Download - How to use a Blog to Market your Business
How to use a Blog to market your business
Clayton Wehner
This presentation can be found at: http://www.bluetrainenterprises.com.au/blogworkshop
What we’re gunna cover today…the scope The Who, What, Where, When, Why of Blogs Blog Business Case Blogging Software Create a Blog ‘Pimping’ your Blog How and What to Write Promoting your Blog Measuring Success Making Money
Recommended Reading These books have been used in the production
of this workshop:
The Who, What, Where, When, Why of Blogs
Blogs in plain English… http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=NN2I1pWXjXI
What is a blog? Blog is a portmanteau of ‘web log’ A fast and simple way to publish content to the web Displays ‘posts’ chronologically like a diary or journal Administered via a web-based WYSIWYG interface Interface enables widespread dissemination of content
via RSS and other ‘push’ techniques (eg email, social networking)
Interface enables two-way interaction between the writer and audience
Originally conceived as an informal means of content publishing for individuals, but increasingly used by organisations to publish content for internal and external stakeholders – eg. CEOs
Some facts about blogs The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger
on 17 December 1997 The short form, "blog," was coined by Peter
Merholz, who jokingly broke the word weblog into the phrase we blog in the sidebar of his blog Peterme.com in April or May 1999.
Shortly thereafter, Evan Williams at Pyra Labs used "blog" as both a noun and verb ("to blog," meaning "to edit one's weblog or to post to one's weblog") and devised the term "blogger" in connection with Pyra Labs' Blogger product, leading to the popularization of the terms.
Evolution of the web
Web 1.0 = ‘one way web’; reading static web pages
Web 2.0 = ‘two way web’; interaction, community, collaboration
Web 3.0 = Personalisation, individually-tailored web experience
Social Media and Blogging Blogging is a form of ‘social media’ and
belongs to the Web 2.0 movement – the interactive web
Social media is ‘media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques’
Blogs, micro-blogging, social networking, video/file sharing, wikis, social bookmarking, community sites and more
Are you awake – pop quiz, hot shot…
What are the top three search engines in Australia?
How many characters can a tweet contain?
What does RSS stand for?
Facebook emanated from which US university?
Who owns MySpace?
Why blog? To inform people and communicate with them To build reputation and credibility To build a network and a community
But effective blogging is not easy… Need discipline to keep on writing (the web is
littered with abandoned blogs) Need to be creative Need to contribute regularly Perhaps most importantly - need to write stuff
that people want to read!
If you can’t do this, then don’t bother blogging
If you can’t blog yourself… You can still contribute to social media by
following other blogs and interacting with industry bloggers
Commenting on existing blog posts or guest blogging can also inform people, build reputation and grow networks
Who blogs? 72% are hobbyists 15% are part-timers and derive some income from their blog 9% are full-time self-employed 4% are professional bloggers who work for companies Two-thirds are male 60% are 18-44 years old 40% have graduate degrees One in three has an annual household income of $75K+ One in four has an annual household income of $100K+ More than half are married More than half are parents
Source: Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2009, October 2009
The world’s most popular blogs…
http://technorati.com/blogs/top100
The Huffington Post – 22 million unique visitors each month
Mashable
TechCrunch
Gizmodo
Others that you might have heard of… Boing Boing ReadWriteWeb The Onion TMZ.com Lifehacker Problogger
Blog Business Case
Before you start… When considering the use of new technologies
like blogs, most organisations skip the ‘business case’ step
‘I need to get a blog and start blogging’ – WRONG!
Need to focus on the target audience, objectives and strategies, before considering the technologies…
Why? Because blogging might not be appropriate for your business
POST Strategy P is for PEOPLE
Who are you targeting?
O is for OBJECTIVES What do you want to achieve?
S is for STRATEGIES How do your propose to achieve your objectives?
T is for TECHNOLOGIES Which technologies will you use to implement the
strategies?
This strategy framework was developed by Forrester Research – see http://forrester.typepad.com/groundswell/2007/12/the-post-method.html
For aspiring, self-employed bloggers…It’s still necessary to do a ‘business case’ of
sorts… Are you interested in the topic? Do you have expertise in the topic? Is the topic popular? Is the niche growing? What’s the competition? Can you produce enough content on the topic? Can you make money?
A bit like writing a business plan
Blogging Software
Blogging SoftwareEarly tools: Open Diary – 1998 LiveJournal – 1999 Blogger – 1999 (purchased by Google in 2003)
Most popular tools today: Blogger TypePad Wordpress.com (hosted) / Wordpress.org (self-
hosted)
Blogger – www.blogger.com
TypePad – www.typepad.com
Wordpress.com – www.wordpress.com
Wordpress.org – www.wordpress.org
Hosted versus self-hosted Hosted (eg. Blogger, Typepad,
Wordpress.com) Free! Set up in minutes Located on a sub-domain – yourblog.typepad.com
Self-hosted (eg. Wordpress.org) Located on your domain – www.yoursite.com/blog More professional Better for search engine optimisation Better control, more customisable Must have your own hosting account Must have expertise to set it up, configure and
maintain
Recommendation Start with a hosted blog (preferably
Wordpress.com) See if you have what it takes Transition to a self-hosted blog down the track
Create a blog
Let’s start a blog now… Go to www.wordpress.com Hit Sign Up Now…
‘Pimping’ your blog - Wordpress
Widgets These are the ‘sidebar’
components We use:
Recent posts Recent comments Categories Search Links / Blogroll Tag clouds Archive Twitter widget Feedburner RSS subscription form Feedburner email subscription form (more on these later)
Plugins We use:
Contact Form 7 – contact form
Akismet – spam filtering Twitter Tools – tweet new
posts when published Tweetmeme – allows visitors
to retweet posts Facebook ‘Like’ button – allows visitors to add to
Facebook AddThis – allows visitors to add to bookmarking
sites – Digg, Technorati, Delicious, etc
9,823 plugins…
Design ‘Skin’ your blog with an existing theme
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/ Get a theme custom made Edit HTML and CSS of page templates
1,204 themes…
How and what to write
Guiding principles
Be useful
Be unique
See Seth Godin’s ‘Purple Cow’ book about being ‘remarkable’
See Chris Anderson’s ‘The Long Tail’ book about unlimited choice and demand
Post guidelines Frequency
No one-size-fits-all ‘Rhythm’ is more important NB. Most top blogs publish short posts every day
Tone Blogs are typically informal Couched in conversational tone Infused with the writer’s views
Engagement Invite comments Ask questions Interact with audience and other bloggers through
comments
Title guidelines Titles are important for both human visitors and
search engine indexation This is the ‘teaser’ line that will prompt a visitor
to read your post This is the hyperlinked title that will appear in
Google and other search engines Write titles that are:
Simple, but clear and unambiguous Grab attention Meet a need Compelling to click Contain keywords
Body text guidelines 250-1000 words in total Granular – one post, one topic First few lines really matter Use lists Use formatting Use headings Use pictures (because they tell a thousand words) Use block quotes Use white space Use short sentences and paragraphs so that text
is scannable
20 types of blog post Instructional Informational Reviews Lists Interviews Case studies Profiles Link posts ‘Problem’ posts Comparison posts
Rants Inspirational Research Collation posts Prediction and review
posts Critiques Debate Hypotheticals Satirical Meme / idea virus
Promoting your blog
Fundamental stuff Content is king Word of mouth Network, communicate, interact, comment Social media – Twitter, Facebook, etc Link bait…
‘Link Bait’ Content with a ‘hook’ Ideas:
Controversial or polarising topics Tools Quizzes Competitions Scoops Awards Lists – ‘top tens’ Statistics Freebies Interviews Resources – free white papers
Search engine optimisation TITLE tags – very important BODY text rich with keywords Cross-linking between posts / related posts
Compilation pages Permalink URLs Links
Blogroll / link reciprocation Comments on like-blogs
Directory submission Yahoo, DMOZ, TrueLocal, etc, etc.
Technorati – ‘claim’ your blog
Feedburner Feedburner offers a suite of tools that help
you to promote your blog RSS subscription ‘chicklets’ Email subscription forms Rotating headlines tool Republish as HTML Ping tools
Measuring Success
Key Performance Indicators Unique visitors and page views – not ‘hits’ Number of subscribers – email, RSS Number of comments, feedback messages Number of inbound links – ‘trackbacks’ Search engine positioning
Ways to measure success Google Analytics
www.google.com/analytics Google Webmaster Tools
www.google.com/webmasters Google Alerts
www.google.com/alerts Alexa ranking
www.alexa.com Feedburner statistics
www.feedburner.com
Making money
Are blogs a good bet for business? Blogs are not suitable for all businesses! Good for businesses with specific expertise or
content that can be disseminated online
Blogs are great for… Building credibility and establishing the author as
an ‘expert’ Creating a larger ‘signature’ for the business on
the web and increasing discoverability by prospects
Maintaining engagement with existing stakeholders Creating a perception of openness and accessibility
Will I make money? The content has to be good to attract qualified
traffic to your blog Like most things, the content and the traffic
won’t happen overnight Many, many months of time, effort and
persistence Meet people, build relationships, listen, share
knowledge, ask/answer questions, build trust, build reputation
It’s not unlike ‘real’ networking! There’s no sustainable ‘get rich quick’ option
Ways you can make money Direct
Contextual and banner advertising Google AdSense PPC advertising Sponsorships Paid reviews Affiliate commissions Donations Classifieds – eg. Job board Subscription fees
Indirect Speaking engagements Contracts as a result of your blogging work
Success factors Be remarkable – useful and unique Write from the heart Create community Discipline and focus Write little and write often
The End
This presentation available at:
www.bluetrainenterprises.com.au/blogworkshop