?  Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image: stock.xchng

There are three primary options for choosing a business blogger:

1. Write your business blog yourself.
2. Enlist an employee to write your business blog.
3. Hire a professional blogger to write your business blog.

Each of the options above has pros and cons.

First, there is no one who knows your business, customers, and goals better than you do, but finding time to write great content doesn’t come easily to everyone.

Second, employees can be great bloggers, particularly if they’re familiar with the social Web and are vocal advocates of your brand and business.  However, you have to monitor your employees’ conversations and behaviors online to ensure they adequately represent your business and brand and don’t disclose any proprietary information. 

Third, hiring a professional blogger is an excellent alternative, but not all bloggers are what they claim to be.  You’ll find a huge variation in writing abilities, social Web experience, and technical knowledge, and those differences are usually very visibile when it comes to the rates that bloggers charge.  There is a reason the old adage, you get what you pay for, is still around.

Following are five skills you should look for in potential business bloggers to ensure you select a blogger who is willing and able to develop a successful blog for your business:

1. Has a knowledge of blogging and the social Web

Just because a person knows how to use WordPress doesn’t mean he or she understands how to effectively write, publish, and promote blog content to build a successful blog.  He or she should have active social networking, social bookmarking, and microblogging accounts and understand how to drive conversations, sharing and traffic to a blog.

2. Has excellent writing skills

The person who writes your business blog should have excellent writing, grammar, spelling, and proofreading skills to represent your brand well and alleviate the need for you to edit his or her work.

3. Listens and understands your wants, needs, and goals for your business blog.

The person who writes your business blog should aggressively learn about your business, industry, competitors, customers, and so on in order to be able to effectively write interesting blog content that attracts an audience and sparks conversations.

4. Is responsive, responsible and ethical.

The person who writes your business blog should actively respond to comments and emails related to your business blog and they should be responsible enough to publish blog posts without being micro-managed.  They should also understand what content is and is not appropriate for your business blog without having to run every post topic by you for approval, and they should understand the ethics and laws of the social Web, so your business blog doesn’t attract a negative reputation or legal trouble.  Otherwise, you might as well write your business blog yourself!

5. Has search engine optimization knowledge

The person who writes your business blog doesn’t have to be a search engine optimization expert (that’s a career unto itself), but he or she should understand the most important do’s and don’ts of search engine optimization and search engine reputation management to effectively write posts for maximum search engine referral traffic.

Keep an eye on Business Logs next week for tips for finding professional bloggers to write your business blog for you.

Image: stock.xchang

So what should you write about on your business blog?

That’s a common question that many businesses struggle to answer.  Fortunately, I compiled a list of 20 business blog posts that add value to your blog, which are listed below:

1. Industry news

What’s going on in your industry?  Write about news, changes, and so on.

2. Company news

Is there anything interesting in your company’s future?  Share an insider’s perspective of your office or store on your business blog (without revealing proprietary information).

3. Customer service issues

Are there common customer service issues that you can resolve by publishing a blog post to clear up confusion?  Your business blog is a great place to discuss misconceptions and common problems that are easily fixed.

4. Answer questions

Are there common questions that you hear about your business or product?  You can publish blog posts that answer those common questions or publish a post asking readers to submit questions to be answered on the blog.

5. Video tutorials

Video content is hot these days, and offering video tutorials that show how to use your products is a great way to add visual and auditory components to your business blog.

6. Video product demonstrations

Product demonstrations are perfect for businesses whose products have to be seen in action to be believed.

7. Video interviews of customers

Invite your best customers to appear in a video interview on your business blog.  Ask them questions about why they choose to do business with you, personal experiences with your products, and so on to add a personal touch to the videos.

8. Video interviews of employees

Let your customers and business blog readers get to know the people behind the scenes by interviewing your employees and publishing the video interviews on your blog.

9. Videos of company events

Again, let your blog readers get to know the people behind the scenes by taking videos at company events and publishing them on your blog.  For example, if your employees participate in charity events, those are perfect for video content!

10. How-to posts

Offer a set of step-by-step instructions teaching readers how to accomplish a task related to using your products.

11. Discount or promotional announcements

If you have a great promotion going on, share it on your business blog.

12. Contests

Give away one of your products or a special discount in a blog contest.  They’re fun and great tools to boost traffic to your business blog.

13. Customer reviews or opinions

Ask your customers to offer their reviews or opinions about your business or products.  Then, publish a blog post to highlight the responses.

14. Trends

What’s next for your industry?  Do you see any new trends on the horizon?  Talk about them in a business blog post.

15. Market research

Publish a poll using a tool like PollDaddy to gather information about your customers’ wants and needs.

16. Hot topics

What are the topics that people are talking about online right now?  Use a tool like Google Trends to track current hot topics and blog about them.  Just make sure the topics you blog about are related to your business in some way.

17. Breaking news

Keep up on breaking news related to your business or industry and blog about it as it happens.

18. Guest posts

Invite an authoritative person within your industry to write a guest post to publish on your business blog.  It’s always interesting to hear varied perspectives, particularly from influencers or experts.

19. Photos

Take some pictures of your employees in the office, at the company picnic, and so on.  You can even take pictures of customers using your products.  Just be sure to get permission before you publish any photos on your blog.  Photo posts are a great way to add visual appeal to your business blog.

20. Opinion

Inject your personality into your business blog by publishing some relevant opinion posts.  For example, share a list of your favorite Twitter users or your favorite business books.  Don’t be afraid to get creative, but always make sure your opinion posts add value to your business blog in some way rather than veering completely off topic, which confuses readers.

Image: stock.xchang

The Web is full of clutter, but you can stand out from the noise by establishing your niche and offering authoritative, reliable, and shareworthy content and conversations related to that niche on your business blog.

The first step is to define your niche by asking yourself the following questions:

1. Who is my target audience and what do they want from me?

Define your best audience, and then find out where they spend time online.  Listen to their conversations and join those conversations to learn about what they want from a niche blog like yours.  Then, create amazing content that meets those wants and needs.

2. Is my niche viable today?

Take some time to learn who else is publishing content related to your niche, and make sure there is an active and engaged audience already seeking information about and talking about your niche.  Also, use a tool like the free Google AdWords Traffic Estimator to get an idea of the traffic a niche blog might attract.

3. What keywords should I target?

Do some keyword research to ensure your content is optimized for search engine referrals and effectively attracts your target audience using tools like Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, or the free Google AdWords Keywords Tool.

4. How can I differentiate my niche content and make it valuable to my audience?

Niche business blogs are highly focused, therefore, it’s important that you learn who else is publishing content related to your niche to ensure you add value to the online conversation.  You don’t want to simply republish the same kind of information that your competitors are already publishing.  Take the time to create amazing, shareworthy content to fully leverage the compounding effect of blogging.

5. Can I make this niche work for the long term?

While it’s important that your niche is viable today, you also need to make sure that you set your business blog up for long term success.  Make sure you can create enough content for your niche blog for years to come while remaining passionate about your subject matter.  Also, don’t choose a trend niche that is hot today but is likely to fade into oblivion in the not too distant future.

Image: stock.xchang

Following are five easy tips to help you pick the best domain name for your business blog:

1. Understand extensions.

There are many Web address extensions available these days with .com, .net and .biz being the most popular options for business sites.  While .com is still the most popular, it’s perfectly acceptable to use a .net or .biz domain name, and doing so won’t detrimentally affect your site’s traffic.

2. Remember search engine optimization.

Do some keyword research using a keyword analysis tool like Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery or the free Google AdWords Keyword Tool.  Including keywords in your domain name that your target audience is likely to use in searches when they’re looking for sites and information like you provide on your business blog can provide a significant boost in search engine traffic.

3. Avoid confusing elements.

Your domain name should be easy to remember and spell.  Therefore, avoid using unusual spellings of common words.  Also, avoid using numbers and punctuation that can be confusing (e.g., 4 or four?).  The best domain names can be verbally communicated without any spelling or clarification required.

4. Consider intuitive vs. creative concerns.

Just as specific elements within your domain name can be confusing, so can words or messages in domain names.  For example, you might like the idea of making up a word for your domain name, but doing so can cause confusion until people learn what that word is, how to spell it, and what it stands for.  That doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to have success with a domain name that is highly creative — think of domain names like Squidoo.com or Flickr.com.  However, it takes longer to build recognition of a creative domain name than it does for an intuitive domain name.

5. Don’t worry if the domain you want is already taken.

It is very possible that you might put together a list of 10 domain names that you would consider using for your business blog, search for the availability of those domain names, and learn that none of them are available with a .com extension.  Don’t worry!  There are a number of options you can pursue to get a suitable domain name if the one you want is already registered by another person or entity.  First, consider using a less common extension as mentioned in #1 above.  You could also add a descriptive word to your domain such as best, fast, and so on.  Many people add an article somewhere in their domain name, like a or the, and others add characters to the end of their domain names making a word plural by adding an s or adding an er or est at the end.

Most domain name registrars offer domain name alternative suggestions if the one you want is not available.  You can also find alternatives using a domain name suggestion tool.  Finally, if you’re really attached to a specific domain name but someone else already owns it, you can find the domain name owner and contact information, and then contact that person to learn if they’re willing to sell it to you.

Image: stock.xchang

The reason for this is simple.  No one cares about you.  Instead, they care about how you can help them or add value to their lives.  The key to social media marketing success is engagement and interaction.  No one will want to interact with you if all you ever do on the social Web (including on your business blog) is talk about yourself.

Think of it this way — if you were at a party talking to another person and that person spent the entire time talking about himself, it’s unlikely you’d want to continue talking to him.  In fact, you’d probably want to escape and stay away from that person for the rest of the night and in the future.  You don’t want the online audience to feel that way about you!  Therefore, your business blog content should be primarily non-promotional.

Don’t worry.  You can still publish promotional content if that content is truly useful and interesting to your audience, but don’t go overboard.  You need to provide substance first and promotion second (a distant second).  The power of social media marketing (including business blogging) comes from the customer relationships that develop from it.  It’s an incredibly effective form of indirect marketing that should be a vital component of any business’ long-term marketing strategy.

So then what’s a business owner to do?

I recommend that businesses spend 80% of their time on the social Web engaging in non-promotional conversations and publishing and 20% or less of their time on self-promotional activities.  Additionally, try to ensure that 80% of the content and conversations that are published on your business blog are not self-promotional.  The 20% (or less) of self-promotional content on your business blog, however, should still add value to the user experience on your blog.  Simply regurgitating press releases or marketing brochures doesn’t add value.  Take the time to make sure all self-promotional messages are actually useful to your audience.  Don’t let that day arrive!

Remember the story of the boy who cried wolf?  He continually called for help to be saved from peril simply to get attention until no one bothered responding to him anymore.  Eventually, he truly did need help and everyone assumed he was just “crying wolf” again.  They ignored him again to his detriment.  That story also applies to business blogging and social media marketing.  If you garner a reputation for only publishing self-promotional content, people will start to expect only that kind of content from you.  If that content doesn’t add value to their lives, they’ll start to ignore you.  The day will come when you really do have something valuable to say or share, but no one will pay attention because they only expect self-promotion from you.

Image: stock.xchang

Following are five easy ways to get sales from a business blog without annoying your audience:

1. Offer exclusive discounts, coupons and sales.

Reward the people who visit your blog and spend time reading and sharing your content by offering them exclusive discounts, coupons and sales.  You can do this either by simply publishing discounts, etc. within blog posts or by emailing them directly to visitors who sign up to receive them (be sure to include a way to opt-out of future emails).  You can also create a private page of your business blog that is password protected where special discounts, etc. are published and provide that password and access to “members only”.  Not only does this method guarantee that people will visit your blog again, but you’ll also be able to collect email addresses for future offers while adding value to the user experience on your blog all at the same time.

2. Offer exclusive tips, tutorials, and how-to guides.

It’s okay to talk about your products and services on your blog, but wouldn’t it be far more interesting and helpful for your audience if you demonstrated how to use your products (via video), offered “secret” usage tips, and explained how to properly use, care for, or trouble shoot your products?  Just saying your product is great leaves a lot to be desired, but demonstrating why it’s great and how to use it to get the best experience with it is far more interesting.  By making it clear how to use your products, people are more likely to purchase them or tell friends about them.  Be sure to include links to purchase your products (possibly with a discount for people who view or share your tutorials, etc.).

3. Offer exclusive products.

Write an ebook, hold a webinar, or offer special reports that are helpful and interesting to your target audience to add value to the time they spend on your business blog.  You can either offer products for free as an indirect marketing tool or you can offer them for a fee to generate additional income.

4. Link to your online catalog.

Anytime you talk about one of your products on your business blog, you should link to that product in your online catalog or another page where it is easy for people to make a purchase or get additional information via just one click.

5. Publish customer reviews and testimonials.

Few things are more powerful in terms of moving consumers to action than customer reviews and testimonials simply because research tells us that consumers trust other consumers more than they trust marketing messages.  With that in mind, ask your customers to offer reviews of your products or interview them to learn more about their opinions related to your products and how those products positively affect their lives.  You can even link this marketing effort to a discount initiative (give a discount on a future purchase to interview participants) or referral program.

The key to business blogging success and direct sales is to think out-of-the-box.  Don’t over-promote.  Instead, pick and choose to promote your best offers that consumers are most likely to find valuable, and then subtly talk about them on your blog.

How have you used your business blog to generate sales or leads?  Leave a comment and share your story!

Image: Flickr

Many business owners think of blogging as a chore that delivers little added-value to a company’s bottom-line, but the truth is actually exactly the opposite.  A business blog is an incredible tool for search engine optimization because of what I call the compounding effect of blogging.

First, you need to understand consumer behavior in the 21st century:

Where do you go to find information about a business, product, store, etc. when you need it? Do you check the Yellow Pages?  Nope.  The vast majority of consumers turn to Google or their favorite search engine (with Google being #1).

Here’s how the compounding effect of blogging phenomenon works:

1. You have a business Web site made up of 20 pages.  That’s 20 entry points to your business Web site for Google to find, index, and deliver in relevant keyword searches.
2. You add a business blog to your Web site, and you publish a blog post everyday for a year.  Now you have 365+20=385 entry points to your business Web site for Google to find, index, and deliver in relevant keyword searches.
3. You publish posts on your business blog and those posts offer interesting, useful, helpful or entertaining content that your audience finds value in.  In other words, those posts are shareworthy.
4. People find your blog content and realize it’s interesting and shareworthy.  They share it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc. with links back to your business blog.  They blog about it on their own blogs with links back to your blog.  Now, the number of entry points to your business Web site (via your blog) has increased exponentially.  Your Google search traffic increases as all of these additional incoming links to your blog and Web site boost your Google search rankings, and traffic to your site from referrers across the Web increases, too!
5. Your Web site went from a static destination with 20 standard business entry points to an interactive, engaging site with hundreds or thousands (or more) of entry points and an increase in traffic from search engines and referrers!  You can’t buy that kind of exposure!

The compounding effect of blogging really is that simple.  It’s about creating shareworthy content and entry points, and it’s a form of marketing that business owners would be crazy not to leverage!

Image: Flickr

Following are 5 fundamental requirements you need to follow to BE successful with your business blogging efforts:

1. Be human.

No one will want to spend time with you online (or offline) if you sound like you’re reading from a corporate brochure or PowerPoint presentation.  Your blog posts must demonstrate your personality and be written in a conversational style and tone befitting of your target audience.  They have to be interesting and engaging, and they must be completely devoid of any corporate rhetoric.

2. Be honest.

Business blogging should offer insight into your organization.  Therefore, your blog posts must be transparent and help you build trust with your audience.

3. Be useful.

Your business blog posts should add value to the online conversation by offering useful, helpful, interesting or entertaining content.  If you’re blog posts simply regurgitate information and offer nothing new and interesting, no one will want to read them.

4. Be social.

Not only do you need to respond to comments left on your own business blog for your blog to be successful, but you also need to join the online conversation that happens off of your blog.  For example, leave comments on other blogs that your target audience reads, answer questions on Twitter or LinkedIn, join conversations on Facebook, and so on to demonstrate that you’re interested in more than just boosting traffic to your own blog.

5. Be uncontrolling.

One of the most difficult steps a business has to take when it implements a social media marketing strategy, including publishing a business blog, is giving up control of the online conversation.  By allowing consumers to take control of the conversation, joining it as appropriate, and nudging it in the right direction without trying to control it yourself, your business, brand and bottom-line have a greater chance of finding success on the social Web.

What do you think is the most important step to BE successful with a business blog?  Leave a comment and share your opinion.

Simplify search.

Your blog should be easy to search, with an accessible search box and button on every page. Make sure you tweak your Search Results pages, as well- with links to your Site Map and other important pages, just in case your visitors can’t find what they’re looking for.

Install a Unique Favicon.

A Favicon is a graphical icon that is attached to your website when viewing on a browser. It’s a good idea to use a unique image for this, such as your logo. Here’s a quick video tutorial on creating and adding a Favicon to your blog.

Don’t neglect the About page.

Most first-time visitors will make your About page their first stop. Fill it with important details about yourself and your business.

Make it easy to contact you.

It’s good practice to put your contact information on every page of your blog. If you don’t want to include your email address (for fear of spambots), create a contact form for visitors to use.

Say no to “Under Construction” areas.

Pages and areas that simply say “Under Construction” or “Coming Soon” are frustrating to visitors. If you don’t have any content to put in a particular area of your website, it’s better to just leave it out until you do. Another option is to include a sign-up form for people who want to be alerted when certain content is available.

Scheduling your blog posts is different from simply writing post drafts. The latter requires you to login and publish the posts on a certain date- which is fine if you want to make last-minute changes to your posts- but scheduling means your blog software will publish your post automatically, on whatever date you set it to. If you’d like to get started doing this, here are some quick ways to schedule your blog posts:

On Blogger

If you write for a Blogger-powered blog, it couldn’t be simpler:

• In the New Post window in the Posting tab, write your post as usual, but don’t click the “Publish Post” button just yet.
• Click on “Post Options” at the bottom of your post, and in the right side you’ll be able to put in what date and/or time you want the post published.
• Then click “Publish Post”.

On WordPress

It’s easy to schedule your posts on a WordPress-powered blog. Simply:

• Write your post as usual, but don’t click Publish yet.
• In the “Publish” window in the upper right hand area of your dashboard, click on the “Edit” link next to “Publish immediately”.
• From there, you can choose what date and/or time your post will be published.
• Click the “OK” button, then hit “Publish”.

On Typepad

If your blog is powered by Typepad, note that you must be a Plus, Pro, Premium or Business class user to use this feature. Here’s how to schedule your posts in Typepad:

• Write a post as usual in the “Compose a New Post” page, then look for the area titled “Posting Status” .
• The dropdown beneath that will let you choose between Draft, Publish On… or Publish Now. Select Publish On…
• Enter the time and select the date you want your post published. Click “Set Time”, then save the post.

Do you schedule your blog posts?

Use the weekend for planning and drafting posts.

A useful tip especially for professional bloggers, who must turn out a certain number of posts during the week. With less distractions, and generally less going on online, weekends are perfect for researching material for your posts. It’s also a good time to discover interesting posts you might have missed in the past week- I’ve discovered many new posts- as well as blogs I never knew existed- on lazy weekends, simply by browsing through blogs I already subscribe to.

The weekend is great for scheduled posts.

If you’ve completed planning and drafting, and are ready to post but afraid no one will be around to read what you wrote, why not schedule the post for the upcoming week instead? Most, if not all, blogging platforms offer scheduled posts, and it’s easy to do once you know how.

Despite less traffic, people are still online.

Yes, the Internet is quieter on weekends, but there are definitely still people online- and if these people are in your niche, then you just might see a nice jump in traffic on weekends. For example, food blogs usually get visited on weekends by people searching for recipes to try out on weekends, or for dinner parties they might be throwing. Another thing to consider would be a “Weekend Roundup” of your favorite posts or links from the previous week.

Do you blog on weekends?

If you’re looking for an effective solution to help get your blog noticed then the Contextual Partnership Plugin for WordPress bloggers could be well worth consideration. Perhaps the most attractive aspect is that there is no cost involved.

According to the developers the plugin is designed to;

Drive more targeted visitors to your blog (or blogs) by strategically linking your blog to and from other bloggers participating in the network. The exact method used to achieve this remains confidential but apparently it’s not a basic reciprocal link exchange – nor the more common 3 way linking arrangement often seen between bloggers.

Enhance the user experience for your blog visitors by providing them with links to other high quality blogs for further information on subjects of interest (and it can do this without you actually loosing the visitor which is a great feature).

Indirectly increase your search engine rankings by building highly relevant incoming links to your blog for keyword terms you define, related to your own niche market.

Not a bad indirect benefit at all.

To better understand how the network works, first you need to know what a “contextual link” actually is. A contextual link is simply a link “within content” of a blog post and “within context” of specific keyword terms in that post. For example the term “dog training” found within a blog post becomes a link out to another blog (related to “dog training”) within the network. Contextual Links are found all over the internet – bloggers interlink their own pages contextually, there are paid advertising programs that allow you to place contextual advertising links and earn per click, and bloggers naturally link out to other websites they find useful “contextually” as well.

This is the key to the “Contextual Partnership”. When you install and setup the WordPress Plugin, you’re asked to provide the URL’s you wish to advertise on other partners blogs, and the keyword terms you want those blogs to use to link back to your own. When a match is found within the network for the keyword terms you provide (and assuming it meets with the Contextual Partnership’s strategic linking methodology), a link back to your blog is assigned, and your account has a credit removed.
The amount of credits your account holds appears to be directly related to the number of links you’re providing to other partners in the network for the keyword terms they themselves are looking to use to advertise. Apparently for every link you provide for another partner, you earn 1 credit. That 1 credit is then “cashed in” to assign a link back to your own blog from other partners whenever a match is found for your own keyword terms. So if you already have 100 posts in your blog, and each of those pages finds a match to provide a link to another partner, then technically you could receive 100 incoming links to your blog as soon as you’ve been approved to participate in the partnership. You also continually earn more points and incoming links as you continue to blog and add more posts just like you usually do.

That’s the basic overview and you’ll find more specific information on the plugin website including details of many features not mentioned here (like the ability to select specifically which blog posts you want to include – or nor include in the network)…

http://www.contextualpartnership.com

Uptake by the blogger community seems to have been extremely good and this new service looks to become very popular. In the first two weeks of launch the partnership already had over 54,000 individual places to place links throughout the network, and within the first 4 weeks over 10,000 advertising links had been allocated between network partners. This is most likely a result to how easy it is to actually setup the plugin and participate – it literally takes 5 minutes to install and setup – although approval can take anywhere from 24-72 hours depending on the moderation queue as only high quality blogs are accepted to participate to keep out the splogs and spammers.
This seems to be one of those services worth giving a shot for a few months, and by the looks of things the developers have some exciting new features in the pipeline to make things even more effective for partners in the future.

You can find out full details and download the plugin below…

http://www.contextualpartnership.com

Or alternatively you can download the plugin directly from WordPress…

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contextual-partnership-link-exchange-plugin/

One of the things the authors state is that simplicity is very important if you want to create memorable ideas. When they simplicity, they mean finding your core message and cutting out the extraneous elements. By doing this, it makes it much easier for people to remember your idea.

This principle is definitely a great idea when working online, because – let’s face it – most people going online are very busy and have tons of distractions. If you communicate more than one core message, your messages will probably get lost in the noise of online information.

Let’s apply this principle to blogging. If you want your posts to be memorable, to be remembered even months later, you need to be able to just say one thing. Have a central theme for each of your posts.

Remember from English college class when the professor gave you the first step for creating a good term paper: come up with a great thesis statement – not two or more. And then as you write your paper, make sure the rest of your paper supports that statement.

Sadly, too often my posts don’t have a clear thesis statement but go into many different tangents and are hard to follow. Also, I find myself covering too many topics in a single post.

The Inverted Pyramid Journalism Technique

One of the tools that’s helped me write more focused posts comes from the world of journalism. I found out about it in Made to Stick. It’s called the inverted pyramid and it helps journalists craft their stories.

It’s called the inverted pyramid because at the top of an inverted pyramid is the widest part, which represents the most important part of the story. This is like a thesis statement and should go at the beginning of the story. You want the most crucial information at the beginning of the post to “hook” your reader and get them to read more of your post. For the rest of the story, savvy journalists will share details supporting the core message. Each succeeding paragraph is less and less important than the opening paragraph that contains the core message.

Sometimes the most crucial information is not the apparent right away so don’t be afraid to take some time to think of the most important info and then craft a relevant title and opening paragraph based on that info.

Also, this technique also works for non-writers. If your preferred medium is something like audio or video, you can get a lot of value from the technique. In your audio podcast or video, start it off with the most important info to grab the attention of your audience. Then craft the rest of your audio or video content with material that supports that info.

From thefreedictionary.com:

simmer To be in a state of gentle ferment: thoughts simmering in the back of her mind.

Some of my most well received blog posts have been ones that I’ve let simmer for a couple days before publishing them. What I say simmer, what I basically mean is not creating your blog post in one sitting. Instead, you come up with the initial blog post topic and then mull over it for a couple of days. During this time period, I often do these three things to facilitate the simmering process:

1. Take notes
2. Do research
3. Create a rough draft

1. Take Notes

Taking notes is very important because it keeps you from losing or forgetting a good idea for your post. Fortunately, our minds will often give us great ideas without our effort. However, we often get these ideas when we least expect it (in the shower, while driving, right after waking up, etc.). Therefore, it’s good to have a way to capture your ideas easily – whether you have some index cards by your bed or you use your smartphone as a voice recorder while driving.

2. Do Research

Research can form a valuable section of your blog post. By pointing to other sources, you give credibility to your views as well as point your readers to other perspectives on the same topic.

A couple days before you sit down to create your post, consume online content about your topic. Of course, taking notes works hand in hand with doing research, so keep your PDA or a pen and paper handy to capture interesting ideas.

If you’re really ambitious, I recommended reading a book or two on your subject.

One last thing on this point: don’t make your post just like a mini-research paper. Make sure to also include your personal experience since blogging is a personal medium and more importantly, your experience is the best source for content.

3. Create a Rough Draft

I don’t usually create a rough draft, but for the posts I let simmer, I’ve found it very helpful to create a rough draft. Rough drafts help a lot because those posts tend to be much longer and more in-depth than the average 200-400 word post. A rough draft can make the process more manageable so you don’t get overwhelmed with all the information you’ve accumulated. Also, if I’ve collected a great deal of data, I’ll create an outline too to organize the data before I write the rough draft.

Advantages and Disadvantages

You’ll end up with higher quality posts by letting them simmer first. These type of posts will be more in-depth than the vast majority of posts already out there. Your posts will stand out, attract links and traffic, and build your online reputation.

However, as you probably can tell, it takes time to develop these posts. Your post frequency will suffer if your try to do the simmering process on every single post. So, if you want to post multiple times a week, you probably can’t let every post simmer because simmering takes time.

Still, I would try to use the process 1-2 times a month. This strategy provides a balance between post frequency and post quality. You can post multiple times a week and still creating that memorable, longer, more in-depth post once or twice a month.

Over to You

Have you ever tried to let your blog posts simmer? If you have, what was your experience?

In my last post, I wrote that sharing your experience is a great way to blog. Your experience from running a business can provide many interesting blog post topics.

With that in mind, here are some ideas and questions to consider to help you get started.

1. Are there common problems in your industry that you have solved? Write about your experience solving these problems.

2. If you sell many products, what are your favorite products and why? Product reviews are very useful for many people. Also, make sure to include the product name in your title. This will help you get more search engine traffic.

3. Blog about the most interesting people you’ve interacted with in your business.  These people could be customers, employees, business partners, competitors, or even other business bloggers.

4. Humor is usually a great angle to take in your blog posts.  Think of the funniest moments you’ve had while running your business and share it in a couple of blog posts.

5. How did you get involved in your industry? Tell the story of how you first got interested in your niche.

6. How did you start your business? Tell the story of how you first got your business going.

7. Write about a typical day at work.  Make sure to go in-depth and cover the whole work day.

8. Write about the most enjoyable part of running your business.

9. Write about the most difficult part.

10. In your interactions with people outside your industry, what are some common misconceptions they have about it?

The more I’ve been blogging, the more I see that tapping into your experience is the best source for blog post topics.

The posts where I share my experience are usually better received than my other posts. They get more traffic and comments.

Business Owners Have an Advantage

If you’re not familiar with blogs, you may not realize that many non-business bloggers don’t have a lot of experience. As a business owner, you have an advantage because you’re involved in your industry on a day to day basis whereas your average blogger is an amateur or a hobbyist.

I don’t want to downplay amateurs. In fact, there are many amateurs that have as much or more expertise than business owners. But for the most part, business owners have more experience.

Experience Trumps Book Knowledge

For many new business bloggers, after blogging for a while, they feel like they are running out of things to say. They had a good number of topics to cover but they can’t thing of any more topics.

For these bloggers, the problem is not seeing their experience as a source of blog topics. They feel like they don’t have anything left to share because they don’t keep up with their industry as much as they would like by reading books and magazines. However, practical experience is usually a better teacher than sharing something from a book.

Once these bloggers start seeing their experience as a vast knowledge pool, they overcome writer’s block and generate more than enough topics to keep their blog going.

This article, Report vs Expert, helped me realize this point. Yaro Starak, the author, argues that expert status is gained by having relevant experience and then sharing it.  By sharing your experience, you give evidence that you are an expert in your field and your knowledge is worth listening to.  You’re not just a reporter, or someone who just relays someone else’s content.

Yaro writes that it’s all about leveraging what you’ve experienced and overcoming fear and insecurity by sharing it with others.  Here’s a relevant quote from his article:

Most people fail to become experts (or perceived as experts) because they don’t leverage what they already know. Every person who lives a life learns things as they go, takes action every day and knows something about something. The reason why they never become an expert is because they choose not to (which is fine for some, not everyone wants to be an expert), but if your goal is to blog your way to expertise and leave the world of reporting behind you have to start teaching and doing so by leveraging real experience.

Experience can come from what you do today and what you have done previously, you just need to take enough steps to demonstrate what you already know and what you are presently learning along your journey. I know so many people in my life who are experts simply by virtue of the life they have lived, yet they are so insecure about what they know, they never commit their knowledge to words for fear of…well fear.

Over to You

How often do you blog about your experience?

Eben Pagan has some of the best productivity/time management content for small business owners especially those that do their work on the internet. Here’s a recent video he did. It has a lot of great advice. I don’t usually take notes while consuming content, but Eben’s video had such great content that I found myself pausing the video at important points and taking notes.

Here are the concepts I found useful.

Don’t Multitask; Instead, Focus

The best work schedule is filled with short work bursts of concentrated focus of about one hour. Studies have shown that this time period is about how long we are capable of staying focused on a task without needing a break or experiencing degradation in our ability to focus.

Multitasking is very bad for productivity. Very bad. Multitasking lowers your IQ more than marijuana! Therefore, we need work environments that keep distractions and interruptions at a minimum.

Avoiding multitasking means doing one thing and one thing only.  Adhering to this rule is very important since it’s so easy to get distracted while working online.

We have to learn how control our “monkey mind”. This terms refers to the times when our brain stops focusing and gets distracted with thoughts unrelated to the task at hand. Having short work periods of about one hour helps, but we still have to be disciplined to continually refocus our mind when it wanders.

Breaks are Good

Our bodies have a natural rhythm. We will have energy for about 90-120 minutes and then we’ll hit a lull. Anticipate this lull and don’t fight it.  It’s your body telling you to take a break.  Taking a short 10 minute break away from work to let the body rejuvenate itself. If you avoid these breaks, you’ll overwork and damage your body.

Overwork leads to missing out on the big picture. We lose who we are and why we got into the business world in the first place.

Set Yourself Up With a Great First Hour

The first hour of your day is the most important hour of the day. You yourself are the biggest leverage point in your business, so use that hour to take care of yourself. Focus on making yourself strong physically, mentally, and emotionally.

Eben’s sample first hour goes something like this:

1. Drink one liter of water
2. Exercise for 20-30 minutes
3. Meditate for 5-10 minutes
4. Eat a healthy meal
5. Read for 5-10 minutes

Along with improving your productivity, this first hour will help you produce better work.  If you’re taking care of yourself, you’ll take care of your customers and business partners better.

Again, here’s the video. Check it out and let me know what you think.