blogging

I’m very happy to announce the launch of April’s London Invitation, a blog by April Frost. April attended one of my blogging workshops, Become a Blogging Rock Star, in September, 2009. Soon after the workshop, she began work on her blog.

April chose to go with a WordPress hosted blog – my personal favorite blogging platform – and had her blog professionally designed by Lightfin Studios.

I also love how April waited to launch her blog until she had enough content to keep the visitor interested. I typically advice my clients to write at least ten or more posts before announcing their blog to the public.

Congratulations April! Keep on blogging.

If your struggling with how to start a blog, CreativeMind Search Marketing can help. Contact us for a no-obligation blog consultation.

In my previous post, Small Business Blogging Part 1 – Finding Your Niche, we talked about how to choose who to write for and types of posts you could write. Now I’m going to share a few ideas to encourage your blog readers to interact with your blog and interact with comments.

To start, I have to say that my blog did not receive any comments for a very long time. Then, I started to do things a little differently. Here are the three steps I took to encourage more blog comments.

1. I put my personality into my blog posts. I was an English major in college with a concentration on business writing. I found that my early blog posts read like boring essay assignments. Once I started writing like myself, I not only found the writing would come easier, but also  more readers would reply with comments.
2. I write on topics my readers want to read. How do I know what my readers want to read. Wel, I look at which posts get the most page views in Google Analytics and write more posts on those topics. For example, the posts that get the most reads for me are those written about ranking in Google, blogging, and Twitter. Look at your stats and see which posts get the most reads for you and write more posts on those topics.
3. I ask for comments. Yes, that’s right, I just ask. From time to time you may see a simple statement at the end of a post that says “tell me what you think” … give it a try and see what happens.

So there you have it. Three very simple steps to encourage your readers to comment on your blog posts. Give one a try and tell me how it works for you.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of speaking at a One More Referral “Brown Bag Lunch and Learn” on the topic of social media and blogging. After attending that seminar, Diane DeVries of Digrafika, a graphic design studio in Dover, NH, started the digrafika blog.

Diane blogs about graphic design, printing, advertising, marketing, and photography. What I like most are the cool marketing ideas Diane comes up with for inexpensive printing items like business cards and bookmarks. If you’re looking for new, creative marketing ideas, you must read her latest post,  The Bookmark: More Than Just A Place Holder.

Another new blogger I admire is Joanne McDonough owner of Joya beauty, a makeup and esthetics studio in Dover, NH. Joanne hired me to give the Joya beauty blog new life and to show her how to make her blog successful.

Generating topics for the blog and finding the time to write about them were Joanne’s biggest challenges. Not only did we give the Joya beauty blog a more custom look with social media sharing features, but we also created a blogging editorial calendar for Joanne. Taking into account Joanne’s busy schedule, the calendar lists blogging ideas as well as and the dates she should blog for the next few months.

What I admire most about Joanne is her excitement and positive attitude towards blogging. Once she had the editorial calendar in hand, she immediately started blogging, and kept to her schedule.

Joanne recently designed bridal makeup looks for a photo shoot at her studio. Read her blog about the shoot: Bridal Photo Shoot hosted at Joya beauty Studio.

Check out Digrafika and Joya beauty blogs and share your thoughts.

In a post I wrote back in April, Blogging is it right for all businesses? Yes!, I told you about a client who needed to convince her boss that blogging is beneficial to their small business. The benefits of blogging out weighed the cons, so with my help, she was able to get the ball rolling on a new blog. During a strategy meeting, the question I love the most arose: “What do we blog about?”

Finding the right topic to blog about can be a challenge if you’re not sure who your target market is. Knowing who you’re speaking to and how to effectively reach them is key. The more focused your topics, the more value you will bring to your audience.

For example. Let’s pretend I own a small local restaurant and I want to start a blog. My first inclination may be to blog about how great the food is at the restaurant, or to blog about the specials of the week. Well, that may be OK if you don’t want visitors at your restaurant, never mind visitors who read your blog. Instead, find that niche – that special something – that will help you stand apart from your competitors.

For the local restaurant, say for example, they hold wine dinners and other special events at the restaurant. Then, they may want to blog about the best type of wine that best accompanies steak. Or, maybe they write a blog post on the challenges they faced planning a the menu for a client and how they overcame the obstacles. They could even designate a certain day of the week to an ingredient and post a sample recipe or two for their readers to make at home.

The topics are endless once you’ve determined your special niche. To determine your blogging niche, start by reading other blogs. Use tools like blogsearch.google.com and search for your industry. When reading other blogs, consider the following:

• What topics are bloggers writing about?
• What are the trends?
• Which topics are blogged about often?
• Which topics don’t get enough attention?
• What blogs do you like, or not, and why?

By reading other blogs in your industry, you’ll get to know who the major players are, how much competition there is and what topic is best suited for you.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of Small Business Blogging where we’ll discuss types of posts that encourage comments.

Have you been blogging for your small business? Share your story. Want more information on how you can start a blog for your business? Contact Patti Fousek for a free consultation.

I had a conversation today with a client who asked if I could email her reasons why their business should blog. She needed to share this info with her boss, so that her boss would “buy-in” to the whole blogging idea. Seeing how blogging has helped me and my business, I’m a true believer. So of course I was very ecstatic to give her all my reasons.

Here is some of what I told her:

You’re the Expert.
Blogging helps to position yourself and your company as the thought leader of your business.This is true regardless if you own a tiny shoe repair shop, or a mega-corporation.

Build Client Relationship
Blogs are a great way to receive feedback from your customers, provide tips, and gain insight into what your customers really want.

Find Employees
Daily readers of your blog pay attention to what you have to say. Chances are they enjoy reading your blog and look forward to your posts. What better way to attract some of those readers as loyal employees.

Rank High on Search Engines
Yes, blogs do help you achieve high keyword rankings on search engines. Blogs tend to get indexed much faster than websites do. Search engines, especially Google, enjoy fresh content. Blogs associated with your website are a great way to update content frequently.

Do you own a blog? What has your experience been?

I’ve been a fan of Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com for a few years now. I’m an avid reader (and watcher) of his blogs. While I knew that video blogging (or vlogs) have grown in popularity over the years, I never really thought of using them myself until recently.

As most of my readers know, I’m in the process of making my SEO Consulting business official. That is, I’m working on developing a business plan and getting all my ducks in a row (an actual website is one of those ducks). In the process of doing so, I’ve obviously have been doing a ton of research relating to all the boring details of business plans (demographics, market research, competitor analysis, taxes, etc.).

In the midst of my research, I found myself landing upon vlog after vlog. Then it dawned on me, since video blogging is such a great vehicle for driving a ton of traffic to a site in a short period of time, why not integrate vlogs into the SEO mix for small businesses.

My initial thought was to use vlogs the same way we use press releases (or in conjunction with a press release). Say for example, you’re a small business and you’re opening a new location – one would normally send out a press release, right? Well, why not also make a video blog post about the new location, show it off in your video, highlight the benefits, and maybe give tips to others in your industry who are also considering an expansion. Post both the press release and the vlog on your site (fully SEO optimized, of course), and watch the traffic pour in. Add an immediate call to action on each landing page, and there ya go, SEO success!