3 actions for your Facebook group

For some people blogging seems to be a technological advance they cannot cope with. For you and me it seems to be very easy, but for one particular friend I needed to find an alternative.

Originally she asked me to advise her on search engine optimisation, so I gave her a quick summary over coffee. She had a website that her company had provided, with the limitations self-editing within a template allows, and hopefully my advice on keyword research would spice up her copy a bit more than it would have done.

But since blogging was not an option she was willing to undergo, I suggested creating a Facebook Group instead. She already had a Facebook account and enjoyed using it, so this was just a natural progression.

Out came her laptop, and we soon created her a brand new group, much to her surprise and enjoyment. My preliminary explanations about SEO made the process a little easier, as she was primed with suitably keyworded copy from her company’s literature, plus a few of her own.

During this exercise I needed to find a simple way to explain how to optimise a Facebook group, so I created the three main actions required: collate, paste and tell.

It really is very simple:

• Collate: get together all the information you need to promote a new event or product from your company, such as words, pictures, recommendations, videos or whatever.

• Paste: go to your Facebook group page and put in the material you have collected.

• Tell: then don’t forget to tell all your fans about your new entry through the link underneath the photo, not forgetting to tell their friends and Facebook contacts to visit the group, add in their comments and suggestions, and sign up themselves.

Never expect the popularity of your group to grow on its own. You need to ask your friends to help you with your viral marketing, don’t expect it to happen automatically. And if you provide good material for them to recommend to potential new recruits, then that makes it all the easier for them.

Oh, and there’s a fourth action just to complicate things: schedule in a time each week to put in new material. If you have an ‘update urge’ within the week, don’t resist it, but why not create a folder to store possible fodder for your Facebook page update so when the time comes you are ready. This makes the process all that much more enjoyable.

To comment or not to comment, it’s all about interaction

One of the aspects of a blog is that it is interactive. This means readers are able to contribute to your blog if they have something to say. Blogging programmes automatically add an area after posts where readers can add their point of view. The ability to comment is also part of the phenomenon Web2.0, which is about interaction on the web.

So, what is special about blogs and commenting? Ordinary websites don’t have areas to put your point across, unless it’s a form to leave your details or send an email. Therefore what you have written is not automatically showed to you afterward for others to read, something that naturally occurs on a blog (unless the blog’s administrator wants to moderate your comment first, to make sure it isn’t spam).

But why should you comment on blogs? Apart from sharing your opinions, your comment may increase the value of the blog post, making it more interest to other readers. The author may also be inclined to respond, and starting a conversation – all adding to the entertainment factor.

Another thing to note, comments are viewed by the search engine spiders as new material, so the more interaction, the more the blog post goes up the search engines.

Comments can vary in content, as their authors can agree or disagree with the topic of the post. As long as you continue to be polite and forthcoming, and your contribution is relevant and resourceful, any comment is good. Sometimes comments lead onto other blog posts, especially if backed up by links. As spiders thrive on links, there are opportunities for comment authors to leave their details.

How do you induce a comment? Simply ask for one, as sometimes it won’t occur to the reader to leave one otherwise. Positioning a question at the bottom of your post may also encourage a response, as well as controversial subject matter. Those who comment are usually used to interaction on the net, and are likely to be avid social networkers, but anything that stimulates a reader to take action is advantageous.

Why is it good to comment? If you want to find your way in your chosen field, visit as many relevant blogs and leave a comment where you can. Then you will begin to get noticed by other bloggers and blog readers, and commenting will also enable you to link back to your blog or website, thus increasing your visitor rate. If you get a name for yourself by leaving good quality comments, visitors are more likely to visit to read your articles, subscribe to your blog and even leave comments themselves.

RSS simply explained

When I asked for feedback on what people wanted to know about blogs and blogging, many of them wanted to know about RSS. The main question being what is RSS?

So here is an explanation of those who do not know:

RSS, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, is easily recognisable through the orange square icon found at the top of most blogs’ sidebars.

It is like a subscription service, enabling your followers to receive any new material you’ve written as soon as it’s published. It saves you time and makes it easy for you to keep up with new stuff without having to search all your favourite blogs for it.

Think of it like subscribing to a magazine: the new post (or message) gets delivered straight to you, either via email into your in-box, or into search engine readers if you’ve subscribed via that method.

A search engine reader provides pages with links to newly available posts, or individual ‘cookies’ on the search engine homepage which lists the last three posts of that blog through headline links.

Apart from allowing your followers to keep track of your new material, RSS also has other uses, mainly through social media.

When you publish a new blog post, it can be ‘fed’ into your social networking sites such as Facebook or Twitter. This means that each new message appears as a link automatically in these sites. The RSS feed delivers your new content in this format for your followers to read.

In Facebook the whole post is published in the Notes pages, and your Homepage or Status page shows the headline link (known as a permalink) with perhaps the first few lines of the post as a taster.

In Twitter your post is listed as the title and the first few words, followed by a tinyurl (or reduced link) to the blog post. As a Twitter message uses only 140 characters, there will not be room for the whole permalink, so various methods are used to shorten it.

RSS is important if you wish to increase your readership or encourage more interest from search engines. It is a piece of software that encourages the search engine spiders to follow your blog, and automatically spreads your news throughout the web. Without it your blog would appear lifeless as only those who are invited would get a chance to read it, and only if they bothered to visit it regularly. RSS automatically delivers your messages without effort, saves time and encourages a new readership, especially through social media.

If you want to find out how to include RSS into your blog, I have written a blogging visual e-course on the subject, called “Setting up a RSS feed = how to set up RSS feed so others can follow your blog posts”. You can view it from my blogging pages, and will be available to buy, along with the other e-courses, from September, so watch this space!

Alice Elliott of Design Your Marketing has created a series of visual e-courses to help you set up and maintain a blog from WordPress.com. They are designed to take you through the blogging journey either completely from the beginning, or to allow you to dip into those areas you are unsure of, or would like to know more. They should be ready to purchase from September 2009.

How are blogging and teeth similar?

Blogging as like flossing your teeth, you need do it fairly regularly to maintain your oral hygiene (or marketing awareness). It doesn’t need to be done everyday like brushing your teeth (or working on your marketing strategy), but you need to keep it up if you want a nice smile (or well marketed business).

Nobody likes looking at yellow teeth (neglected blog) or being subjected to bad breath (badly composed posts). Fluoride in your toothpaste (sharing your expertise) will encourage a broad smile (widely promoting your business) which will attract friends (more customers).

Your body, like your blog, needs good nutrition (interesting and valuable content) to result in a healthy disposition (frequently read blog). And regular exercise (internet research) will help you find suitable material, as both stimulate the brain!

What is the difference between an article and a blog post?

An article is a lengthy piece of writing, written in an expert’s point of view, aimed at explaining a topic in great detail. A blog post is a shorter piece of writing, usually in a ‘conversational’ style, aimed at updating or educating your readers, or to spark ideas and interest in your business.

Articles are produced to promote the author’s expertise and prowess at writing and research, hence why they are long. A blog post should take one subject and explain it succinctly within a few short paragraphs, written from multiple view-points to gain the comprehension of the reader.

Articles can vary in length, and even though they are online, are designed to be printed out for leisurely reading. Blog posts are meant to be read immediately. The subject should be introduced within the headline and first sentence, and the concept within the first paragraph. As most blog readers only read the first 25% of a post, or spend an average of 96 seconds, getting the jist across at the very beginning is important to achieve your post being read in full.

Twitter has minimalised this even further (hence why it’s called micro-blogging). There are just 140 characters to get your point across and capture your reader’s interest, but you do have the advantage of interaction: a tinyurl link can be added to direct the reader to a blog post or article for further reading.

What are your blogging barriers?

Many people have told me that they are afraid to start blogging. Digging further into this revealed a number of different fears, and not necessarily about the technology side, which I thought was the main reason. Yes, technology is a hindrance, but it is something that can eventually be overcome with guidance. It is the psychological aspects that can be real barriers.

One psychological area is how you appear to your public. Are you as good as your peers, so is what you write worth reading? Everybody else seems to have such intelligent things to say, and your little contribution will be swamped.

Not so! If you are really passionate about your subject, and know it inside out, what you write about will always be interesting to others. You are the expert here, so why not let others know about it? What you think is just ordinary may be totally new to others, especially if you are able to explain it in a different way to the other bloggers.

Another way to overcome this barrier is to watch and listen (read) other blogs, and follow (or subscribe to) experts as they regularly post. This passive observation will enable you to understand more about how others talk about their businesses, how they publicise their benefits and solutions, and how they increase their visibility and therefore their reputation.

It will enable you to sort out the real experts from the time-wasters who have nothing particular to say, and the latter should fire you up in to producing your own viewpoint to counteract their crass statements. Don’t just sit there stewing, correct it within your own blog!

Another way to contribute your two-pence-worth is through commenting. If you like what someone has posted (or even disagree), then leave a comment! It doesn’t have to be much, but it does have to be more than just ‘Nice post’.

I advise always to be polite, complimentary or forthcoming, even if you are totally disagreeing, to maintain your good character. Remember how horrid it is to receive negative responses that drain all your self-confidence, so don’t go down that road. Stand in good stead with other readers and encourage them to offer their own sides in the argument.

And another barrier is if you are unsure of your own credibility to write well. All I can say to this is, practice. I didn’t start out writing well, so I read lots of blogs and learnt a few techniques, and started writing posts to see how it went, and eventually I picked up a style that seemed to work.

One technique is to imagine talking to your readers, so write like you’re having a conversation with them. It will enable your readers to warm more towards you and your posts. If you find this difficult, try yabbering away into a dictaphone and then transcribe it as a post – this will train you into your conversational style; you can always edit it into good English later. And once you’ve accomplished this ability it will make writing posts that much easier.

If I haven’t covered all the reasons why this stops you from blogging, then why not let me know? If I have enough information I could write another post about it, and acknowledge my sources appropriately (thanks go to Helene Cooper and Ute Wieczorek-King for their ideas). And remember, leaving comments helps bring traffic to your sites too.

How aware are you of the power of the picture?

I’ve just finished my blogging package ‘The Power of Pictures’.

This is just one of my series of blogging packages I’m creating to help women (and men) towards creating their own successful business blog. The first ones of the series are scheduled to be ready towards the end of July, so watch this space!

I like it when I see pictures in a blog. This isn’t only for photographers and those whose business survives on imagery such as arts and crafts, jewellry and silver-ware, stationery and cards or whatever. I know I am guilty in the fact that I don’t put enough pictures into my blog, but it certainly does make a difference, not ony because it is colourful, but because it enables those who thrive on the visual side of comprehension to understand your point of view better.

But there are a few pointers that you need to know before submitting an image to your blog.

First, do you have copyright? So many pictures are ’stolen’ from the web, both consciously and unconsciously, but it is a crime. This also includes scanning in images from books or whatever, just like photocopying music, which carries a heavy fine. Please be careful about where your pictures come from.

I generally create my own, or otherwise I pay for my pictures from the web from special websites that provide imagery, usually at very reasonable costs. I’m very much aware of copyright, since my mother said she fell foul of this practice in the beginning of her freelancing days, and had to pay the author more for his picture than her commission for her work. It truly isn’t worth it, as it’s very easy to be found out.

OK, so you have your picture, then it needs to be adapted for the web. I use Photoshop because as an ex-graphic designer I have it to hand. It sizes my pictures by centimetres or pixels (whatever you are used to), transforms the image into RGB which is the correct form for the web (as oppose to CYMK for printing), and can create a myriad of file types that are acceptable for uploading.

And once you’ve created your pictures to the exact specifications, it’s very easy to pop into your post – but to find out how you’re going to have to buy my ‘The Power of Pictures’ blogging package that’s available at the end of July!

Forget your blog, forget your readers, forget SEO

There is nothing worse than setting up a blog and then forgetting about it – like someone said in a Twitter post, “a blog with no new content is like a cheese sandwich”. Although this made me smile, he is right. An inactive blog is the same as a brochure website, looking pretty but with no search engine optimisation activity it is worth nothing.

The answer? Get off your backsides and start contributing.

How? There is lots of material all around you. Look at your old articles, e-newsletter material, past emails answering questions from your clients, stuff you may have read from other blog posts or whatever that you would like to put your own slant on it, articles from business magazines, overhead conversations at networking events, general gossip: this forum is full of it!

How often? Regularity is better than frequency. Michael Martine of Remarkablogger stated in a recent post that he now blogs less than before, but his posts have a much higher value in their content so his SEO impact is higher, as well as the quality of comemnts. See what he says in one of my posts: http://www.designyourmarketing.co.uk/2009/07/blogging-less-can-be-effective-too/

What should you say? The aim is to provide value for your readers, give them something to think about, provide solutions to their problems, pose a question to encourage comments: comments are treated as new material too, so getting lots of these is also good for SEO.

Create an editorial diary so you can draft a number of posts in advance and come back to them later to spruce them up for posting. If you’re really clever, or if your original post is too long, split up a subject into many installments: this will keep the audience’s interest going, and incorporating cliff-hangers will encourage them to look out for the next post. It also will make it all the easier for you if you know what you are going to write next.

Don’t make your posts too long. People don’t have time to read huge articles on blogs, keep it down to five paragraphs, or more if they are short ones. Short, snappy and sweet is my motto. It makes it quicker to write them too.

If you get an idea, write it down in a notebook, or if you’re online, create a quick draft and go back to it later. Once you’re creative juices are following, why waste them?

Constant contributions are more important than making your blog look wonderful, stuffed full of imagery and widgets, but with no content. Get writing – the more your readers, and therefore potential clients, get to know about you, the more likely you are to do business with them.

Oh, and another thing, try and put a purpose into your posts. Blogging aimlessly about everything and anything is also a waste: there must always be an ultimate aim in whatever you do.

My purpose for this post? To raise awareness of who I am, you’ll follow the link to the post above, and you’ll realise that I want to help women to blog successfully to further their businesses by visiting my blogging pages.

Treat Twitter respectfully for the right response

Twitter is also called micro-blogging, because it is an opportunity for you to express yourself and tell the world all the facts about you and your business you are unable to fit into your website. It’s micro-blogging because it is confined to only 140 characters per ‘tweet’, which means you have to be concise with your message. (If you reduce it down to 120 characters that will leave room for any retweets.)

Just go ahead and join up, but make sure you’re careful with your username. Does it truly reflect you or your business? And if you were to change direction, would it continue to be useful? And is it memberable, easy to spell, universal to understand? If you can squeeze in a keyword, so much the better.

Communicate with your followers, don’t just post endless bits about yourself. Also don’t tweet rubbish or uninteresting material. Find out others within your target market and ask them questions, engage them in conversation, just like networking. People react to a lively commentary, and if you want to know something, tweet it in general – some people say Twitter is better than search engines for finding out what you want.

Find all the gurus and experts in your field through Twellow.com. Ask them questions and try and get to know them, but don’t bombard them – they also have a life. It’s best to watch and read their tweets first to learn how to tweet effectively and what line they are taking. Look at their followers and see if there are any you would like to follow too.

Post up some valuable information for your followers to read, and if you’re stuck for content, use Google Alerts to send you material on your chosen subjects, then trawl through and post up the interesting stuff using tinyurls for the links (this facility is incorporated into applications like TweetDeck). But usually the advice that comes direct from you is best because it shows off who you are, unlike those people who tweet endless quotations.

Get fodder for your tweets from the stuff you have already written – any articles, blogs, e-books, old emails or whatever. You’d be surprised what you have already, and it will be all your own material. Feed your new posts from your blog into your Twitter stream, and get retweet widgets for your blog so people can retweet your posts if they like them, and you can also feed your e-newsletters through Aweber.com and articles from EzineArticles.com into Twitter through their automation.

And finally, get a following to follow you, which you can achieve if you continue to post up valuable information, strike up intellectual and humorous conversations, provide relevant input to discussions, regularly retweet stuff you like and acknowledge kind gestures towards you. Then you’ll get to be known as an expert in your field, and can start to achieve more business through your other business media.

How many ways can you use a blog?

One blog I always read avidly is Graham Jones’s, and his post on using a blog to keep your customers happy poses an interesting insight into how you could use a blog in different ways, not just the usual weblog diary thing.

I like the idea of providing private blogs, or even individual password protected pages on your blog, for individuals or special customers; the blog could become a kind of interactive go-between or communication device (OK, I know we’ve got email for that sort of thing, but it’s not archived, is it?). Your blog could become a medium for customers to track the progress of their purchases and ask the provider specific questions, especially if the item is bespoke, as well as finding out more personal information than was available on the website.

Making your customers happy by keeping them in the loop is what a blog should be used for – communication creates relationships, which is part of the marketing process, and sharing and updating information is vital in maintaining the equilibrium.

How many of you can cope with blogspeak?

I’ve just listened to a video about blogging. Normally I would be very excited and would take voracious notes, but this time I just sat there bemused.

As a result I am determined to develop my new niche. Since the end of May, when I developed Bell’s Palsy, I had to take a back seat from my business to recover, and I used the time to rethink my strategy and where I was going with my business. This is an important activity to do now and again, and there’s nothing like having half a face to focus on what’s doing well and what isn’t.

I’ve decided to adapt my business in stages, and the first stage will be explaining how to create and maintain a blog for British non-techie females. The ‘British’ part is as relevant as the ‘non-techie’ and ‘female’ parts, because there are so much stuff out there that is American – sorry those from the other side of the pond, but American is not the same as English. The ‘female’ part is apt because, after coping with my dear, wonderful and thoroughly techie brother who sorted out minor problems with my blog, I realised that there is another vocabulary out there that isn’t tuned in to women or mumpreneurs.

So I would like to boost my ‘marketing research’ I’ve been doing at networking events lately, and ask for questions from equally bemused ‘would-be-bloggers’ what they would like to know, which bits they don’t understand, what is holding them back from setting up a blog, and how would they like their ‘lessons’ to be presented to them in the best way for them to learn.

Oh, and for those ’starting out’ bloggers, I will be working with a ‘free’ blog from WordPress.com so you can get to grips with blogging the easy way, and don’t have to worry about all that nasty techie stuff needed for self-hosting blogs. (Once you have begun to understand blogging, then you can try your hand at the more advanced stuff at a later date.)

Come on girls, let’s have some questions… leave your contributions in the comments box below.

The fall, and rise, of blogging

Take a look at this blog post Blogging is dead, long live blogging – free wordpress ebook by Marko Saric of HowToMakeMyBlog.com, I think you will find it interesting.

It’s all about how important it is to keep on blogging, and how Twitter and other social media will not take over – and don’t forget to download the free e-book too!

Leave your comments and views below – I will look forward to what you have to say.

Blogging less can be effective too

I would like to reprint a portion of a post How to get more time to blog by Michael Martine of Remarkablogger, Blog Consultant and Blog Coach. I hope he doesn’t mind, but it raised some points that I wanted to share with you and hope you would find interesting.

Blog Less

Despite the fact that nearly every blog-advice blogger on the planet says you should blog every day, quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to blogging (most people aren’t successful, so why is doing everything they do a good idea? Hmm?). I’ve seen this first hand for myself, ever since I dropped down from seven posts a week to 5, and now I’m down to a whopping single post per week. Did I kill my business? No! In fact, my subscriber count and my income are up, up, up! (Some of you are aware of FeedBurner recently adding FriendFeed subscribers in with feed counts, which raised everyone’s feed subscriber counts overnight — I’m talking about an increase I saw before FeedBurner made this change.)

It’s true that in some ways, posting every day or even more than once a day can grow your blog’s audience. Certainly it will help with blog SEO, but maybe not as much as you might think. In my own example, I’m writing bigger, meatier blog posts that are absolutely my best writing. The result is that each post gets more trackbacks and more traffic. The more backlinks a webpage gets, the more authority it has in Google’s eyes, which is ultimately better for SEO.

Having more posts indexed by Google but getting fewer trackbacks or less influence & reach is not an even trade. Quality is better than quantity. If you make people happy, you’ll also make Google happy. And if you make Google happy, Google will make you happy when you see your PageRank numbers and search engine rankings.

Blogging less leaves me more time to do important stuff like spend time with my granddaughter and really be there for her in her life as she grows up (I just got her her first kite, and now we’re waiting for a day with some breeze in it — I can’t wait!). Blogging less also allows me to make more money, because I have more time to create and promote information products or maintain my network.

You just don’t need to blog everyday (but you do need to be consistent). What you need is to blog about stuff your audience can’t live without. You need to blog about stuff they want to spread to their friends and link to in their own blogs and on social media.

Websites and blogs: how are they different?

Actually a blog is a kind of website, as they have many similar attributes.

They both occupy a presence on the internet, use an URL or web address, need a host server to keep them online, contain information such as text content, pictures, links and keywords, both benefit from search engine optimisation and can be tracked through Google Analytics.

But why don’t we call blogs websites? What is it that makes them different?

The difference is in their programming, and how they make use of Web2.0. The are pre-runners of social networking before Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. They thrive on interaction, new content, feeds and optimisation.

Blogs are designed to be self-editable. This means you don’t to pay a web designer to make changes or add content. You can update them through very easy access (a username and password) from any computer in the world. The programming is self-contained, and if you can write in Word, you can update a blog.

They thrive on being updated frequently and regularly, their programming is designed to attract search engine spiders who are looking for new content all the time. This is very good for web optimisation which puts blogs higher up the search engines than websites. Another consideration is that blogs are visited by spiders hourly, whereas websites could wait for months.

Unlike websites, blogs only update new material each time it is posted. Every time a website is updated the new stuff supersedes the old content, whereas blogs store previous entries like a news-roll, each post dated accordingly and assigned it’s own URL for access at a later date.

Blogs are designed to encourage interactive communication between author and readers. Those who comment can link back to their own sites, and this content is also considered as new material by internet spiders. This concept is not available in ordinary websites, except through sign up forms, and then contributors cannot view afterwards what they have written.

And another consideration to note: blogs are much cheaper to create and maintain!

OK, so what else makes blogs better?

Blogs are created to help businesses to spread their expertise, explain what their business does in different ways, maintain a relationship with their visitors and customers, offer subscription services for regular contact, channel traffic back to relevant websites, and can be fed to other websites like social networking for a higher readership.

Most websites, especially ‘brochure style’ ones, are static and once created are rarely updated, and can’t provide an opportunity to explain everything as space is often limited. In fact, over cluttering your pages with too much information can be counter-productive. Visitors will not return for new content, websites are unlikely to get bookmarked, and only through a sign up form to a newsletter can the business maintain a relationship with potential customers.

But this is only my opinion, what do you think about this subject? Since this a blog, leave a comment in the box below to share your views.

3 ways to successfully market your messages

OK, without the multi-million pound marketing budgets the big corporates have, how can SMEs compete? But you can accomplish it just as well within your sphere by using these three simple, common sense marketing techniques that needn’t cost the earth.

First, make your messages regular, repetitive and always upbeat. There are plenty of ways to achieve this: blogging is just one of them, and now with the rise of social networking, Twitter in particular, there are other media where we can bombard our followers (or potential customers) with carefully constructed marketing messages frequently posted to gain maximum effect.

The good thing about Twitter is that is you only use 140 characters (or 120 to leave enough room for, hopefully, retweets) so you have to think about what you are going to say before submitting it. This is a very good practice all marketers should adhere to. The same should apply when posting on your blog, or playing with Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networking sites: keep it short, sharp and sweet, making it obvious what you’re talking about from the beginning, and be appropriate, relevant and newsworthy.

Second, turn your marketing around so you don’t mention the product or service directly, but how it will affect the customer, how they will feel, who it will change their lives for the better, what impact it will have. This is a concept most successful businesses employ, and it works! Customers aren’t interested in your product, they only care how it will affect them: will they get their money’s worth, will they look good, feel good, be the envy of their friends, raise their social status or whatever?

Third, be consistent with your marketing messages by creating a routine. OK, this is difficult for SMEs who may not have enough personnel to spend time on this, but try and make it part of your 40% a week marketing activities; I’m sure you can slot in a few tweets and calendarise a blog post now and again? It will pay dividends, as large successful businesses promote their new products at least 27 times, in the hope that their customers will see it between 7 and 9 times.

Frequent marketing tactics will eventually sink in: this is all part of building your relationships with your customers (which is what marketing is all about), either for immediate effect but definitely for the future. Remember, you don’t want them to forget you, or be seduced away by your competitors, do you?

New business? Want a website? My advice is: don’t!

You’re an entrepreneur and you want to start up a business. Great.

The first reaction to getting a slot on the internet is to get a website. Wrong!

Why wrong? This is because websites are notoriously expensive things! How much cash do you have? I suggest you should have a good think before you go throwing it away on unnecessary, inappropriate, uncostworthy things such as a website.

But surely everybody needs a website, or they won’t be taken seriously by prospective customers?

Of course you need a presence on the internet – it’s a requisite requirement nowadays. But not a website. What you need is a blog, and a good grasp of social networking. That’s how you get yourself known on the web. Only when you’ve made it, got a load of followers, built up your list of contacts, made some money, then you can go ahead and get yourself a website. By then you will know exactly what you want it for, and will build it with a proper purpose.

The trouble is, so many people get themselves a website, and it just sits there, looking pretty, and doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. They haven’t got the money to update it, because unless they have built it themselves they will have to pay a fortune to their webmaster to make any changes.

Now, if you have a blog, that’s exactly what you can, and should, do. This is because blogs are self-editable; they thrive on new material because they are designed for it. They are also little web magnets for internet traffic, as the search engine spiders are programmed to visit blogs extremely frequently, just in case there is something new for them to ‘read’. If they like what they find, and there are lots of keywords and key-phrases that match up to what is ‘hot’ at that moment, then you can get really high in the search engines!

And the other side of the coin is to get into social networking. The beauty of the web is that you can link and ‘feed’ all your blog content into social networking, so a lot more people can start reading about exactly what your business does – as long as you have written about it. And blogs are the place to write about your business: frequently, easily and regularly.

Don’t hide under a bushel – reach out and network. Tell the world about what you do. If people like what they read, you can start to make friends, contacts, business, liaisons, strategic alliances or whatever, all on the internet, through a relatively inexpensive blog – not by wasting your money on a website!

And does it work? There are plenty of businesses who are extremely successful today and have all started with just a blog, even before social networking got off the ground. Blogs are the beginnings of social networking, it’s just that the interactive side of the web (Web2.0) has developed a bit more recently…

Never give up on your marketing

I read somewhere that small businesses really ought to spend 40% of their time doing marketing if they want to survive. 40%! That’s quite a lot, especially if you’re a sole trader or only have a few employees, but if you think about it, a lot of what you do would be already considered as marketing without you really knowing it.

Write down all the marketing activities you already do, and I expect you’ll be surprised. Certainly contributing to a blog is one of them. Writing your newsletter, answering questions from clients, writing a sales letter, updating your website, writing the words to advertise your next promotion, getting new literature printed, networking, thinking of a new elevator pitch – I could go on and on.

Next, split up these tasks into their respective areas. By reducing them down to their bare elements they become less oppressive and more manageable. Concentrate on what you enjoy doing the most, and see if you can farm out the less deletable to someone who does enjoy doing them or knows more about it.

Set up a marketing system – mark out on a calendar your tactics ahead, focusing on next week or month or even a year. Work out how they will be achieved systematically and automatically, planning in advance so that nothing is missed out and you know exactly what the end goal is. In fact, why not work backwards from the final product? This method will certainly sort out the time factors much more easily for you.

Try new marketing methods – there may be new ones you haven’t thought of that might make a big difference. Do lots of research and ask others who may already be doing it before you take on any large projects, but certainly dabbling won’t do you any harm. It’s always good to keep in the know.

And don’t forget to keep asking questions to make sure you are on the right track. Do a poll or a questionnaire, find out where your target market is hanging out, what they need and want, and what solutions will be the best thing for them. Be able to adapt your business accordingly – you must keep up with changes.

And remember, marketing is not a quick fix. It does take time, because what you are aiming to do is to gain the trust of potential clients. It can take several months for a marketing cycle to produce results, so don’t get despondent if nothing seems to be working immediately. A watched kettle never boils, but you will get your cup of tea in time.

10 Fantastic Books About Marketing Your Blog Online

This is another excellent post by Randa Clay about 10 ‘must-have’ books if you want to succeed in blogging:

http://randaclay.com/blogging/10-fantastic-books-about-marketing-your-blog-online/

A well worth read!

Creating a successful corporate blog

I would like you to read this post I’ve found that describes how to create a successful corporate blog:

http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-5725-Public-Relations-Examiner~y2009m4d22-Creating-a-successful-corporate-blog

It’s quite long (in fact too long, it’s more likely an article) but stick with it.

How do I use my blog to promote my business?

Hello Alice,

I do have a blog but I am not sure if I use it correctly. I created my blog to promote my business and to benefit from Google ranking. I am afraid I am not writing as much as I wanted … my excuse not enough time, but the real reason is I don’t really know how to use it correctly and benefit from it.

I am open to suggestions. Please visit www.penelopesweddings.com/blog.

Penelope

–oo00oo–

Hi Penelope

Yes, you’re on the way to producing a great blog! But we need to make it more interesting, for both your readers and the internet spiders.

As a wedding business I’m sure you have some great images you can share – beautiful brides, sumptuous cakes, fabulous dresses, elegant receptions, giggling bridesmaids – advertise and promote your business through pictures! If you have a great set of photos to share you needn’t write that much to go with it, they will speak for themselves.

You need to upload an image that resembles the header on your website so that your blog looks more like its extension. You can do this through the Appearance link on the Dashboard and go down to Custom Header and download a header image. WordPress give instructions on how to do this, alternatively you could use my blogging package ‘Creating a visual identity’ which is part of my ‘Beautifying your Blog’ series I’m creating on my new blogsite.

I’m glad to see you’ve created categories and blogs, but I think you should vary your tags to capture a wider audience for search engine optimisation. I imagine you got these keywords from Wordtracker or some similar provider – great – but other words that are relevant to your post will increase spider activity and therefore traffic to your blog, and ultimately your website. And don’t forget to put the tag cloud widget onto your sidebar along with one for your recent posts.

Post a nice picture of you on your About page, plus a bit more about you and some links to your website. People like a personal touch, especially for the service industry.

And if you want to accumulate a following, get a RSS feed URL from feedburner.com or feedblitz.com and put the code for the chicklit button or new post subscription link into a text widget and place it at the top of your sidebar.

There’s quite a lot to be getting on with here, so take it step by step. But the best way to promote your blog is to keep putting up new posts, preferably short, concise and relevant, regularly rather than frequently, with content gathered from your day-to-day activities that you think will interest your readers and potential customers.

Alice

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Hi Penelope

On further inspection I’ve worked out that your blog is actually a self-hosted WordPress blog attached to your existing website!

To accomplish what I said in my last post, uploading your matching header will have to be done through your ftp provider into an images file, and then allocated to that particular area of the .css within the theme. This is quite techie, so if you are not inclined in that department you will have to get your webmaster to do this for you.

The widget stuff is the same, except that because it is a self-hosted blog you can upload forms into your text widgets and posts, something you cannot do in a ‘free’ WordPress blog. Take advantage of this with a new post subscription sign-up box which is included with your blog’s RSS feed – encourage your followers to keep in the loop with any new information you post.

Alice