Tag: blog

Blog Regularly

Do you Blog Regularly?

I am not the best example of someone that does blog regularly. I just realized the last blog I wrote was almost a year ago. I am like the shoemaker and his kids shoes. Or the parent who says do as I say, not as I do.

The best thing about writing a blog regularly is that you have new content on your website that web crawlers can find and report to help with organic growth and reach.

It can be easy or hard to actually take the time to write. If you blog regularly, it is easy if words and thoughts come out of your brain and onto paper or keyboard easily. It may be hard to blog regularly, if you have the thoughts and aren’t around your keyboard to post them.

One of the other things about blogging is that getting people to your website may be a challenge. One thing that you can do is take the content that you write on your website and share it in a newsletter, link to it on social media, and take the best part of it and post it as an article on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a good option for anyone who does not already have a website with a blog platform. There are hundreds of millions of potential readers AND if you link back to your website, you may end up with a following on your RSS feed if you have one or a new connection on your social media.

A few tips for your blog:

  • 275 – 300 words minimum
  • include an image
  • use your keyword frequently

Call me if you need some thoughts or guidance. I am much better at helping my customers than doing my own!

Add Google Alerts to your plan

How can Google Alerts help your marketing?Google alerts 1st picture

How do you keep track of what people are saying about you on the web? Other than combing the web hour after hour, I have found Google Alerts to be one of the best things since, toast, (not so sure it is better than sliced bread, but, you get my point right?)

You can set up an Alert for just about anything:

  • Press release – Include the words in the title to see where it was published.
  • Your name – enclose it in quotes
  • Your company name –
  • Your product or service
  • Key words that apply to your product or service
  • Your competition
  • Job Search – Read this article from Careerealism about How To Use Google Alerts for your search.

Create Google Alerts To create an alert, it is as simple as typing Google Alerts into your browser window. Or you can go to http://google.com/alerts When you type in the word for which you want to create an alert, suggested articles and links will appear. You can establish criteria for your alert like:

  • Frequency – can be as it happens, once a day, or once a week.
  • Sources – automatic (all of these), news, blogs, web, video, books, discussion, or finance.
  • Language – practically anyone you can think of
  • Region – any, or a specific county. It doesn’t allow more specific than that.
  • How many – only the best results or all of the results, and
  • Where to deliver the alert – I would suggest a gmail address.

Google alerts image 2Once you pick what you want to track, you can establish how frequently you get the updates. If you would like to use the information in the Google Alerts to help you with content for your social posts, set your delivery time for early in the day. If you choose the digest option, all of your alerts will come to you in one email. I have alerts set for some of my clients, so I personally prefer to have my alerts come as individual emails. Hopefully, you have picked great keywords to help you find information that you can share.

Use Google Alerts to help you stay up to date on new information in your industry and to help you fill out your content marketing.

Time to write a post – Mind is Blank?

What do you do when your Mind is Blank and it is time for a blog article?Mind is Blank

I sat down at my desk this morning, looked at my calendar and realized that I was scheduled for my weekly blog post. I was thinking, my mind is blank, I was out of ideas, I didn’t have a clue what I was going to write 300 words about. Then a thought hit me – what sort of advice would I give someone if they said that their “Mind is blank!”

Here are a few tips you might want to try:

  1. Press This – Since I use WordPress for my website platform, they have a tool that you can add to your browser tool bar that allows you to add the link and title of a webpage or article you are reading to a draft post. This is a great tool, because all you have to do is write a sentence or two about what your thoughts were on the article and save it as a draft. You have the article for reference and you have the bullet points or sentences you wrote to remind you of the thoughts you need to flush out.
  2. Scoop-it – Use a service like Scoop-it, Reddit or Digg, to feed your solo brainstorming. Something might not be applicable for you at the moment, but if you save items in your “one-day” file, you will have content waiting for you.
  3. Series – Instead of writing one long article, turn your thoughts into a series of articles. Everyone loves a good top five or best 10 lists of items. Perhaps you may not want to stretch a top 5 of something out over 5 weeks, but in the interim, you may find other ideas from which you can create blog articles.
  4. Events – Do you promote events in your blog? What about the before AND the after. Did you just host a successful workshop or expo. Talk about it.
  5. Products – when was the last time you updated everyone on the benefits of a product or service that you offer? Writing a blog post refreshes your readers on the values and benefits AND it provides you something fresh to share in your newsletter and other social platforms.

I am sure that there are more suggestions that you can find that will help you find blog content when it is time for your next scheduled article. What can you think of to share with the other readers?

And I was worried about coming up with 300 words….

 

B2B vs B2C – Blog

B2B vs B2C – Blog

In our first article, we talked about why you would want to use different platforms for your business. This article will talk about the difference of B2B vs B2C – Blogging.

Blog stands for the weblog. One of the most important things that you can do is have your blogB2B vs B2C blogs - Time2Mrkt attached to you website.  Having the blog physically on your website helps keep readers on your business site. If you cannot, for some reason, have your blog on your site, you should at least create content that will allow you to link pages from your site within your blog articles. One of the major platforms that allows you to incorporate a blog into your static website is WordPress. Some of the other sites in the image to the right are sites that you can host a blog, but it is not ON your website.

One of the best things about a blog is that it allows you to build thought leadership and brand awareness. It can also help you advocate for a cause.

B2B – Use a blog to provide information on your products or services. Here is where the thought leadership comes into play. Your blog could include how-to’s, client testimonials, you opinion on other thought leaders articles. Offer best practices or case studies.

B2C – The blog becomes a repository for successes, interesting ways to use your product, create a contest or share results. Do you have a project coming up that you can share the step-by-step process?

In general, I think the blog is more advantageous to a B2B business but everyone can benefit in some degree.

Why | Blogs | LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Video
Google | Image | Pinterest | Location Sites | E-news

 

4 Reasons to Blog

Why should you write a blog?  You certainly don’t have to write it or anything. Remember whatthe-only-thing-certain-is-death-and-taxes Ben Franklin said!

Quite frankly, you might be able to run your business, especially if it is a B2C business without ever writing a blog article or updating your website, BUT, why not? Here are a few reasons you should:

  1. Big Picture – Search bots from the major search engines love to see changes on your website.  If they don’t, they tend to take longer and longer to return to “rank” your site. The more frequently your site has a change, if even only infinitesimal, the bots notice and return more quickly. Blogging helps that happen.
  2. Expertise – when you write a blog, you establish your expertise on a subject.  It could be good beers, good Mexican restaurants, or why you need to blog or use social media. This helps those who might be searching for someone with your talents find you a bit more easily.
  3. Opinions – Sometimes you just need to express yourself. Remember that this could come back to bite you, but in most cases, it could possibly lead to notoriety.  For example someone I know writes book reviews.  She has developed a huge following. Some people, like “mommy bloggers” have even been able to monetize the whole writing blogs thing. If someone else has written an article, use that article as a base for your post (giving proper credit or link), then provide your opinions about what the other person has written.
  4. Authorship – when you add a tool such as Google Authorship to the items you write, it does two things – it drives your website up in rank as we mentioned in item #1 and it helps get your name noticed if you happen to provide guest posts on other blogs.

Blogs are best when attached to your website instead of on another tool like Blogger, Tumbler or Typepad. As noted, you can write about your products, services, and opinions. Throughout all of this remember to drive readers back to other parts of your website, such as a services page or a specific link back to the product you might be discussing.

Blogs don’t have to be long. In my opinion, they just have to “be”.

I would love to read your thoughts.

 

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