Getting Bumped Teaches This Ghost Blogger A Valuable Lesson

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Rap music listenerThe past couple of weeks provided proof of something I’ve been saying about blogging.  In today’s Internet-based shopping-and-searching business world, it’s simply not good enough to hand out stuff.  Businesses have handed out and sent out stuff for decades – flyers, brochures, letters to customers and prospects.  All of this is one-way communication.  Today, the process has got to get inter-active.  Blogs, being short, frequent, and “out there” on search engines, are ideal for this purpose.  Potential clients and customers can post comments, ask questions, or simply proceed to the business’ website to learn or do more.
There’s another aspect to interaction with blogging, and this is the one that had such a direct effect on my own blog in recent weeks.  Since one of the goals of business blogging is search engine optimization (meaning moving up the ranks in Google, Yahoo, and MSN territory), I try to set an example for my ghost blogging clients with my own Say It For You blog.  In the days leading up to my big come-uppance, my blogs had been showing up on page 1 or 2 on Google under the category “ghost blogger”.  Then, whammo – my blog disappeared!  What had happened? Without fail, I’d blogged every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, using the key words and providing fresh content that was relevant to the topic of blogging.
Turns out, I was upstaged by none other than hip-hop artist Kanye West and a host of his fans, plus a few of his detractors.  Sandra Rose claimed she’d discovered Kanye using a ghost blogger named Marcus Troy.  Dozens of fans were posting blogs opining on the truth or untruth of the matter, offering approval or horror at the practice of using a ghost blogger.  The principal players Troy, Rose, and even Kanye himself were blogging.  It was time for this professional ghost blogger to weigh in, and so I did (see Does Kanye West’s Ghost Blogger Say It For Him?).  Whew! Back up the ranks once more.
I’d been writing a lot about what drives search engine rankings, and then along comes this this living, breathing answer to the question.  What are the keys to success in blogging to win search engine rankings?  Recency?  Yes.  Relevance to the topic?  Of course, yes.  Frequency?  Yes, again.  But, there’s one more element that can’t be forgotten – traffic.  In other words, it matters how many people are writing in and coming to call at your little corner of the blogosphere – a.k.a. interaction.
All the excitement about whether Kanye is writing his own blogs or whether he’s found the perfect ghost blogger to “speak” in his voice skillfully enough for there to be a debate – well, it just goes to show.  Blogging works because it drives traffic and interaction.  And that, I learned the hard way, is What Search Engines Want.
I like to keep my blog language a lot more grammatical and a lot cleaner than Kanye’s, but boy – is he great at traffic, or what?
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Easy Does It For Blogs and For Financial Advisers

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The Journal of Financial Planning warns that financial success can get lost in translation. An AARP Financial survey showed many Americans complain that financial service professionals use too much jargon, even more so than mechanics or doctors.  Worse, many people expressed the thought their advisers use jargon on purpose, to distract consumers’ attention from investment fees and to make them feel more dependent.  The Journal’s advice: follow the KISS principle by keeping it simple.  (As a financial planner for almost three decades, I recall taking special pains to explain things in understandable terms, and so I really didn’t like reading that some of my former colleagues aren’t doing that to the satisfaction of at least some consumers.).

Bloggers (and ghost bloggers) from all fields of business can learn a valuable lesson from the AARP survey. You’re blogging to invite potential clients and customers to visit your website and learn more about why they should be doing business with you.  If the “lessons” you’re offering require too much effort of the “students”, they will excuse themselves quickly and look elsewhere for information.

Remember, browsers on the Web stopped at your blog because they were searching for something you know how to do or something you sell.  Present yourself and your business as expert, experienced, and professional – by all means.  Tell ’em something they may not have known before, certainly.  But (and here’s the lesson to be gleaned from the AARP survey and the Journal of Financial Planning‘s warning), lose the lingo.  Jettison the jargon.  Speak easy!

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Blogs Check Into The Hospital

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Talk about an ironic turn of events – blogging is turning out to be such a healthy marketing tool that hospitals are inviting blogs to check themselves in!
Community Health Network’s new SharingSites (www.ecommunity.com/sharing site) allows patients to create their own blogs to tell family and friends about a newborn or keep them up to date on treatments. St Francis and Clarian North offer blogging, too, through a Chicago company called CarePages.   Meanwhile, links to the hospitals’ main websites allow patients and families to find information about different medical conditions and treatments, and even participate in online discussions with other patients and their families.
Dan Rench, vice president of e-business at Community Health Network, was quoted in a recent Indianapolis Business Journal issue as follows: “There’s definitely a lot of power in social networking from a health care perspective.”

Businessowners aimed at robust growth should pay heed to this trend.  Many businesses think they have an Internet “presence” because they’ve had a website created for their company.  Often, there’s little updating going on, and even less attention paid to how to help potential buyers find their way to that website.  Advertising, including online advertising, is certainly one avenue in marketing a business.  Very interesting and important, though, is a statistic I learned in a Compendium Blogware webinar from CEO and co-founder Chris Baggott:  80-95% of business conducted online comes about as the result of organic search, not pay-per-click advertising or sponsorships. What this means in plain terms is that people searched online for information about products or services.  Those businesses that were providing up-to-date, easy-to-understand, and relevant content through regularly posting blogs came out the winners – of new customers.

You know what they’re starting to say?  A blog a day keeps the doctor away!

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Blog Offers Whiff Of Website

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Talk about a “sense” for marketing – the June 22nd issue of the Indianapolis Star, in an article about car dealers’ flagging sales, singled out Colussy Chevrolet in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania.  Tim Colussy says he uses a box that sends up puffs of “new car” scent as part of his overall plan to entice buyers to visit his dealership (and to leave driving a new car).
new car
In a sense (pun intended), that’s exactly what a well-conceived business blog is out to achieve – lure internet customers to read the blog, then “enter” the website, and leave as a new customer or client.  The informally presented, relevant, and new information you provide in your blog is part of your business’ overall marketing strategy.

Reading further into the article, I learned Colussy does a lot more to market his dealership than blowing scent – he’s had the floors resealed and repaired, the lights brightened, added colorful displays, flat-screen TV, Wi-Fi access, workstations, and a coffee bar.

Carrying on with my comparison, your blog is just one piece of the strategizing you do with your web designer, marketing consultant, ghost blogger, managers, and employees.  It’s all part of what sales trainers call your “unique selling proposition”.  Your blog is a key piece of that proposition.  It’s the” whiff that whets” – your potential customer’s appetite for doing business with you!

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Does Kanye West’s Ghost Blogger Say It For Him?

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James Blunt did it.  Used a ghost blogger, I mean (see my earlier blog For Songs Or Blogs, Success Proves The Best Silencer Of Critics). Now his ghost blogger, Amanda Ghost, is busy composing songs for Beyonce and Shakira. David Byrne did it.  In fact, Byrne let a building do his singing for him (see Buildings, Like Blogs, Can Be Interactive).  Now, the big question whizzing and quizzing its way around the blogosphere these days is this: Is Kanye West doing it, too?

A professional ghost blogger myself, I’m always alert for what others in my field are blogging and for whom.  Then – bam! In the past week or so it seems what’s preoccupying a whole lot of gray matter for a whole lot of people is Kanye and the big “Is He Or Isn’t He?” issue.  It’s so ironic, because, whatever the real answer, Kanye’s reaping a whole lot of green matter over this dispute by earning (through blogging, mind you!) a whole lot of attention on search engine slates.

The popularity of Kanye West’s blog has grown enormously, and Sandra Rose’s claim that Marcus Troy is the real writer of West’s blogs has helped grow it even more enormously.  What do I think? Well, first I need to confess – as a financial columnist and now professional ghost blogger, the world of hip hop music has not been on my radar screen until now. Marcus Troy himself says in a post, “How the H___ does Kanye have time to update his blog with ten new posts a day?”  Now that is a question to which I can relate, because most businessowners don’t find the time to update a blog ten times a month, let alone ten times a day!  That’s exactly why the demand for ghost bloggers like me is growing.

Blogging is an essential business tool in the web-based world of today.  Email is a way to reach customers, but you can’t use it to reach potential customers.  For that, business blogging fits the bill. Fact is, very few business owners, even with the help of talented and dedicated employees, can be assured that relevant, new material will get posted on their blog with enough consistency to improve rankings. Finding the right professional ghost blogger and working with that ghost makes the most sense for winning the search.

From my point of view, all the excitement about whether Kanye is writing his own blogs or whether he found someone that can “speak” for him well enough to even trigger a debate – it’s a matter of “So there you have it!” Blogging works to drive traffic and interest.  Period.  Ghost blogger, anyone?

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