How To Increase Website Traffic with a Business Blog

Transcription

Ghost Blog Writers – How to Increase Website Traffic with a Blog
How To Increase
Website Traffic with
a Business Blog
Chapter 1: How to Start a Company Blog
If you’re wondering how to start a company blog you’ve come to the right place. This is a stepby-step guide for setting up your company blog. We’ve covered soem of this in the free business
blogging guide. This will be more of a how you can actually get the blog setup and what you can
expect as far as costs and resources.
The area where most businesses struggle with in blogging is finding the time to blog. That’s the
term people use when their blogs go without update for a few weeks, months or years. “I don’t have
time.”
We’ll talk about that and more in this article.
How to Start a Company Blog
Starting a company blog is a big commitment. You’re looking at years of work to get traction
depending on the connections you have already. There are some promotional things you can do to
get things moving quickly, but in most cases it will take a few years to get traction and that’s where
some people get deterred and frustrated.
Remember that as you get started. If you’re not prepared it’s best to just stop right now. But I know
you’re an entrepreneur and those competitive juices are flowing. If you’re still ready to go then keep
reading.
Domain Structure and Setup
There are three different ways to setup a blog. None are wrong, but all have slightly different
ramifications.
Sub-Directory
This is how Ghost Blog Writers is setup. It’s ghostblogwriters.com/blog. It’s my preferred way to
setup a business blog. It’s common. It’s something people are familiar with when they visit sites. It’s
relatively good in the eyes of search engines. You keep the focus on your business site and all the
authority you build through your business blog directly impacts your business website.
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Sub-Domain
This one is also common. It would be setup like blog.ghostblogwriters.com. It sets the blog up on a
sub-domain, which in some instances is treated as an entirely different website.
I prefer directory or domain, but you can’t go wrong with either. I’ve seen programmers push for
domain before. I’m not sure why it’s easier to setup. I think both are relatively easy to setup and it’s
also pretty easy to setup WordPress on either.
New Domain
This one seems less common. You setup the blog on an entirely different site. It would look like
ghostblogwritersblog.com. Back in the old days of SEO it was occasionally thought this was good
because you could send tons of links back to your business site.
A new domain can make sense in some instances. Maybe you’re a brand with an older audience,
but you want to attract a younger audience so you start a new blog brand to attract those readers.
Things like that would be a reason to setup a new domain. Don’t do it for SEO reasons.
Content Management System (CMS)
GBW is run on WordPress. It’s a free software program with tons of community support. Lots of
developers and programmers know it and can help with setup.
Depending on who you host with it’s also really easy to setup WordPress. If you use Go Daddy your
WordPress site can bet setup in just an hour or so. WP is very easy to use. It’s straightforward and
with a little practice you’ll know all you need to about how to publish and format a blog post.
Other options include Expression Engine, Blogger and TypePad. I haven’t used those as much, but
I’m sure they’re fine.
Design
In the early part of your business blog it’s probably not top priority to get a good design. You can
use something that’s free and have a designer customize it to match your general business website.
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You’re just starting the blog so you don’t want to go all in right away only to toss the blog aside in a
few months.
Get a blog up with a basic design that won’t turn people away and then focus on creating content
and getting readers.
It’s just like in the early days of your business. You focus on creating something and selling it. You
get customers and then you start refining the business with things like design and structure.
There are risks with free themes and designs. It’s probably worth it though to get started. Once you
realize you have something you can hire a designer to develop a custom theme.
This can cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars to thousands. You get what you pay for in blog
design.
Structure
The big thing with structure is setting up the URLs and Titles.
I try to use short URLs when possible. You can see that the structure for this post is:
How to Start a Company Blog
That’s the title and it’s also the URL. I always try for a short, but descriptive title. This one is actually
longer than most here on the blog, but I felt each word was necessary to get the point across.
To setup your URLs you can use the Permalink structure within WordPress.
One thing I should note is that I’m experimenting with basic numbered URLs on my new blog
HunterShare. I see large and successful sites (including Google) using numbers and crazy URLs. I
think they’re less useful to people, but if the big guns are doing it there must be something to it. So
I’m experimenting there.
Writing Resources
The reason GBW exists is because business owners don’t have time to write blog posts.
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They know there is an opportunity to get new customers by blogging so they hire experts to create
content that attracts incremental traffic and potential customers to the site. It keeps the site fresh
and appealing to an ideal audience.
Ghost blogging is a growing industry so you can check out that option.
The other option is to do it yourself. Anticipate doing some work to get the blogs published. There
is research involved. You’ll have to do some reading and find ways to get ideas. I’ve found the best
things to write about are the things you talk about with potential customers in person. Take the
questions your customers ask and answer them with blog posts.
Also talk about insider information you have from being an insider in the industry. You can really
help people out and in return they’ll return the favor by hiring you. By blogging you build a trust
and people purchase from people they trust.
Setting Expectations
The expectations for your blog are important. Every entrepreneur has big dreams. It’s why you’re
successful. You don’t believe in putting limits on yourself and anything you do.
There are no limits to blogging. It just seems most new business bloggers think it’s easy. You put up
a few posts and magically Google is sending you tons of traffic. It doesn’t work that way.
Yes, you’ll get some traffic from Google, but it’s much more than that. It starts with interesting
content targeted at specific readers. Then you have to promote the content to those readers. Part
of this comes from being active in the community. You can comment on other blogs. You can share
other content. It all gets you noticed and gets others with popular blogs to link to you and send you
some of their traffic.
This can all take years if you’re starting from nothing.
Promotion
We just talked about this a little bit and we’ll do more in a future post, but a quick point on growing
your business blog is that you’ll have to promote.
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Yes, that includes sharing your posts on your Google+ page, Twitter account and Facebook page,
but it’s more than that.
You need to grow your audience.
I like to think of a singer that’s just starting out. They have zero audience. They can create the best
song in the world and post it on their Twitter account, but nobody will listen. They need to tap into
other audiences to get exposure.
The new artist begs and pleads to get on tour with a well-known artist that already has an
established audience. The new singer feels the established audience is similar or the same to the
one they want to build for themselves.
After playing live shows and fighting to get on radio and get their song included in movies and TV
shows the artist finally starts getting momentum. People fall in love with the song.
It works the same way in blogging. Do all you can to get exposure to other audiences that fit your
target.
Write for other blogs. Help other bloggers and see if you can’t get them to link to you. Do interviews.
Do anything you can to get exposure.
Final Thoughts
You’re looking at how to start a company blog.
This should get you started and it should set the expectations. If you’re not ready for work then just
stop right now. Use your time and money in advertising where things are more certain.
But if you’ve seen all the successful company blogs and are convinced you need a business blog
then get started. It offers a great opportunity.
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Chapter 2 - 7 Resources Every Business
Needs To Start A Blog
There is a little more work that goes into setting up a blog than you might think.
It’s pretty easy to start a blog using WordPress.com, WordPress’s free version, but that’s not the
best option for a business blog.
If you’re looking to start a business blog you’re going to have to do a little more. It’s still not what
I would call difficult, but if you’ve been thinking of starting a blog you’ve probably bumped into a
few roadblocks.
Here are the things you’ll need to get your business blog off the ground.
1. WordPress
WordPress is the best blogging system we’ve worked with at GBW. We’ve worked with a few
others. WordPress is the most popular and it’s the easiest to use as far as scheduling posts. You
can customize WordPress in a variety of functional ways and many designers work with it to make
custom designs.
WordPress offers updates all the time. It’s been subject to hacks now and then, but with proper
maintenance, hosting and backups you can protect yourself even if something horrible happens.
Make sure to backup. We recommend VaultPress – same guys that create WordPress.
WordPress is free to use. That’s another bonus. You can add it to a subfolder on your domain and
use it completely separate from your main business website.
Or you can do what we do at GBW and use WordPress as your main business website.
Lots of developers and designers are comfortable with the platform making a great support
community even if one developer or designer doesn’t work out.
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2. Design
A good designer can do a lot of things for your business blog. They can take a basic theme and turn
it into something that will not only look good and match your regular business website, but the
designer can add the necessary elements that will turn your blog into something that can generate
leads.
This includes adding the appropriate calls to action on each blog page. These will usually be found
in the sidebar and at the end of each post. Sometimes there will be additional calls to action in the
header that are designed by a designer.
The calls to action are usually images that take readers to pages on your site that takes them
further into your sales cycle. The calls might also ask readers to sign up for email newsletters.
Designers are good at this kind of thing. Trust their take on things. Don’t push them in directions
that you think are right especially if you’ve never designed a blog before. They have. Use that to
your advantage.
At GBW, we use Sarah Lynn Design. Full disclosure is that the owner, Sarah, is my wife. So I’m
partial to her, but you can find a number of other designers on Dribbble too.
3. Developer
Designers are developers go hand in hand. If you have a really good design team on your side you
won’t have to look far for a developer. The designer will be able to do much of the work to get
your blog up and running or they’ll have someone that they work with that can take care of things.
Often, the designer will work with the developer and you won’t even have to worry about it.
But it’s good to have a developer on your team when it comes to a business blog. They can help
with hosting issues, WordPress updates, Plugin updates and a bunch of other things that might
happen.
Developers are in high demand these days. The goods ones are usually scooped up.
If you have colleagues in the business world ask them for advice. You can find some good
developers on Freelance Switch.
I know a few good ones as well including Casjam and Van SEO.
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4. Email Service
Blogs and email go hand in hand. Email addresses are something that you own when your readers
opt-in to your newsletters and email programs. They’re giving you permission to contact them,
market to them and reach out to them with other information.
We use Aweber at GBW. I’ve used it for my business websites and personal websites. It’s worked
very well and the pricing model is setup very nicely. The more subscribers you have the more they
charge. It’s something you actually don’t might paying more for because it means that your email
subscriber list is going up.
Place email opt ins at the bottom of your posts and in the sidebar. You can setup an automated
newsletter to start and build from there. Your designer will be able to help you with a custom
newsletter template to make things more professional, but it’s not necessary if you’re on a
bootstrap.
5. Analytics
Analytics are important for tracking blogging success. We really only use the Jetpack analytics for
the GBW blog. We have Google Analytics setup as well, but for checking quick stats over time you
get what you need from Jetpack.
We look at traffic each day. That’s an important metric. If you’re getting the right kind of traffic your
profit will increase as traffic increases.
It’s also interesting to see where your traffic is coming from. You can look to create a good mix of
search, social and direct. A good mix there will make your site ready for anything in case one of the
traffic sources stops for whatever reason.
Jetpack is free when you use a WordPress site.
We also track revenue and profit along with a few key indicators. We like to make sure we’re getting
the right amount of traffic, inquiries, trial posts and new clients.
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6. Marketing
Marketing a blog is important to get your blog off the ground and it’s important to make sure it
continues to grow as you publish posts.
You’ll get traffic from search engines over time, but you can’t only rely on that source of traffic.
Setup your social media accounts and look to create a snippet strategy.
Also build a list of other bloggers and people that have influence online. Build those connections
via email. Write about them in your posts and let them know so they can write about you and share
your posts with their audiences.
That’s how you can build a business blog.
7. Writers
This one might seem obvious and we could put it at the beginning, but that might seem bias.
You need writers for your business blog. You might think that as the owner of your business that
you’ll have time to write blog posts, but my experience has taught me that business owners,
especially small business owners, are incredibly busy. There is very little time to write. And writing
usually takes way more time than people think.
You can look internally for writers. You might be able to do it by committee with the people on your
team, but there aren’t a lot of people interested in writing blog posts.
That’s why our service at Ghost Blog Writers exists.
We can learn about your business by asking you the right type of questions. We’ll do the research,
write the posts and schedule them on your new business blog.
The posts will be consistent and over time we’ll build an asset that will bring in traffic, leads and
sales for your business.
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Conclusion
By reading this post it might seem like you need a lot to start a business blog.
But the reality is that you can have a business blog up in running in a few days if you have the right
people working for you.
We work with businesses all the time to go through this process.
If you’ve made the decision to start a business blog then start going through this process. Commit
to it and start building an asset that will work for you even if you decide to stop at some point.
Chapter 3 - How To Make Your Business Blog
Different
In my experience I’ve been lucky to work with some really smart business executives. I think these
folks in general are some of the smartest out there. They have an incredibly difficult job of figuring
out what the fickle consumer wants.
Today, more business executives are considering a business blog. They see what other business
executives are saying about content marketing and they wonder if it’s the right move for their own
companies.
One of the questions that comes up during blog strategy discussions is how to make a business
blog different.
After all, there are tons of business blogs out there. One piece of the puzzle to making a blog
success (one that brings in new customers) is to stand out, be different and attract attention.
Here are some of the ways I’ve found that work to make a blog stand out.
1. Voice And Personality
The voice and personality of a blog is usually the number one reason a blog will stand out. It’s one
of the challenges we face at GBW.
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It’s one of the challenges we face at GBW. We know each blog needs its own voice and we work hard
to make sure the blog voice fits the brand’s personality.
When I think about some of my favorite blogs out there I realize they almost always have a unique
voice and personality.
Brian of Copyblogger is kind of snarky, but that honesty on life and business is what makes his blog
different and unique.
Rand of Moz has a sincere personality and he’s very open and transparent.
Neil Patel of QuickSprout, KISSmetrics and CrazyEgg is high energy and passionate.
Jeremy Dean of PsyBlog is to the point and incredibly insightful about improving life.
These are all blogs with strong voices.
One thing to remember is that the voice and personality of the blog doesn’t have to be tied to one
person. The overall brand of the blog can have a voice. Each of the blogs these people write for has
a voice and it’s a big reason people read them all the time. It’s not about one writer. It’s about the
voice of the blog.
2. Format And Writing Style
Next comes the format and writing style of the blog. This builds on the style of the blog that you get
with a voice and personality.
You’ve probably read a lot of advice about blogging and that reading has probably included a ton of
best practices. I’ve written about blogging formats and things you should do with your writing style,
but the truth is that it’s usually best to skip best practices and find your own style that connects
with your target reader.
Best practices will get you started, but from there you have to go beyond those and develop new
best practices.
It’s like the best athletes in the world. They hone the fundamentals of the game, but in order to go
beyond good and become great they develop their own style. One that nobody has seen before.
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3. Consistency
Consistency is important in so many aspects of life. Chain restaurants are a great example. Even
when we travel we tend to go to chain restaurants. The reason we do this is because we know what
we’re going to get. People like consistency.
Being a blog your audience can count on is important. This might include posting consistent
content on a regular schedule, whatever that schedule may be. It means having a high quality of
posts or posts that are of the same quality all the time.
We go to nice restaurants because we know we’ll get great food all the time, but we also go to
McDonald’s all the time. Even though the food is crap we still know it will be the same crap when we
go. We know it won’t be worse.
If people can count on your blog for the same quality on a regular schedule they will keep coming
back.
4. Numbers
One thing you can do to go beyond the ordinary with a blog is to use numbers. Neil Patel,
mentioned above, does a really good job with this. In fact, so does Rand from SEOmoz. They use
numbers in their posts all the time and people love it.
I’ve been trying, although not all that well, to use numbers in posts more often. I think a good one
that came out of this strategy was the post on how a blog really impacts the traffic on a website.
I need to do more of this…
5. Stories
Finally, stories are something no one can really copy. When you tell your personal story, whatever it
may be, you give something really unique to your audience.
Rand talks all the time about his life. It’s something that makes his blog different.
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Even doing things like interviews or feature stories on other people and other brands are forms of
storytelling. People go nuts for this kind of stuff.
You can copy the format of storytelling from other blogs, but by telling your own stories you’re
making yourself different because you have your own stories to tell. It’s a great blogging strategy.
Conclusion
There are some of the big ways I’ve found that make blogs stand out. This comes from years of
reading and writing blogs. Of all the ones I’ve seen over the years these are the reasons I seem to
continue to read particular blogs.
There is not magical “it” factor when it comes to making your blog different. It takes a lot of work
over years to become something special. It’s like building your brand.
I like to compare blogging with music because country music is one of my passions.
Building a blog is like building a music career. We often hear about successful business blogs, but
only after the blog owners have spent years gaining experience and honing their style. It’s just like
those “overnight sensation” music artists. We never get to see the work they’ve done their entire
lives to develop their style.
So that’s your goal for being different. Start working on your style right now using these few tips to
make your blog different.
Chapter 4 - Blog For The People That Really
Matter
The other day I wrote about what really matters in blogging.
It’s a great priority list for anyone looking to get started with business blogging, but today I realized
I left out another important piece.
We’ve touched on the subject of audience on GBW before. The original post was - A Common Issue
with Business Blogs is Understanding the Reader.
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In that post I discussed an issue most people have with writing blogs and that is figuring out who
the correct target reader is. This is tricky because when you’re blog is new you’re likely going to
have a few readers that you didn’t intend to have on your site. If you follow the analytics and get
caught up in some of the traffic trends you might end of blogging for the wrong reader.
I want to expand on this topic today because I feel it’s important especially for new business
bloggers.
The Reader That Really Matters
Something that happens to almost every blog is an influx of readers that aren’t really the people
you want reading your blog. It’s not that you want to kick these people out of your blog, but they
just really bring nothing to the table in terms of your business.
If you start your business blog the first few months are going to be critical. You’ll start getting traffic
little by little. You follow the analytics and as more readers visit you’ll get excited. This is a critical
point in the life of your blog because you’ll start focusing on metrics and the metrics you choose to
follow will be important for your business success.
And that’s an important point.
Readers that are good for blog traffic might be completely different from readers that are good for
your business. You want the latter in nearly every case. You want people that are actually going
to pay you money for your product or service. The people that just read your blog post and leave
comments are great. They kind of build you up as you write your posts, but if you get caught up in
that kind of attention you’ll soon be writing to please the people that will never pay you a dime.
So how do you know who the right readers are?
These are the people that are already your clients. They are the people that contact you via your
website and the ones that look at the services pages and actually call and contact you. They are the
people that become clients and customers. These are the only people that really matter for your
blog.
One thing I do to track what clients actually read is with the client email newsletter I send. I track
the articles clients click and read from the email analytics.
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This way I know what my clients are interested in reading. I can then figure out topics for future
posts based on what my clients are interested in. I obviously want more clients so tracking what my
current clients are reading helps me understand what that type of person is interested in.
Now, there is always going to be a trace of experimentation in the posts I write. I want to do
different things. I make calculated assumptions about what I think my future clients will like to
read. It’s a mix of doing what you know your clients like reading and trying to stay one step ahead
of them.
Writing for the person that really matters is something nearly every blogger will struggle with. It’s
important in the early days of your blog to make sure you’re writing for the right people; the ones
that actually pay you money.
The others don’t really matter.
Chapter 5 - The Golf Digest Guide To Killer
Blog Titles
One of my hobbies is golf.
I can’t really explain how one catches the golfing bug, but I’ve caught it.
There is something about the challenge of hitting good shots over and over. It seems the best
players are the most consistent. Golf is not a game of great shots. It’s a game of bad shots and how
good those bad shots are.
The best players in the world don’t hit great shots all the time, but they also don’t hit bad shots all
the time. They find out how to raise the level of their “bad” and make sure it’s better than everyone
else’s “bad”.
Amateurs can hit great shots once in a while. Those are the shots that keep you coming back for
more punishment. But amateurs hit a lot of bad shots and those bad shots usually result in penalty
strokes, extra chips and extra putts.
Not good.
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Anyway, I was reading through this month’s Golf Digest and noticed that it had some great article
title formulas that work well for business bloggers.
So this post will take you through some of the title lessons from the magazine that you can use to
create intriguing articles for your business blog.
GD Title #1: 4 Steps To Flat-out Bomb It by Phil
Mickelson
Phil Mickelson is popular and intriguing.
His secrets for playing good golf are interesting to a lot of amateurs and probably to pros too.
This article is also about a topic that golfers love to read about – distance. When you pick a popular
topic you can do really well with your readers (duh).
This is also a list with 4 steps. That’s key. People like lists and they like step-by-step instruction.
Your Title: 4 Steps To Get More Followers
GD Title #2: New Ranking – World’s 100 Greatest
Courses
This is a post that GD does every year. It’s popular and people keep coming back to see the updated
list.
People love lists. They love rankings. Some agree with the rankings and others disagree. That leads
to some good engagement with the post, which increases exposure.
If you can create an annual ranking for your industry you’ll be a source of expert information. It can
bring in traffic and new business.
Your Title: World’s Top 100 Apps
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GD Title #3: Secrets Of The Long-Drive Champ
Chicks dig the long ball.
That’s a popular saying in the golf world and it’s probably become popular because there is a bit of
truth to it.
Golfers love hitting it long off the tee. Even if the rest of their game is not-so-good, players love
hitting it far.
So in this title you have the right topic – distance – and you’re also getting secrets from the person
that hits it farther than anyone else in the world. If you want to hit it far you can’t help, but click on
this link.
Your Title: Secrets Of The Most-Clicked Social Media Account
GD Title #4: Sean Foley’s Stress-Free Short Game
Sean Foley is a big name in golf coaching.
He’s become bigger in the golf world the last few years mostly for being the new coach for Tiger
Woods, but Foley also has recent major winners and big time players like Justin Rose and Hunter
Mahan on his roster. You’ll notice in his articles in GD that these names are all mentioned. It gives a
little proof to the articles.
Another key part of this title is the “stress-free” part. Golf is a very stressful game so a tip suggesting
that it’s possible to play stress-free makes a reader interested.
Your Title: Our Stress-Free Online Marketing Strategy
GD Title #5: Big Year – 10 Most Intriguing Predictions
Of 2014
This was a fun post in the magazine. The predictions were actually just fun and entertaining instead
of being more serious.
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There are always predictions made in nearly every industry early in the year. People do read them
even if it’s difficult to predict the future.
The lesson here is that predictions do well and so do lists. Doing these types of posts can do well for
you and you can mix it up a little by making the predictions more fun and entertaining.
Your Title: 10 Fun Predictions For 2014
GD Title #6: How To Make A Big Turn – Rick Smith’s
New Backswing Key For Distance
Golfers are always after more distance. It’s perhaps the biggest factor in determining how good a
golfer can be. If you can’t hit it far you’re going to need to become really good at the other areas of
the game.
Again, this title has a name drop with Rick Smith. He’s consistently ranked as one of the top
teachers in the industry. Golfers recognize his name.
This is also a How To post. Those have a history of doing well with readers because it gives them
specific instructions on how to improve.
Your Title: How To Get More From Your Blog Posts – The New Social Media Key For More Followers
GD Title #7: How Henrik Stenson Won Almost $20
Million And Why Winning Majors Is Worth WAY More
Than A Million
Didn’t there used to be a best practice to keep titles less than 60 characters?
This title proves that you can’t always trust best practices.
There is a lot going on here and when it all comes together it works well. You have the name
dropping of the hottest golfer in the world at the end of 2013.
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There is a number and even more important it’s a big number with dollar signs. For some reason
people are always interested in money no matter what the subject is. And money is mentioned
twice in the title.
Keeping titles short is a good best practice, but I think people focus too much on what they think
Google wants. Forget about Google and focus on your reader. If your reader likes long titles on
occasion like GD’s readers do then make a few long titles.
Your Title: How We Went From 1,000 Twitter Followers To 100,000 In Two Months And Why One
Good Blog Post Is Worth WAY More Than 10 So-So Blog Posts
Conclusion
There are a lot of different formulas for creating blog titles.
You also don’t have to start with a title to write a successful blog. Many bloggers start with an idea
or a topic. They write the article and once it’s done they figure out a title that will capture attention.
Here is what I think is a good strategy for blog titles.
Start with titles that work well for other bloggers and publications. You might as well because these
are proven formulas to get people interested in your content. If you don’t have that you’re going to
really struggle to get readers regardless of how good your content is.
Then experiment with new title formulas. When they work add them to your regular schedule.
When they don’t work toss them out and try new ones.
Chapter 6 - Business SEO Of The Future:
Think Big Picture
It’s difficult predicting the future especially in the SEO world.
But recently Google came out with some changes around guest blogging and it really wasn’t that
big of a shock.
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It seems like every time people figure out how to shoot up the rankings quickly that Google kind of
pulls back on things. The reason this comes as a shock to people is that they build their rankings up
and then all of a sudden those rankings go back to where they started.
For companies of all sizes that come to depend on that traffic and revenue it’s quite the shock to
the system. And for some it’s difficult to carry on.
But Google hasn’t really changed its purpose over the years. They’ve been telling people for a long
time that doing the things in the best interest of consumers is the best SEO.
Let’s break this thing down into what SEO isn’t and what SEO is.
SEO Isn’t:
Link Building
Keywords
SEO Is:
Reputation
Demand
It’s really that simple.
Google doesn’t have all the rankings where they want them. It’s still possible to game the system
in different ways, but Google has shown over the last few years that they are perfectly capable of
snipping off tactics one by one. So if you’re doing something that gets you to the top quicker than
what might be considered normal then you’re in danger.
However, if you follow the things that lead to good business practice in the long-term you’re likely
to benefit from Google’s rankings.
Business SEO Of The Future
Up above you’ll see two common SEO terms: 1. Link Building and 2. Keywords.
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It’s not that these two things are inherently bad, but over time they’ve come to be associated with
spam and in the SEO world, spam is bad. Spam leads to poor search results and that makes Google
look bad. Google doesn’t want to look bad. They’re trying to win people over. They’re a business
after all.
For a long time, Google has been talking about links and keywords. However, in Google’s context
these two things were the result and not the cause.
The trouble was that getting links and focusing on keywords appeared as the cause of good
rankings because it was for a time. Get links and focus on keywords and you move up – simple.
But over time Google has fixed this issue and focused more on reputation, which appears to
be what Google wanted the rankings to focus on all along. Links and keywords were indicators
of reputation. If you had a good reputation (for selling something in demand and being a good
citizen), you got links naturally for relevant keywords.
Now it’s time to focus back on the cause of a solid business SEO strategy – reputation and demand.
Action Step #1 – Sell Something People Demand
This one is simple in concept, but difficult in practice. I can’t tell you how to sell something people
demand. I wish I could. I could retire on a beach somewhere.
Most businesses would excel at marketing if they focused more on merchandise and services.
That’s what consumers buy after all.
People don’t buy discounts. Engagement doesn’t pay the bills.
Marketing can help, but it becomes easier if you have something people demand.
Google knows if you’re selling something in demand. They see the signals that you’re doing
well and in the future that will be a big indicator that you’re a reputable company and worthy of
rankings.
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Action Step #2 – Use Content To Attract New
Customers
The old saying is that content is king or content is important.
It’s true.
Content is in demand online. People want all kinds of information and those that are providing the
content people want and need are finding that they can demand a lot of attention.
That’s really what content marketing is…
It’s about businesses attracting a target audience by providing content.
Use content throughout your entire sales process. At Ghost Blog Writers, we focus on the entire
sales process for our clients. We create content that attracts attention of early stage target
customers. That creates the discovery. Then we focus on content that earns trust and gets people
through the sales process until they make a purchase.
Here is an example for a plumbing company:
Discovery Stage: How To Unclog A Drain
Second Stage: 11 Hacks To Make Your Bathroom More Efficient
Third Stage: 15 Amazing Bathrooms To Inspire Your Bathroom Remodel
Fourth Stage: How To Pick The Best Bathroom Contractor
Fifth Stage: Planning Your New Bathroom Or Bathroom Remodel
Each content cycle is different, but you get the point. This process attracts the target customer at all
stages of the sales cycle.
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Action Step #3 – Make Customers Happy
Finally, it goes back to traditional customer service, which is making customers happy.
When you have a good business with good people this will come naturally.
Make your best customers happy. And try to make the good customers happy too.
However, if you have a few bad customers you have no obligation to try and make them happy.
Some people are going to try and rip you off. The customers may be right most of the time, but you
don’t have to do business with people if it doesn’t make sense for you.
Make your ideal customers happy and focus on getting more of those customers. Your happy
customers will even help you get more and Google will recognize it.
Potential Threats In SEO’s Future
Here is the biggest threat I see to the SEO world in the future and Rand Fishkin sees it coming as
well.
Threat: all paid search results
It makes sense.
Google is in business to provide relevant search results while making money for the advertising or
listings.
It doesn’t say anywhere that Google needs to provide organic results and free traffic for businesses.
They’re nice to have, but in the future it seems that Google will provide all paid search results if they
can.
What does this mean for you?
It means that SEO in the traditional Google sense will change, but don’t abandon the action steps
above.
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Those are good business practices that withstand the changes in customer acquisition.
Use those action steps above and you’ll get traffic to your site and new business for your company.
Conclusion
Think big picture when it comes to your future SEO program.
Stop focusing on tactics like link building and keywords. Those are results of good SEO practice,
which is really just good business practice.
Focus on the long-term. Focus on building a good reputation and you’ll be fine in the SEO world.
Try to game the system and you’ll be disappointed at best and setup for failure at worst.
Chapter 7 - The Small Business Guide To
Social Media Sites
It seems like everyone is using social media these days.
From Facebook to Twitter to Pinterest, people are using social media as a regular part of their day.
Social media sites have a wide variety of value to people.
On Facebook, people can connect with people they know in the real world. You can keep in touch
with friends and share photos with your family.
On Twitter, you can share updates with friends, share articles and get the latest news.
On Pinterest, you can make collections of images and designs for inspiration.
There is a social network for everything and billions are using social media sites throughout the
world.
What does this mean for small businesses?
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That’s a big question.
If you’re looking to acquire customers through social media it’s good to know where to start and
where to focus. If you try to do it all you’ll get caught in the rat race and likely won’t have much
success.
What we’ll do here is review the top social media sites and give you an idea of where you should
focus.
For more read these articles:
The Best Social Networks For Lead Generation
How to Get Small Business Social Media Leads
What Social Media Strategy Provides The Biggest SEO Benefit?
Social Media Sites for Small Businesses
This is a general overview of each of the top social media sites (Top Social Sites by Alexa). Use this
information to guide you where you should spend your time in building a community with the help
of social media.
These are the top US-based social media sites.
1. Facebook
Facebook is the biggest social network in the world with over one billion users. That’s a big chunk
of the world population. How many of those are duplicates, fakes and other organizations is up for
debate, but it’s still safe to say that Facebook has a big presence around the globe.
And businesses have taken notice. When you have that many people in one place, businesses will
come around looking to tap into the audience.
Even with all those people using it, Facebook is still a site for the young people out there. Those
over the age of 30 likely don’t use Facebook as much or even really close to what teens do.
There are always exceptions, but the reality is that age plays a big role in social media marketing.
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If your business has a customer over the age of 40 it probably doesn’t pay to invest time in social
media marketing unless you know your niche audience is using the sites.
One example would be business people and business professionals. This group does seem to be
tuned into social sites including Facebook, but they’re using blogs and Twitter more than Facebook.
The big aspect of Facebook that users love is the Newsfeed. This is where users can see what is
going on in their network right now. It’s a friend and family-based feed of what’s happening. You see
what your connections are doing whether it’s sharing photos, grabbing a coffee or commenting on
the latest political news.
2. Twitter
It’s kind of amazing how Twitter basically took one aspect of Facebook (giving an update) and
turned into the second biggest social media site.
What I think Twitter did really well especially in the early days was get celebrities to use the service.
Fans wanted access to the thoughts and updates of celebrities and Twitter got celebrities to deliver.
That is still a big aspect of the site. You can follow celebrities of all kinds and those celebrities can
broadcast information while building an audience, which they can market to as they please.
Twitter is also big in the news and business world. It’s really interesting how Twitter has become the
go-to source of up-to-the second information.
Twitter, like any website, depends on content and really it depends on content not created
on Twitter for it all to work. Bloggers, video creators and others have found they can build a
subscription audience of people that want to know when the latest content has been created.
3. Google+
Google+ really isn’t a social media site. It has those kind of features, but Google uses the site – now
with over 500 million users – to get a profile information on people.
Google’s business is serving ads and they’re digging into every aspect of life to really know what ads
to serve people.
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Google has put out a few carrots with Google+, especially to content creators like bloggers, to build
Google+. With the site Google gets personal information and they’ll use that along with all their
other free products to improve their ad-based system.
For businesses that want to get some organic traffic from Google it makes sense to participate and
build an audience on its properties including Google+ and YouTube.
4. LinkedIn
LinkedIn at the basic level is an online resume for professionals. But now it’s going beyond that to
really provide value to businesses. I’ve found that LinkedIn is a great way to connect with your ideal
customer. It’s an introduction to people and those introductions can lead to business partnerships.
The GBW customer is a small business owner and I’ve been able to meet people on LinkedIn that
need a blogging service. It’s been a great audience for GBW to tap into and turn the people directly
into customers.
5. Pinterest
Pinterest was a recent darling child in the social media world. The site is a pin board for all things
inspirational. People can go crazy expressing themselves by sharing content from all over the web.
It’s a pretty organic type of site, but businesses have been able to tap into the audience especially
businesses with female customers.
Other Sites
These sites are sometimes considered part of social media.
1. YouTube
Depending on how you define a social network you may or may not consider YouTube to be on the
list of the top social sites. There is a community, a very large community, of users on YouTube. This
huge community has also turned YouTube into a huge search engine for videos.
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Small businesses are creating original videos and sharing them on video to generate new business.
I have a good friend that used this strategy to generate a ton of new business for his small company.
He created something interesting and found a niche audience within YouTube. Those people found
his videos and sought out his company website and his company to purchase products.
It seems like every Internet user is also using YouTube in some way. Google is pushing it in search
results.
The Internet is becoming faster and faster and more people can watch video and they are watching
more video because they like video content in some instances more than other types of content.
2. SlideShare
It must have been 2006 or 2007 when I first saw someone use SlideShare. I was attending a
presentation instead of pulling up a PowerPoint the person used SlideShare (or a very similar
service). It blew my mind. It was an introduction to the cloud and social networking. It was a crazy
moment and was really an indication of how people would use the web in the future.
SlideShare today is a huge network of people mostly sharing and downloading presentations. The
service is very SEO-friendly. It’s a great way to repurpose your content for those that like reading
slideshows instead of blog posts.
And if you’re a speaker there is no reason you can’t take your presentations and provide them for
free for everyone to see on SlideShare.
3. Tumblr
Tumblr was a latest dream kid in the social media world the last couple years. The blogging
platform became a popular way to share all kinds of content from around the web. You could write
a quick post, share photos and reblog something someone else had published on the site.
The site seemed to be used by teens and the younger crowd mostly. Businesses that were quirky
and fun seemed to have success building an audience on Tumblr.
Sanuk is one example.
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However, Yahoo! just bought Tumblr and there are already worries about how the service will
change. It’s another note on the fragile nature of building an audience and depending on it too
much while using social media.
4. Forums
Don’t forget about niche forums. They are all over the web for just about any topic you can think of
and they’ve been around for as long as the Internet. They’re not going away anytime soon.
Simplicity is the great thing about a forum. Nearly everyone understands how to use a forum. You
find a forum community for the topic you love and start communicating and connecting with others
that love the same thing.
The way for small businesses to participate in forums is to provide answers to questions. Ask
questions. Seek insight from the top users on the community. As with all social media it’s not about
promotion. Do that and you’ll get exiled from the forum by the users.
5. Blogs
At Ghost Blog Writers we’re biased when it comes to blogging, but we have to say that blogging is
an essential part of social media marketing for businesses of all sizes.
When you create content for social media sites you’re doing it as a way to tap into those existing
audiences to grow your own. There is nothing wrong with that strategy. We do it and so do many
other businesses. You have to do things like work with social media if you want to grow your own
audience.
But there are risks.
We’ve seen sites like Friendster and MySpace almost completely go out of style over the years. Sites
can also change design, function and purpose without warning.
It seems each time Facebook makes a change the business world has to scramble to keep up.
That’s part of the game. With your own blog you can keep control of the majority of the content you
create. You own it. You can control what to do with it.
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Chapter 8 - What Social Media Buttons Are
Best For Your Website?
Social media buttons are the things you see on websites everywhere.
Businesses are putting social media buttons on sites to encourage visitors to follow them various
social media sites. Other buttons are meant to encourage people to share content from the
websites like videos, blog posts and photos to the various social media sites.
It’s crazy to think that just five years ago there were really only two social networks around:
MySpace and Facebook. And MySpace was the more popular of the two. Things have changed.
Connections and sharing have become more important in the online world. They were always
important in the real world, but today people really have no limits when it comes to connecting
with other people and sharing with those connections.
If you’re doing business today and your target customer is using the Internet it’s important for you
to understand the social nature of people using the Internet. This will give you the information you
need to put the right social media buttons on your website.
My Love-Hate Relationship With Social Media
I’ve struggled with social media over the years. I remember when Facebook first arrived at my
college. Back in 2005-2006 you could only access the site with a .edu email address and your school
had to be included.
From there it was like a whirlwind for Facebook and now everyone is using the site to connect with
people, get the latest news about those connections and to get some feeling of meaning in life. I
don’t use Facebook these days. It’s not for me. But I understand that it’s important to others.
That’s one lesson I’ve learned with social media. You have to recognize the social channels your
target customer cherishes most. If you want to grow an audience around your brand you have to
tap into existing audiences online.
Social networks have those existing audiences.
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Country Music Life
My personal site – Country Music Life – has reviews of new country songs. It’s a way for country
music fans to discover new songs. The site used to have a Facebook page with about 500 followers,
but I had to close the page down. I wasn’t able to invest enough and the traffic from the site seemed
to come whether there was a CML page or not.
That’s an important part of social media buttons. While a Facebook page isn’t a top priority for
CML, the audience on CML uses Facebook often. A lot of traffic to the site comes from Facebook.
Fans share the songs with each other on Facebook. Artists also share the reviews on their Facebook
pages where fans can learn about the review and read it as well.
CML has five social media buttons:
Facebook Like Button
Twitter Share Button
Google +1 Button
Twitter Follow Button
Google+ Follow Button
I’ve identified the networks that are important to the success of CML and have included those
buttons or calls to action on the various pages on the site.
The biggest call to action on each review is for people to purchase the song. The second is to have
people sign up for email updates.
Other calls to action on the page are secondary including the sharing buttons, but it’s important for
people to share the reviews on Facebook, Twitter and with +1. When people share the reviews more
people come to the site and the audience grows over time.
The follow buttons are there because some people like to get there updates that way. Twitter and
WordPress make it easy to share the new posts from CML. Google+ is seemingly necessary for
search engine.
The engines seems to be using social followers as a sign of brand reputation, which is an important
part of SEO. If you have a strong brand the engines trust that you provide quality content.
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So Twitter and Google+ are important to have for social and SEO purposes.
I’ll always be evaluating the social aspects of CML and will always determine if I should add or
remove buttons.
Ghost Blog Writers
GBW is the same with social media buttons, but a little different in the networks.
Again, I try to be careful with calls to action on each page of the site. I think sharing and following
are part of the sales process, but I’d rather have people subscribe to the email list or read the
Services page to move down the sales funnel.
GBW has six social media buttons:
Twitter Share Button
LinkedIn Share Button
Google +1 Button
Twitter Follow Button
LinkedIn Follow Button
Google+ Follow Button
A few of these are links, but work like buttons.
GBW has a different audience than CML so there is a different focus on networks. LinkedIn is
becoming very important for GBW. We’re making connections on the network, meeting new people
and earning new clients. It’s important for our blog articles to be shared on the network while
building our following there.
Twitter has always been a place for people to share articles. So it makes sense to have the Twitter
buttons on GBW.
Google+ brings a little traffic, but building that following seems to have SEO benefit so we focus on
Google+ just like I do with CML.
The social media buttons are visible, but not the main calls to action. People reading the post can
see how popular the post is by glancing at the number of shares.
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If someone wants to follow GBW on one of the networks they can easily find the link to do so.
The Takeaway: Your Site and Your Customer
Your takeaway from this article should be that the social media buttons you put on your site should
depend on your business and your customer. Focus on what is best for your business. Then focus
on where your customers are in the social world.
One goal I have for both CML and GBW is to make more videos. Consumers are demanding more
online video and I figure I should do my part to give it to them. It will be good for the businesses.
So I’ll be adding YouTube buttons to the sites.
There may be a time when you want your social buttons to be the biggest call to action on a page
on your site, but I see it being that way only rarely. There are other calls to action in the sales
process that will help you increase sales more than a share or a follow.
But sharing and following are important to growing your business. Find the networks that are
important to your business and customer. Then add those buttons to your site.
And don’t clutter up your page. I’ve seen sites with what seems to be too many social media
buttons. I think around 5 or 6 you start getting to the point where it’s too much clutter.
Social Media Button Resources
Here are resources to add social media buttons to your site:
Twitter
Facebook
Google +1 and Google+
LinkedIn
YouTube
Pinterest
Instagram
Best of luck with your social efforts.
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Chapter 9 - The Snippet Strategy: Social
Media Promotion For Business Blogs
Promotion is a huge part of blogging success.
There are many ways to promote blog posts and your brand in general. One of the major ones is
social media.
Millions of people use social media every day. That’s a large group of potential customers and many
social networks have become advanced to the point where marketers can target specific segments
within the networks.
At GBW, we see social media as one of the ways for businesses to grow and supplement a content
strategy.
The way we do it is nothing special or unique, but it is very effective. We actually think it might be
the simple nature of the strategy that makes it so effective.
We call it The Snippet Strategy.
The Snippet Strategy for Business Blogging Promotion
Here is the basic idea of The Snippet Strategy.
You write a blog post that probably averages about 500-600 words. You’ll address a main topic with
a few sub-topics. Within that post you’ll naturally have a few interesting snippets that would make
for good tweets and posts on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Google+.
People on social networks love short content. It’s for this reason that The Snippet Strategy works.
For every post you create look to create about 3-5 snippets that will make for great shares on social
media.
The strategy we use with our own blog and with clients blogs is to make sure we share the post
on social media via the post title and link. We can usually set this up automatically with no effort.
When the post publishes the post is shared.
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We’ll also re-share posts via the title and the link at various points in the future after the post is
published.
We’ll also take about 3-5 snippets from within the post and share those from time to time on social
media. Sometimes we’ll include the links and other times we won’t.
We try to entice people with shares that include the links and with the others we just try to share
interesting, useful information.
The simplicity of the strategy is that you’re providing interesting, useful content on social media.
Beyond anything else this is what grows your social presence.
And the great thing is that you’re sharing what you already have on your blog. You know the
topics well. You own the content on the blog so you’ll always have it instead of losing it in the busy
streams on social media.
I’ll leave you with an example from the GBW archives.
Post: Analyzing The FreshBooks Blogging Strategy
Snippet #1: The blog posts on FreshBooks target a very specific audience.
Snippet #2: FreshBooks uses a very popular and effective blogging strategy. See it here…
Snippet #3: FreshBooks uses series posts to keep blog readers coming back again and again.
Snippet #4: FreshBooks doesn’t always talk about their product. They help their target customers
with useful content.
Snippet #5: After looking at the FreshBooks blog I would say one thing – keep your title tags short.
Chapter 10 - How To Succeed With Social
Media Without Discounts And Promotions
Many of the articles you’ll read about social media strategy tell you to offer discounts.
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Discounts, promotions and contests are not marketing strategies.
You think it’s the social media marketing that causes people to act when you offer 30% off?
You could call people on the phone offering them a discount on something and they’d probably
respond. Discounting is a way of forcing your marketing to work when you aren’t really seeing
success. It’s lazy and it usually hides one of two issues.
First, your merchandise is lacking and maybe it’s priced too high to begin with. If you have
something good to offer you’ll find that all marketing, including social media, becomes much
easier.
Second, you’re not focusing on the right type of marketing strategy. You’re looking for the quick
wins. Marketing isn’t about quick wins. You have to work harder than just offering a discount.
Discounts are like ads. You might get success right away, but you have to keep feeding the beast.
Once you stop feeding you’re going to lose your sales. The customer will lose interest and will go
elsewhere.
So how do you do social media without discounts?
Step 1 – Start With A Content Strategy On A Platform
You Own
Eloqua focuses on content first instead of discounts.
The best thing you can do for your social media strategy is to build content on a platform you own.
Two things you own are your website and your email program. These are channels you control and
unlike social media, you control what changes and what stays the same. You don’t have to worry
about the channel owner (ex: Facebook, Google, etc.) changing the rules.
You can publish all kinds of content on your site and share it in the emails you send to your
subscribers.
Content includes blog posts, guides, tutorials, videos and more.
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Step 2 – Use The Snippet Strategy
The Snippet Strategy is something you can use to update your social profiles by using snippets of
your website content.
For example, write a post that curates the most important and interesting stats in your industry
that your target reader will find intriguing. Publish this as a blog post or something similar.
For your social media updates you can take one of the stats and share it. Include a link back to your
content where your followers can see the rest of the stats.
Step 3 – Partner With Complementary Organizations
Moz participating in partnership content creation.
When you start your social media efforts you’re going to have very few followers. Encourage
everyone you know to follow you, but here is another tip for increasing your following.
Partner with other business.
Partnering means creating content that is authored by the both of you. Businesses do this all the
time by creating guides, tutorials, studies or even putting on a webinar.
Once you publish the work you can both share the information on your social profiles mentioning
each other. The interaction with your partner posts will be higher than a post you would share on
your own.
That’s real engagement as opposed to simply giving a discount on your merchandise.
Step 4 – Mention Complementary Organizations
When you’re writing content for your website it helps to mention complementary businesses.
Write a feature story on them. Or write a how-to post that gives your reader useful information.
Then include complementary businesses that are doing what you’re talking about. Use them as a
good example.
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Then when you share the post on social media, mention the business in the tweet, update or
whatever it is. This will let the organization know that you’ve written about them and they’ll likely
share the post with their followers on social media.
Step 5 – Mention Target Customers
Zappos retweeted this tweet from a customer. And Zappos doesn’t offer discounts.
Also mention your target customers. Some do this with contests, but you don’t have to do that.
Your customers probably just want to be mentioned for doing something; not necessarily winning a
contest.
Although, you could do a contest for best comment of the week. This way you’re not giving away
your profit. You’re simply recognizing your target customer.
Companies also create content such as case studies about their customers. Then they share the
case study on social media and include a mention of the target customer so they will see it and
likely share the post too.
Step 6 – Focus On Content, Not Discounts
The biggest lesson from this post is to focus on content, not discounts.
The content you create needs to be educational, entertaining or enlightening for your target
customer.
This is where businesses get lazy. Instead of creating useful content they look for quick wins with
discounts.
It’s much harder to create a guide that your customers will find useful, but in the long run it’s much
better for your social media strategy.
If you acquire discount customers you become a discount business. Focus instead on creating
merchandise and content that your customers demand at full price.
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Conclusion
Hopefully this post has given you some ideas for your social media strategy.
A lot of content out there tells you that to have social media success that you need to offer
discounts or contests.
When you offer discounts you’re always going to get response, but it’s not the kind of response that
leads to long term success.
Use the tips above to help you build a strategy that will work in the long run. Don’t take the easy
way out.
Chapter 11 - How To Turn 1 Blog Post Into 20
Unique Social Media Shares
Earlier we shared our concept of The Snippet Strategy.
The idea is to focus on creating content on your site; content you own and control.
In that post we said that with one post you can easily create 3-5 snippets to share on your social
media profiles.
Now, it’s a fairly common thought in the online marketing world that you should share your content
multiple times. In fact, some people think you should share your daily posts on your social profiles
multiple times in the same day.
It makes sense.
Not all of your followers are looking at their Twitter streams or your LinkedIn feeds every minute of
the day. Unless they’re looking at the exact moment when you publish they might not see it.
The Snippet Strategy post was really about sharing your post 3 to 5 times in the same day.
But the last few weeks I’ve been using Buffer and have been experimenting with an expanded
Snippet Strategy. This new strategy calls for using old posts much more in your social feeds.
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Sometimes you can simply use the title, but other times you have to make it more interesting and
unique for your followers. Some will need different cues to be triggered to read your content. They
might see the title the first time and disregard it. But a simple change in the content might entice
them.
Here is the secret…
Example: 10 Biggest Inbound Newsmakers Of 2013
I got this idea from The Golf Channel. I was following their list of the biggest newsmakers in the golf
world and figured the inbound industry needed something similar.
You can use the 20 From 1 strategy with a lot of posts, but the top 10 post is perfect, which is what
this newsmaker post is.
Note: Each of these will included a shortened link to the post. You don’t have to include this if you
don’t want to. I’ve tried it. Stand alone shares can be good, but after a while I figure it’s worth it to
entice traffic. People don’t have to click if they don’t want to. I don’t think it’s a big deterrence if
they see a link.
First Wave: Title Variations
Share #1: 10 Biggest Inbound Newsmakers Of 2013 #ContentMarketing
Add the relative hashtag.
Share #2: What online marketing events were the biggest in 2013? Here’s the story:
People seem to like questions.
Share #3: Were you paying attention to the big inbound marketing stories last year?
Another question enticing people to click.
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Share #4: The 10 biggest inbound newsmakers from last year. #7 had people angry #Facebook
Another enticing little twist on the content that touches on a subject people were talking about.
Share #5: Here are the biggest online marketing newsmakers from last year and how they affect you
this year.
People want to know what they should pay attention to in the future.
Second Wave: Mention Those That You Mentioned In
The Post
Share #6: 10 Biggest Inbound Newsmakers Of 2013 feat: @Moz
Share #7: 10 Big Inbound Newsmakers Of 2013 feat: @DerekHalpern
Share #8: These events made the list of big newsmakers in the inbound world last year feat: @
Backlinko
Share #9: Big inbound newsmakers from last year include a gem from @neilpatel
Share #10: Big names shared great content to address the hot items in the inbound world last year
including @salesforce
Final Wave: All 10 Points From The Post
Share #11: Google is making changes to account for local search intent. What is your Local SEO
strategy?
Share #12: Do you have a blog marketing strategy? It was a big item in the inbound world last year.
Share #13: What marketing tasks have you automated? Marketing Automation made our list of top
newsmakers for 2013.
Share #14: Facebook changed the rules again and it made our list of big inbound news from last
year.
41
Share #15: How fast is your website? Page Speed made our list as an important inbound marketing
item from last year.
Share #16: Why are companies trying Native Advertising? It was one of the big newsmakers of the
year.
Share #17: Do you create different types of content? This strategy became important last year.
Share #18: A big newsmakers in the inbound marketing world was Online Video. What’s your video
strategy?
Share #19: More people access the web on their smartphone. Responsive Design was a hot item this
year.
Share #20: Did you hear about Google’s (Not Provided)? It was the top newsmaker in the inbound
world last year.
Conclusion
There you have it. Take one blog post and turn it into 20 shares.
In reality, you can turn a single post into even more shares. There are other ways to break up your
content to share on social profiles. Hopefully this gets your creative juices flowing.
Don’t let your content die a quick death with your social followers.
Unlike ads, your blog posts can live forever. As long as your website and blog are online you can
share your old posts again and again.
Follow the steps above to make things different, fresh and interesting for your followers.
Use a service like Buffer to help with this. It makes it really easy to add old posts to your feeds.
You’ll reach followers that missed your content the first time, followers that weren’t interested the
first time and followers you didn’t have the first time.
It all leads to more traffic and more sales.
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Chapter 12 - How To Turn 5 Old Blog Posts
Into A Killer Email Auto-Responder
One of the best tools in an online marketing arsenal is email marketing.
Email may seem old fashioned, but the truth is that nearly every web user has an email address.
Not only is that the case, but nearly every web user checks their email regularly.
Social media might be the king of the online world right now, but email has been around for a long
time and it will be in the future. Even those social media sites require an email address for access.
And email is better for marketers to because when someone gives you permission to enter their
inbox you’re getting access to a communication channel that is free of many barriers.
You control your email channel. It’s different that social media where the social networks control
the the platforms. You can’t control how Facebook changes. You can’t control what Twitter does.
But you do control your own email marketing program.
An email tool that can take a new website visitor to a new customer is the auto-responder series.
Auto-Responder Emails
You may know about auto-responder emails. Maybe you’ve even tried your own or have been
on the receiving end of a series. Auto-responder email is a series of emails that you create and
automate to send to new subscribers.
Let’s say you sign up for a free guide on social media. The first email you get instantly after
signing up has your free guide. But that’s usually not the last email you get. Two days later you
probably received an email with a bonus guide or another piece of content that offered more good
information and help.
A week after that maybe you got an email from the sender telling you a little bit about them. They
told you about the company and the people that work there. It’s another phase in the introduction.
43
From there maybe they send one last email a few days later introducing the service they provide
and how it could help you with what you’re doing.
That’s how auto-responders work. They take some effort to create, but if you have a business blog
then you already have all the content you need to create a great auto-responder series.
Using Blog Posts To Create An Email Series
First, consider the typical conversation you have with someone that first finds out about your
business. At this point they may or may not find a potential interest in what you’re doing. You either
realize that what you do doesn’t relate to them and you talk about something different or you start
talking a little more about what you do.
From that discovery stage in the conversation all the way through to the point where the person
makes a purchase is how you can setup your auto-responder.
Only you know what your sales process is like, but I’ll give you an example.
A plumbing company has been putting together blog posts for some time. They have blog posts
that cover a variety of topics for their potential customers. These posts touch on all different topics.
The plumbing company finds that a lot of potential customers are interested in the best bathroom
fixtures. So the plumbing company looks in its archives and finds that they did a post on this very
topic.
They make this post the enticing offer for their auto-responder series. They promote it on their
website as a free guide to the best bathroom fixtures – everything you need to know. They can
promote this guide on social media and anywhere else they market online.
People can signup and get the guide and then they’re in the email auto-responder series.
The second item in the series is a post on common bathroom problems and preventative
maintenance.
The third post the plumbing company uses in the guide is a post on designing a bathroom to be
more efficient.
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A fourth post talks about the plumbing company and the services they offer. You see by this point
the person that signed up for the email series feels a great deal of goodwill toward the brand.
They’ve been getting all this great content.
Finally, a fifth email offers the call to action. The plumbing company asks the person if they’re
interested in a free consultation about a bathroom renovation.
It’s the sales process in action, but done via email and done with blog posts that already exist.
Conclusion
Email auto-responder series do take some effort to setup. You have to understand your customer
and your sales process. You have to provide useful information and answers to common questions
just as you would if you were talking to a potential customer in person.
But you do this already with your blog posts. Take a few of those blog posts and turn them into an
auto-responder.
You’ll setup a virtual salesperson that will always be working for your company for anyone that
visits your website.
From there you’ll just have to increase your email signups.
Chapter 13 - 25 Small Business Email
Marketing Tips
Email marketing is one of the most important marketing tools for businesses. Small businesses
especially have an opportunity to use email marketing to increase business.
I’ve been involved with large eCommerce email marketing. I’ve seen what works well in that arena
and there are some lessons small businesses can use to get the most out of their email strategy.
I’ve also worked on my own email strategies for Ghost Blog Writers and Country Music Life for the
last few years. So I’ve seen what can work and what usually doesn’t work.
Here are 25 of the best tips I can come up with and hopefully they help you out a little bit.
45
1. Automation
On Country Music life I’ve done both manual and automated email newsletters over the years. In
general, they do about the same. I’ve looked for ways to make the email program more valuable to
subscribers, but simply automating the email program with the latest posts seems to work well and
it saves me time. I created the original template and now I leave it alone. Automation can be your
friend whether you’re creating a simple newsletter or a series of auto-responders.
2. Brands and Names In Subject Lines
Using brand names and names in subject lines (and headlines) is something I’ve seen work for large
businesses and for small businesses. Back when I worked in the shoe industry our emails always
did well in terms of open rates (and often in sales) when we used a brand name in the subject line.
I’ve seen it work well for small business emails as well. For CML it seems subject lines are successful
when I use an artist’s name. On GBW it seems we do well if we write a post analyzing a major brand
or including a brand on a list and then using the brand name in the subject line.
3. Unsubscribe Links
Make it easy for people to unsubscribe from your list. That’s right. I hate when someone hits the
spam button on one of my emails. I don’t want those people on my list. I only want people that love
the content I’m sharing. So I try to make it easy for a person to remove themselves from the list.
4. 1-2 Times Per Week
You can probably get away with more if your content is really good, but I’ve found that 1-2 emails
per week is a good fit for many small businesses. It seems like a sweet spot for getting good
interaction and after a few days people are ready for new content. I even find that when I get an
email every day from a company that I get annoyed even if I love the company and what they send.
5. Simple Design
I like simple design in emails. I keep it simple with plain white background and good use of
whitespace. I usually have a small logo at the top left or top center of the page.
46
Then I use basic 10pt Arial for the font. Use headlines to break up the text and use black font. That’s
about it. Keep it simple. Add a few images or photos and you’re done.
6. Personal Story
In my GBW emails I have a list that goes to clients every couple weeks. This email is manual each
time and I like to include a personal story. It seems to bring a personality to the email giving it a
little more depth and value. Clients seem to appreciate it even if it’s just a little thing.
7. Compliments
I’ve also found that people appreciate simple compliments. Something as simple as “I like working
with you” can make someone feel good and leaving them feeling satisfied for working with you as a
vendor.
8. Real Photos
I haven’t done this one enough for my lists, but I’ve been on a few small business lists and
messages that stand out to me are ones that include real photos from the business. There is a local
brewery here in Eau Claire that renovated and they sent out photos from the process. It was pretty
neat. A great way to get me more interested in their company.
9. Basic Calls-To-Action
You’ve probably gotten emails with all kinds of calls-to-action. eCommerce emails usually have a
lot of options, but I find that if you have too many options in the email that it confuses people and
they’re likely to simply delete the message. I try to have just a few calls-to-action in each email so
the recipient can easily decide where they would like to go on the site.
10. Blue Text Links
It’s amazing how people respond to blue text links. It seems like everybody knows that a blue
underlined item is something you should click. It may not always look the best, but blue text links
get people to click. It’s intuitive.
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11. Buttons
I’ve seen some crazy buttons and different calls-to-action in emails, but simple buttons that are
intuitive and obvious seem to work the best. No need to get crazy with your button design. Keep it
simple so anyone would know that they should click on it.
12. Logos
I feel every logo should be linked. It’s intuitive for people to click on your company logo to go the
homepage. When I was at the shoe company the logo was always one of the most clicked on items
in the entire email message.
13. Adding Inquiries
There is a gray line out there that some small businesses take when it comes to adding inquiries
to their email list. I’ve been added to lists when I’ve emailed a person or even if they’ve emailed
me. I don’t know how I fall on this topic. I know I feel annoyed when someone just adds me to their
email list without at least giving me the option to opt-in. I guess I can always unsubscribe and I do
most times. It is a way to add people to your list, though. I don’t do it, but maybe you would be
comfortable doing it.
14. Responding To Website Inquiries
Some people have auto-responders for contact form inquiries for their small business. I actually
don’t mind a message that acknowledges that the company received the inquiry. If your company
is busy and can’t get back to each inquiry within 24 hours I think it’s a good idea to have an autoresponder go out just to let them know that you will be in touch within a few days.
15. Long Emails
Don’t be afraid of long emails with lots of sections and content. I’ve seen these work really well
in retail and small business situations. I don’t feel that long blocks of content are good, but if you
break it up into sections like a blog post they can work really well especially if you’re in a B2B
situation and you want to sell a service.
48
16. Track Sales and Profit
It’s easy to focus on opens and clicks. For the most part these things will eventually correlate with
sales and profit, but not always. For a small business like GBW I try to track each new customer that
comes on board and figure out all the things that influenced the sale. It might go from reading a
blog post to connecting on LinkedIn to joining the email list to inquiring about the service. If email
helped in the sale then the program is successful more so than if open rates improve.
17. Customers and People That Know Customers
On GBW I get a few people that join the email list that are other writers. This is fine because we’re
always looking to hire great writers, but really we want potential customers on the list. But don’t
delete people that don’t fit your ideal customer profile because that person might know someone
that is your ideal customer. These two segments are the ones I want on my lists: 1) Ideal Customer
and 2) Someone that knows my ideal customer.
18. Promotions
Email, especially in the retail world, has morphed into this promotion monstrosity. It’s craziness.
There was so much focus on instant success with emails that in order to keep improving
performance companies just continued to offer deeper and deeper discounts. Once you go down
that road you really can’t come back (just ask JCP). Stick with your natural sales funnel and trust
that it works.
19. Branding
Like everything you do in business your email is a reflection of your brand. Highlight the things
that make your business different when you send out emails. Maybe you can get this across in your
content. Maybe you can tell stories and share photos. Do what you do best when sending out your
emails and your customers will connect.
20. Test?
Small businesses are busy. There is little time for testing.
49
I’ve found that putting in effort to think about email as another sales channel or sales funnel and
formulating a good email strategy is the best way to go instead of testing and testing all sorts of
things. Over time you can track sales and profit and if you think you can do it better than make
improvements. With constant testing you can get in trouble like big brands have with promotions
and short-term focus.
21. Capital Letters
Don’t capitalize entire words in your email. I don’t even like using exclamation points in subject
lines. I think it’s over done and it might be just a personal pet peeve, but avoid using all CAPS and
exclamation. It’s not worth it.
22. Short Subjects
I try to stick with short subjects for the most part. I like short things when it comes to the online
world for things like URLs, headlines and subject lines. I don’t mind large blocks of content, but
keep it short so people can quickly scan what your email is about.
23. Weird Characters
I’ve always had weird issues with using weird characters in email subject lines. These are things
like “&”, “%”, “$” and a few others. They can work for the most part, but sometimes you get weird
looking subjects. It’s probably just me, but I avoid these where I can and try to spell the word out
when I can. It seems to get the same type of attention.
24. Instant Reward
Have you ever signed up for an email newsletter or email program only to get nothing from the
signup right away? The expectation today is that you get something immediately after signing up
for an email program. I’ve come to learn that offering something in that first email can give new
subscribers something immediately in return for their signup. It could be a link to your best blog
posts or a guide you’ve put together.
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25. Popups and Lightboxes
They’re intrusive in a way, but popup signup forms have come a long way over the years. And I’ve
seen these things increase signups by two or three times. It’s too much of an increase in signups
to overlook. I have popups on each of my websites to make an offer to new visitors so they get a
chance to subscribe to the content.
Chapter 14 - Blogging For Email Subscribers
Not all businesses are made for blogging.
That is to say that not all businesses will benefit by directly converting visitors into customers or
leads.
Some businesses, mostly in the e-commerce world, will need to focus on something a little different
when blogging. A content strategy can still be a great way for these companies to profit, but the
different focus is where their blogging and content model will vary compared to others.
Blogging for Subscribers
The e-commerce world where customers directly purchase products from businesses works a little
different than business-to-business world.
With e-commerce, customers are not necessarily looking to purchase products at the time of
their research. And what happens in most cases with a blog is that the company creating the blog
content is approaching customers that are in the research period in their buying cycle.
A customer doing a search for new dresses or new handbags is looking for information on what
is new, who is wearing the new items and where they can possibly purchase the new items. This
person will find some information, but they will not be ready to make a purchase usually right away
when they come across a blog post, product description or other form of content.
Yet most companies are looking for the immediate sale at this point.
Rather than asking for sales on your blog post there is something else you can have to keep the
visitor and their attention going forward.
51
An email subscription is a great way to create a conversion that leads to profit.
Instead of direct ads on your blog for your products, include an email subscription area where your
first time visitors can enter their email to receive more of the content they are seeking.
Example
You write a series of blog posts about the ten hottest new dresses coming out this season. You
highlight the details that will be on popular dresses and who will possibly be wearing these dresses.
The content you publish on your blog is great, but you know there is even more that you could
share.
As a way to encourage email sign-ups you can let readers know that there is much more you can
deliver on the topic of the upcoming dresses, but they have to sign up for your fashion emails.
Interested visitors will enter their information and you can have content prepared to send them.
This content will deliver even more value and the visitor will become a happy subscriber.
At this point, you can also have the customer opted in to your regular marketing emails (they
can unsubscribe at any time). In the e-commerce world, marketing emails are profitable. Email
addresses are very profitable for e-commerce companies in the business-to-consumer world
because the money is always in the list. It’s an old direct marketing term, but it seems to be true
even today and going forward.
Summary
The goal of your blog might not be to drive direct sales.
A different approach for many e-commerce sites is to generate email sign-ups via the blog. Each
email subscriber is worth a certain amount of profit. This is something businesses can track.
It is possible to implement a blogging strategy combined with an email strategy to generate profit
and turn visitors into customers.
The buying conversion doesn’t happen instantly very often in the e-commerce world.
52
Things are very competitive in industries like fashion. Companies that provide additional value
through something like a full content strategy, however, can turn simple shoppers into subscribers
and eventual buyers.
Blogging is about profit, but things aren’t always direct.
Look for ways to add value and guide visitors down the buying path by doing something such as
gaining their email address.
Chapter 15 - How To Manage And Analyze
Your Website Traffic
Something that’s come to the front of the online world in the last few years is analytics.
There seems to be analytics software for everything these days.
There is software that gives you information and even software that takes that information and
tells you exactly the action you should take to make improvements to your website and to your
business.
It can all seem very important and analytics certainly are for a business, but I online analytics can
certainly steer you in the wrong direction on certain things.
Sales Are All That Matters
My first job out of college was for a direct mail catalog company. One of the first things I learned on
the job was that profit was the ultimate factor in every marketing activity the company did.
The business had been around for more than 100 years and I was fresh out of college. I figured it
was wise to listen to what was being said and over my five years working with the company I had
the pleasure of working with some really smart and talented people.
I learned a lot, but that original lesson on profit still remains the most important thing I learned
about business including anything I learned during college or previous schooling.
53
Online Business Is About Profit
You see very little about profit in the online world. You get told about engagement and views and
visits.
Some of these things lead to profit and some of them don’t.
What’s important to remember with analytics is to get yourself back to profit.
For a time I took the analytics program off my site Country Music Life. My focus was to get email
subscribers and pageviews. The goal with that site is to build an audience that comes back again
and again. To do that it required subscribers so decisions were made off that.
It’s always good to start with your business goals when you’re looking at your analytics program.
For GBW, we look at a few different metrics all relating back to sales and profit.
We have changed the content and the design to focus on our ideal customer. We want to attract a
small to medium-sized business that needs more traffic and sales. The content on GBW is written in
a way to attract those people to the site and to get them through the sales process until they reach
out to inquiry.
This goes beyond traffic, which we discuss a lot here on the GBW Blog. When we’re working on
traffic for our blog or for those of our clients we always focus on the right kind of targeted traffic.
The process starts with the business goals and the ideal customer. From there we write blog posts
with the goal to bring those ideal customers to the site through search and social.
Managing Your Analytics Program
This is how you can manage your analytics program internally. I’ve seen how easy it can be to get
lost in all kinds of analytics. There is so much data that you can get lost and confused.
If you keep the focus on your goals, the ideal customer and profit you’ll be in a better position to
manage your analytics program.
54
Track your traffic, inquiries and new clients. If those start to falter you can dig in and see what you
have to do on the site to increase those outcomes.
If you focus only on things like engagement, comments and traffic you can go down a wrong path.
Optimizing for those things may lead to profit, but it doesn’t always work like that.
The final piece of information to remember is to focus on the long-term.
So much of the web analytics world is focused on conversion, which occurs in the short-term.
A new inquiry is great for GBW, but it has to be the type of inquiry that leads to a profitable longterm client relationship.
It goes beyond the single act of a conversion. It’s about the entire sales process.
55

How To Increase Website Traffic with a Business Blog

Transcription

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