Speed Cleaning 101 For Your Blog

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Indianapolis realtor friend Katrina Basile sent me a newsletter with an article about speed cleaning my house.  "Most of us like a clean house, with sparkling sinks and clutter-free coffee tables.  We just don’t want to be the one to make them that way," the piece began. 

Funny, seems to work the same way with business blogging.  As I pointed out in "Blogging Is A Concierge Service", blogging is an essential customer acquisition tool in our increasingly web-based world.  Still, few business owners can spare the time to post relevant, new material with enough consistency and frequency to have much of an effect on search engine rankings. (As a professional ghost blogger, I’m providing that concierge service.)

For the blog-it-yourself-ers, though, four of the home cleaning tips really seem to apply to blogging for business:

EQUIP YOURSELF:
(Prepare a pail with spray cleaners, rags, brushes, etc.)

For blogging prep, line up facts and statistics you want to quote to your target readers.  For example: "According to Technorati search engine, by June 2006, there were 34,000,000 blogs."

START WITH THE BIG STUFF:
(Kick-start cleaning with taking out trash and clearing away clothes – whatever tasks will make the greatest impact.)

As this applies to blogging, put the key words and your key idea in the title of the blog post and use the most important key words early in the blog.

TOUCH EVERYTHING JUST ONCE:
(Putting everything back in its place cuts cleaning time.)

Each blog post should focus on one key idea.

MAKE IT A FAMILY AFFAIR:
(Enlist the help of family members in the cleaning project for faster results – and a commitment to keep things clean.)

Involve all members of the marketing team, plus as many employees and stakeholders in your business blog. (Even if your professional ghost blogger is doing the writing, employees themselves can provide anecdotes and information, plus post comments on the blog.)

"Landing in a home that’s just right for you makes every step of the journey worth it," concludes the newsletter.  For online searchers, nothing beats "landing" on a blog and then on a website that has just the information, the products, and the services they came to find.  "Landing" is what blogging for business is all about!

 

 

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Thinking Bigger With Blogs

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I remember, back last summer, Indianapolis Mayor Ballard saying something I thought was really important.  Of course, he was talking about the new Lucas Oil Stadium, not about blogs, but the reason Ballard’s statement comes to mind right now is that, as you’ll see,  the principle’s the same for stadiums and online business marketing.

"I never look at Lucas Oil by itself.  I always look at it in conjunction with the expanded convention center," Ballard said.  "If people have been paying attention at all, they understand this has done more for conventions than for the Colts," he added.

People have been paying attention to blogs.  In fact, in the few seconds it’s taken you to click on this page and read this far down into my blog, thousands of new blogs will have "gone live" online. But, just as people became enamored of Lucas Oil Stadium’s sheer size and newness, (forgetting that the real long-term benefits to their city would come from areas not directly related to football), I think business owners can get enamored with blogs for the sheer size and relative newness of the blogosphere.

Effective business blogging drives traffic.  But traffic has to have a destination in order to bring any dollars to the bottom line.  So (to continue with my not-so-far-fetched comparison), the convention center needed to be expanded and new hotels build in order for the city of Indianapolis to reap the benefits of their big new football stadium. For blogs to give "bang for the buck" to a business, the website needs to be revamped.  I don’t mean just coordinating key words to link to search terms used in the blog, but designing the website for convert "lookers" into buyers.

"The direct and indirect effects of a corporate blog can be amazing," says Paul Woodhouse, one of the first British business leaders to use blogging strategy.

My caution, though: Remember the convention center in Indianapolis, and remember that your website and your overall online marketing strategy (your blog is just one tactic within that overall strategy). When it comes to corporate blogging strategy, by all means think big.  Perhaps even more important, think smart.

 

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Blogs As White As The Meat Of A Coconut

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To get your point across effectively, advises Dale Carnegie, "compare the strange with the familiar."  Carnegie tells the story of some missionaries trying to translate the Bible into the dialect of a tribe in equatorial Africa.  The missionaries came upon the line "Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow."  Realizing the natives had never seen snow, the missionaries changed the line to read "They shall be white as the meat on a coconut."

Even if the target audience for your business blog isn’t African natives, Carnegie’s advice is apropos.  Searchers come to your blog to find answers, but, remember, they lack your knowledge and expertise.  To help readers relate your products and services to their own needs, you must communicate with them in their terms.  Drawing a comparison with something familiar is a great technique, all the more useful if you’re in a highly specialized profession or line of business.

I found a perfect example of this is a blog about a bioceutical product that helps calm fear of public speaking. In explaining the human fear mechanism, the blogger compares the human brain to the central post office. "From this shipping hub, millions of messages are transmitted to the cells of our bodies, directly and powerfully influencing our emotions and our physical reactions. These neurotransmitters are inborn and unconscious.  In fact, while our cells are "reading the mail" from the brain, our minds ‘turn off’, to allow our bodies to obey brain orders automatically." The familiar image of a post office and reading the mail makes it easier for readers to understand the unfamiliar – neurotransmitters.in the brain.

Going from the simple to the complex, and from the familiar to the unfamiliar is a perfect strategy for business blogs.  It sets you up as the expert, yet allows your potential customers to feel smart as well as understood.  Readers understand they’ve come to the right place!

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Time In The Kitchen Saves Big In The Blogosphere

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F.C. Tucker Company’s Realty News offers tips on smart spending, listing ways of getting the most out of every dollar without sacrificing quality. Several of these shopping and cooking tips can be applied to business blogging, which, properly used, can be a small business’ most cost- effective marketing tool.

As just one example of old vs. new marketing, a recent “white paper” from Compendium Blogware Company concludes, “The Yellow Pages are out, and search is in.” Not only are business blogs “in”, they are startlingly less costly than business print ads of any hue. Blogs win with content, not cost, and with frequency, not size.

“If you’re willing to put in a little bit of time in the kitchen”, says Realty News, “you can save big at the checkout,” adding that veggies cost less when you peel and cut them yourself.  With some small businesses, that’s where the parallel with blogging ends, since many small business owners (see “More Brain, Less Drain With Professional Ghost Blogger”) lack the time to blog for business and run their operation as well.

Measuring costs in terms of dollars puts blogging ahead of almost all other aspects of a business’ marketing plan, but blogging demands two other “D’s” – devotion and discipline. With frequency and recency playing such important roles in search engine rankings, what a professional ghost blogger adds to the marketing mix is the consistent posting of blogs on behalf of the business.  “A detergent like Tide may not be the least expensive product on the shelf, but because the next leading detergent can contain up to 80% water, you may end up having to use two or three capfuls to get your clothes clean – and that isn’t a bargain”, according to Realty News.

One of the very first business owners to blog was Paul Woodhouse, leader of Tinpot Alley, a British metal-working shop. Woodhouse is quoted in Blogging For Business: “We’re seeing an increase in inquiries which are more targeted in terms of what we do as a business,” says Woodhouse.  “We don’t advertise and everything has been done in-house. It’s proven to be better than sliced bread.  It’s sliced bread and jam.”

Whether it’s bread with jam or sliced veggies – you can start in the kitchen and end up in the blogosphere!

 

 

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Don’t Let Your Blog Get Lost In The Aisle

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Popular science magazine NewScientist poses this question:

Two people lose each other while wandering through the aisles of a large supermarket.  The height of the shelves precludes aisle-to-aisle visibility.  One person wishes to find the other.  Should that person stop moving and remain in a single visible site while the other person continues to move through the aisles, or would they meet up sooner if both were moving through the aisles?

For some, this supermarket story may be just an amusing mental exercise. For me, though, this is serious stuff.  The whole point of my work as a professional ghost blogger is to help my clients’ businesses get found, and get found as quickly as possible. When business blogging works, in fact, they call it “winning search”.

In blogging, we’re not talking about just two people trying to find each other – we’re talking millions and millions of people.  Could some of them be trying to find you?  No doubt about it, the people you want to reach for your business are out there, looking. (Statistics from the Pew Internet Project tell us that search for information on the Internet is outstripping search for news and weather information and even surpassing email!) 

Posting content on the Web is the best form of marketing there is, says David Scott in his book Cashing In With Content. With blogging, Scott explains, content is not forced on people – they access it because they want to.  Search engines organize the content, and direct people to it.Your business blog is targeting this “organic” search.

Only problem is, the people in the other aisles not only don’t know where you are, they don’t know even know your name!  They don’t know that you have exactly the information, the products, and the services they’re looking for, and they won’t know that until they’re "introduced" to you by the search engine through your blog.

NewScientist‘s advice to the lost supermarket shopper is, “Walk along the edge of the supermarket where the cash registers are, looking down the aisles for the person you seek.” David Scott tells bloggers to put content out there.  Search engines, he explains, organize that content and direct people to it. The more content – and the more relevant content – you can provide, the quicker the “find time” is likely to be. 

One thing I know for sure:  whether at the supermarket or the blogosphere, you can’t just stand in place and hope to get found!
 

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