The Power of Blogging for Professionals & Small-Medium Business Success

The Power of Blogging for Professionals & Small Business Presenter: Doug Hay, CEO

Dead Simple Internet Marketing™ Series

Presenter: Doug Hay

• Early adopter of Internet marketing & social media

• 30 year marketing veteran • Sought after speaker -

presented at local, regional and national conferences

• Lectured at two universities for the Sales & Marketing Executives program

Dead Simple Social Media Series

• Social media overview• Blogging• Google+• Facebook• Twitter• Pinterest• LinkedIn• Using a Dashboard• Content Marketing

Our Services For Small/Medium Biz

• Website design & programming • Social Media consulting,

implementation & training • Small business SEO – Search

Engine Optimization: Keywords, link building & content creation.

• Press release writing, optimization and reporting

• Blog set up, strategy, and training • Email programs• Online reputation management• Video production & marketing• Staff training

Doug Haydoug@doughayassoc.com

Direct: 250-756-0306 Toll Free: 877-226-3823

Free Internet

Marketing Analysis

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More Leads?

Presentation

Q & A

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Agenda

1

2

3

Blog lingo

A blog is a website in the form of a ‘journal’ that is available on the web. •  Blog. Slang for (weB LOG)

on the Web.•  Blogging. The action of

updating a blog.• Blog post. The content of the

blog entry – an article.•  Blogger. Someone who

maintains a blog. •  Blogosphere. The

information available in blogs on the Internet

Your Site

Visitor

VisitorVisitor

Objective: Leads & Sales

Content marketing is the creation and publishing of quality, meaningful and distinctive content for the purpose of generating discussion, growing a following and developing a social presence now expected by the search engines.

More than eight out of ten companies surveyed

said they were using some type of content marketing to better engage with potential and existing clients.

“The future of marketing is not about selling so much as it is about engaging. This is what resonates with customers and why marketers have embraced content marketing in such large numbers."

Source: Survey, conducted by HiveFire

Sales Funnel

Prospects Sales

ReadersSocial Media Leads

Content MarketingBlogs Newsletters

Technorati Media - 2013 Digital Influence Report

Blogs Outrank Social Networks for Consumer Influence: New Research

Social Media Examiner: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/blogs-outrank-social-networks-for-consumer-influence-new-research/

Internet Marketing

You Are Not Alone Out There

WWWYour Web Site

How can our site get found?

IntegratedMarketingStrategy

IntegratedMarketingStrategy

OfflineMarketing

Email

IntegratedMarketingStrategy

OfflineMarketing

Email

IntegratedMarketingStrategy

OfflineMarketing

Referrals

Email

IntegratedMarketingStrategy

OfflineMarketing

WebSite

Referrals

Email

IntegratedMarketingStrategy

Blog

OfflineMarketing

WebSite

Referrals

Email

IntegratedMarketingStrategy

SocialMedia

Blog

OfflineMarketing

WebSite

Referrals

Think Like a Publisher

Web site

Video

White

PapersAudio

Emailed Newsletters

BlogsPress

Releases

Case Studies

Articles

Universal SearchGoogle Universal

Brand

Brand

Brand

New Marketing

Brand

Brand

Brand

Brand

Brand

Brand

Blogging

Benefits of Blogging• Get connected with

prospects• Helps make your website

show up in Google• Generates leads• Key part of content marketing • Use in Social Media• Helps your reputation

management• Allows you to connect with

influencers• Tool to grow a following• Low cost marketing

[Image by JosephGilbert.org.]

SuccessBlogging

Blog Success

• Wegman’s - family-owned supermarket chain with less than 100 stores

• Accolades from customers and media• Named them the top US grocery chain in 2009 –

Consumer Reports • Founder's simple mantra that “it is essential to treat

customers and employees right.” • Blogged about behind-the-scenes stories from their

organic farm. • Posts from both top executives and individual store

employees (chefs, deli workers, etc.).

Source: Inc. Magazine

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/how-alaskan-mom-brings-millions-to-her-carpentry-blog/ (2012)

Social Media Stats:• Website: Ana White Homemaker• Facebook: (Under “Knock-off Wood”): 50,000 (2012) fans• Twitter: 2,550 followers• YouTube: 30 videos

Highlights:• Ana White’s blog draws nearly three million unique page

views every month.• 90-95% of her Facebook content comes from fans, and

she leaves it all public.• Pinterest is the #1 referring site to her blog, bringing 6,000

unique visitors a day.• In year two, the blog began bringing in enough advertising

revenue to support her family.

“Do you have advice for other women who might aspire to a blog-to-book career like yours?I put 90% of my time into creating content and 10% into other stuff like answering emails, social media, and promoting posts. If I had started with the opposite, just 10% on content and 90% on promotion, I don’t think I would be here today. Try to create content that’s so valuable it shares itself, and then you can focus on doing what you love.”

Read more: http://www.thegrindstone.com/2012/10/17/mentors/homemaker-ana-white-i-would-love-to-be-the-rachael-ray-of-diy-719/#ixzz2YT6TWQVQ

Set up business

blog

Homework & goals

Write

posts

Link to website

Blogger relations

Promote your blog

Click thru to website

Homework

What Do You Want To Achieve?

• Set goals • What audiences

should you be communicating with?

• Set up metrics to track the results

• Choose a platform e.g.

WordPress• Build a blog• Add features – called

plug ins

Starting Your Blog

• Download from WordPress

• Hosted by WordPress

• Doesn’t give you search visibility

Free Blogs

1. Find URL e.g. www.yourname.com2. Arrange hosting e.g. GoDaddy,

HostGator, etc3. Purchase theme (design)4. Upload theme to your hosting

(needs a programmer)5. Add content – text, images, video

Your Blog

• System for building a website/blog

• Automatically resizes for monitors, tablets and smart phones

• Custom for each – viewing, navigation and load time

Responsive Themes (Designs)

Keywords

Keywords are words or phrases that describe content such as webpages, blogs, text pages, photographs, audio files or video files.

Search Enginesindex content using keywords to make it easy for users to quickly find things that they are looking for

Key Word Research

• Do your Keyword Research

• Look for words and phrases that people are searching for, so you get the most traffic to your blog

Keyword Research

Source: http://www.ampyourstrat.com/

The Long Tail Keywords

Long tail keywords are keyword phrases that:• Have lower search volume• Competing pages are smaller• Can generate quality search

results• Likely more sales

https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS

Exact match:

Commercial IntentDoes the keyword show the intent that could lead the searcher to become a customer

e.g. used cars for sale Miami (good)e.g. colors of the rainbow (bad)

Writing

Your audience

Content is king Search Engines

• Search engines will crawl your website more often if you have a blog which is updated regularly

What’s in it for the reader?

A Blog is Not… Blogs Are Not

• A blog is not objective—they have informed and biased opinions

• People write blogs—not the corporate communications department using ‘Corporate Speak’

Write For The User

Know the product or service and write compelling content about that sector or industry.

Is It Compelling?

Tell Your Story

• Use blogs to help tell your story

• Brings a face to your organization

• Search engines love them

• Cross link to your site

What a Blog Is

One Topic Per Post

If possible stick to one topic per post.

Format

• Use short sentences and short paragraphs

• Lots of sub-headlines

• Bullet points

Update Frequency

A blog is best updated regularly—daily if possible but at least 2 to 3 times per week.

Become An Opinion Leader

• Your peers respect opinion leaders• Position yourself as a thought leader by

writing blog posts that are factual, timely and interesting

• Be realistic and write to be understood• Be persistent—fame in your niche is not an

overnight activity

Length Of A Blog Post

• Typically not less than 500 words

• Eliminate any unnecessary words—keep it simple and easy to understand

• Keep sentences short• Keep paragraphs short • Short = easy to read

Yes I will read it, no I won’t…

Stay on message

Be unique

Understanding? To Be Understood

• Write clearly: would someone who knows nothing about this subject understand the post?

• One idea per sentence• No jargon that they

won’t understand• Define acronyms with

the first use

Keep It Upbeat

Data Hook

• Provide information others will want

• E.g. 10 secrets to ….

The Humor Hook

Quiz Hook

Create an interesting quiz or puzzle

“How To” Information

• “How to” information is the number one selling product on the web

• Write a unique tutorial

Ask Questions

• At the end of a post

• The whole post

Pictures & Video

• Include pix with your blog posts

• Video can be embedded or included by linking to it

A picture is worth …

Track Your Keywords, Competitors, News, etc

Proof Reading• Respect your readers• Check for typos• Informal writing style is

fine but use good grammar to make it a professional and understandable communication

• Find your style and stick to it

Image credit: http://www.gapingvoid.com

Blogs are informal

35 comments

Headlines1. Get What You Want (In Health, Wealth, Relationships,

Time and Lifestyle) Example: “The Secret To Getting More Money For Your Property!”

2. Crystal Ball and History Example: “10 Predictions on the Future of Social Media”

3. Problems and Fears Example “Get Rid of Your Debt Once and For All”

4. Fact, Fiction, Truth and Lies Example: “Little Known Ways To Make Money On The Stock Exchange”

5. How To, Tricks Of The Trade Example: “How To Plan The Ultimate Holiday”

6. Best and Worst Example: “The 10 Worst Mistakes Made by Bloggers

- From Authority Blogger

News Items

Find a news item or statistics that can be used in the blog post

Optimization

Spamming

Don’t use any keyword excessively, as search engines may perceive this as spamming.

How Often To Use Keywords Keywords?

“Keyword Density [is] not really a factor. Yes keyword should be present but density is not important. Include the keyword but make writing sound natural.”

- Matt Cutts, senior engineer at Google

Blog Optimization

• Title tag• Description tag• Headline (H1 Tag)• Sub-headlines (H2 Tags)• Body of the text page – write with

keywords

Tags

Information (code) in a web page/blog not intended for users to see but provides information to search engine crawlers.

Title Tag

• Tag used to define the text in the top line of a Web browser

• Utilized by search engines as the title of search listings

• Make them short - around 65 characters with spaces

• Include at least one targeted keyword (phrase)

• Never duplicate a title tag

Unique Title Tags

• Title tag (label) for each page must be unique

• Just like each child needs their own name

Title Tags Show Up in Search Results

Description Tag

• An tag to provide a description for search engine listings.

• Descriptions should include very specific, keyword-rich writing.

• 130 to 150 characters

Description Tags Show Up in Search Results

Write The Headline

• Use the keywords as close to the beginning of the headline as possible.

• The headline should not be longer than 65 characters (with spaces) for Google or 85 for Yahoo.

65

Write The First Paragraph

• Use main keyword in the first paragraph.

• Put a link to your website at the end of the first paragraph, using a keyword as anchor text for the link.

Write The Body Of The Blog

• Use your main keyword a few more times in the blog and once in the last paragraph.

• Link to your website at the end of the blog

Key Word Repetition

• Start the text of the page with that phrase or word.  i.e. beginning of headline

• Use it few times, in context, so that you have around 2% of the word count. 

• Make each page/blog 500 words long. 

Make Links Informative

Don’t use “click here”. Rather than click here for more information, use descriptive key words:• E.g. Top stock picks for savvy investors

(key word: stock picks)• E.g. Compare widget prices with 5 other

suppliers (key word: widget prices)

Links

Linking Strategy

Write Post• Research,

write & optimize a blog post

Insert Link• Blog post

has one or more links to web page

To Selected

Web Page

• Helps create inbound links to website

Linking

Write The Body Of The Blog

• Use your main keyword a few more times in the blog and once in the last paragraph.

• Link to your website from the blog

Love those links

RelationsBlogger

People Know Other People

Blog Search EnginesBloggers

• Search on the Blog Search Engines

• Find the influencers

Comments

• You commenting on other blog posts

• Others commenting on your blog posts

Engage

Promote

Blog Directories

• Bloglines is a popular blog-collection service

• Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites From Robin Good

http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55

• Words In A Row Listhttp://www.wordsinarow.com/blog-registration.html

Metrics

Clic

k th

rou

gh

to w

ebsi

te

Track Results

• Search ranking for blog

• # of bloggers allied• # of positive blog

posts written about your business

• Inbound links to your site and blog

Keeping Score

Better Financial Performance

• Significant positive financial results for the companies who have the greatest breadth and depth of social media engagement.

Source: The ENGAGEMENTdb study (www.engagementdb.com)

Create Great Content by Blogging

Source: Data from over 1,500 small businesses - http://bit.ly/XDkQV

Blogging Attracts More Links

Source: Data from over 1,500 small businesses - http://bit.ly/XDkQV

Blogging Attracts More Visitors

Blogging Generates Leads

Social Media is for Leads and Sales

Source: State of Inbound Marketing Report - http://bit.ly/aewfHr

Social Media Marketing… Givers Get

Takeaways

Set up your blog properly

Do your homework & have a plan

Blogs are informal writing

Engage not just publish

Network with other bloggers

Cross promote on social sites, email, etc

Doug Haydoug@doughayassoc.com

Direct: 250-756-0306 Toll Free: 877-226-3823

Free Internet

Marketing Analysis

More Sales?

More Leads?

Contact

Doug Haydoug@doughayassoc.com

Direct: 250-756-0306877-226-3823

Website: www.doughayassoc.comTwitter: www.twitter.com/doughayFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/doug.hayLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/doughay

Copyright Notice All materials contained in these presentations

are protected by Canadian and United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of Doug Hay.

The names of actual companies, products or images mentioned herein may be the copyright or trademarks of their respective owners.