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