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Creating a Corporate Blog That Attracts Visitors

Creating a Corporate Blog That Attracts Visitors

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Creating a Corporate Blog That Attracts Visitors

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  1. Creating a Corporate Blog That Attracts Visitors Presented by Ralph Miller

  2. A bad blog is worse than no blog… A dead blog is worse than no blog… But an engaging blog is one of the best things in the world that you can do for your business. ~Jeremy Wright

  3. Is Your Company Ready for a Blog? • Investment of time and money • Custom design • Generating ideas for content • Writing and managing content • Commenting on other blogs • Moderation • What makes sense to do yourself? • What makes sense to outsource?

  4. Why a Corporate Blog? • The original social media • 24% of our page views come from our blog posts (~2,000 per month) • We make 2 new posts per week • Gives us a vehicle to post new link worthy content • Keeps the search engines coming back

  5. Blog Setup and Branding • On your current URL • Self-hosted • Matches current website design – seamless transition • Blogging software choices • Lots of open source choices, • Depends on current website, your programming ability and the programming language – PHP, MySQL, Ruby on Rails

  6. Self-hosted Blogging Platforms • WordPress - http://wordpress.org/ • Large user base and support community • Lots of plugins that extend functionality • SEO friendly • TypePad - http://www.typepad.com/ • B2evolution - http://b2evolution.net/ • Joomla - http://www.joomla.org/ • MovableType - http://movabletype.com/ • Typo - http://wiki.github.com/fdv/typo/

  7. Writing Posts for Your Blog • Who will post? • Single voice versus multiple bloggers • If it’s a large business with multiple areas, think experts • CEO, owner? • How often will they post? • Dell posts 2x a day • We post 2x/week • What’s doable for you and your business? Whatever you choose, make it consistent • What will they post • Relevant, but non-promotional • News, don’t just report it, make it • Link out – share the love and talk about other things

  8. Posts (continued) • What not to post • Only self promotional items • White papers • Press releases • Too much personal information • Don’t keyword cannibalize • Keep commercial keywords on your website • Target non-commercial keywords and phrases • Link to your commercial pages from your blog

  9. Editing • Will you edit? • If yes, who will edit? • Who will publish? • Keep in mind training time here for special formatting, keywords, SEO etc.

  10. Ideas for Content • Upcoming events, webinars, seminars • Product or service releases • Industry news • Other related products, services, and businesses in your industry • Studies you produce, insights you have, educational information • Lists

  11. Participating in the Blogosphere • Keep an ear on the conversation • Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts • Technorati - http://technorati.com/ • BackType - http://www.backtype.com/ • Comment on relevant articles • Use your name or business name • Get a gravatar -http://en.gravatar.com/ • Don’t self-promote, just comment

  12. Comment and Moderation Policy • Develop a comment and moderation policy early on, before you have issues • Allow both positive and negative comments? • Most corporate blogs don’t tolerate SPAM or offensive language • Other considerations – • Follow, nofollow comments • Hold for moderation before publishing • Use SPAM filter like Akismet

  13. Why Social Media? • 12% of our visitors come from social sites (~500 per month and growing) • More than double what we get from PPC • Helps with organic rankings & branding • Keeps the search engines coming back

  14. Social Media Distribution • Twitter Tools for WordPress- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/ • HootSuite RSS/Atom Feed Tool • FaceBook Social RSS App - http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=23798139265 • YouTube for videos with embed on blog • DIGG, SPHINN, REDDIT – don’t submit yourself • Other social media sites…

  15. How Blogs Build Links and Rankings • Comments you leave on other blogs create a link back to your blog • Linking to other blogs often leaves a trackback on that page • Each trackback on a page of your blog is someone linking to your blog. • People naturally link to content that provides value • Each comment left on your blog is an indication to search engines how hot and important a page is • Opportunity for long tail rankings

  16. Measuring Success • ROI - hard to measure • Measure success by • # visitors • # page views • # of inbound links created - http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ • # of comments • # RSS subscribers • # of RFIs coming off blog pages

  17. Corporate Blogging Blunders • Not enough content, inconsistent content, impersonal content, content that’s too lengthy or technical • Not reaching out to other bloggers, participating in the blogosphere • No follow-up to comments/questions on the blog • Cannibalization of keywords • Lack of internal linking • Blog is on separate URL or doesn’t match design • No distribution through social media

  18. Examples of Corporate Blogs Done Well • Google - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/ • Dell- http://en.community.dell.com/blogs/direct2dell • Marriott - http://www.blogs.marriott.com/ • Southwest Airlines - http://www.blogsouthwest.com/blogsw

  19. Questions?

  20. Thank You! Our Contact Info: http://twitter.com/VerticalMeasure www.linkedin.com/company/VerticalMeasures www.facebook.com/verticalmeasures www.VerticalMeasures.com

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