http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ Maisha Walker is an award-winning 12 year Internet industry veteran and the President of message medium a New York marketing firm that specializes in traditional and Internet marketing for entrepreneurs and growing businesses. Her popular Web Site Checklist and eCommerce Checklist are available for download from and she has just published the book "Web Site Fundamentals for Entrepreneurs." Read full bio. en-us 2010-01-25T04:00:35-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2010/01/drive-blog-loyalty-how-to-get.html 7708@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2010-01-25T04:00:35-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2010/01/13_proven_techniques_to_attrac.html click hereto retweet If you have a blog then you know that the biggest challenge next to content is readers. How do you get your audience, who are bombarded by hundreds (thousands?) of messages per day, to focus on your messages? Of course your first responsibility is providing content your audience will actually find relevant and useful. Your second responsibility is to tell them, often, that your content exists. If it sounds simple, that's because it is. There's no magic trick to building blog traffic if your content is good (and sometimes even if it isn't!) But it *is* time consuming – and that you should be prepared for. You should also be aware that in driving traffic to your blog you have 2 distinctly different jobs: 1. Get new readers to find out about your blog and visit 2. Get past visitors to come back This second one is critical. Meeting your goals will be nearly impossible if you can't get readers to come back to your blog on a regular basis. Sometimes the same tactic can be used for both goals but there are some that are specific to each. Today I outline the top 13 techniques for getting new readers to your blog, and share experiences from business owners just like you. Next time we'll discuss how to keep people coming back. I Can Email You When I Post to this BlogClick here to get notified of new posts to The Internet Strategist by Email How to get New Traffic and New Readers to Your Blog Link Building These days the idea of "link building" is almost loosing it's meaning because so many online marketing techniques could fit into this category. Link building for your blog has essentially two major benefits – 1) introducing the audience of another Web site to your blog and 2) boosting your search engine rankings. Link building techniques for your blog include: Posting Comments – posting "comments" in other blogs & public forums can help you reach a highly targeted audience for whom your content is extremely relevant. LinkedIn and Ning are great places to look for communities who are already discussing the topics you focus on. But be very careful – commenting carelessly can get you banned from a community or worse – silently (or vocally) tagged as a spammer which will damage your credibility and your brand. Spend some time in the community to see which method (if any) would be most welcome. And by all costs take the advice of business owner and reader Brock Green of JustinAamir.com in avoiding "shameless" self-promotion "do not ask a blogger and its readers to 'come check out your blog'...thats so tacky." I would heed Brock's advice. Here are 3 ways you can approach posting comments or new discussions:a) write a meaningful comment that links to your post as a follow upb) write a meaningful comment and include a standard signature in all of your comments with your name and a link to your blogc) start a conversation around the topic you discuss in your post. If commenting is welcome at all, using one of these approaches should keep you out of trouble! Directories & Content Aggregators – instead of posting your content in its entirety, these sites simply posts links to your content. Some have found that sites like StumbleUpon and Digg only work if you have top member posting on your behalf, your mileage may vary but if you are willing to spend the time to make this a focus of your marketing efforts it could drive significant traffic to your blog. There are many of these sites including: Technorati Alltop Digg Bloglines Netvibes StumbleUpon Digg Cross Linking – encourage other bloggers to link to your blog or posts and do the same for them. If there is a community around your topic tap into that community to raise the profile of each other's content. Related Articles by Maisha:13 Must Have Blog Techniques & Tools8 Basic Blogging Features You'll Actually UseBlogging for CoinBuild Your Blog Syndication There are many modern ways to allow others to repurpose your articles as content. Cross Promote in other Venues - do you write for any other publications online or offline? Going to be on a public access cable show? Have the opportunity to participate in a goodie bag? Make sure you cross promote your blog in venues besides the ones you own. Fatemeh Khatibloo of TimesTwoMarketing has started mentioning her blog when she writes for industry newsletters and publications and it has made it to her list of top 5 marketing techinuqes. Article Submission sites – people really disagree about this one. Some have either found aggregators to be useless at driving traffic, or to drive traffic that doesn't convert in any other way but Wilson Web has a great list of these sites here and provided some additional advice: http://www.wilsonweb.com/linking/wilson-article-marketing-1.htm Guest Blogging - Offer to write guestposts on other relevant blogs whenever you can (with links pointing back to your site), even if they are small blogs. Guest Bloggers – while this is reverse of content syndication, in a way you are syndicating your brand by enabling other bloggers to promote content they have provided to your site. As Kristin Hornby of NileGuide suggests, "We host guest bloggers to post on NileGuide, who then promote their articles to their own audience. We also have the NileGuide 5 interview series, where we interview other travel bloggers". This can be an excellent way to build new readership and has the added benefit of driving new traffic through a credible referral. RSS feeds – while typically associated with individuals having their own "feed" of your content (which they would only get by visiting your blog in the first place) another very clever way of using RSS is to get people to add a feed of your headlines to their Web site for others to see. Josh Steiniz of NileGuide mentions that they distribute their blog content via free RSS to partners like newspaper websites. Building partnerships purely for blog content syndication is a brilliant way to leverage your content and your knowledge expertise. YouTube – many people don't think about using video to convey their message. Consider creating a low-budget video to support your content and to get your content in front of YouTube visitors. You can even start your own YouTube channel. SEO Basic SEO - Brush up on your basic SEO techniques to help you get your blog ranked well in search engines for the terms you are targeting. To learn more about SEO visit my post Keyword Density: The 9 Places to Put Your Keywords for SEO Power Tagging & Categories – while you don't have to make categories the primary way you organize your posts, if your categories double as keywords, and appear often as links (i.e. in a sidebar category list or as your main navigation) they boost your optimization for those keywords. Online & Offline PR While really a combination of link building and syndication I mention online PR specifically because of it's potential to be viral. This is an aspect that many people do not consider. When you post a release online it has the possibility to be picked up and spread as "news" by a variety of publications looking for content. Consider whether some of your posts are worthy of an online press release that can be submitted to places like PR News Wire. Don't forget about the power of the live and in person. Kimberly Ward of Pinkeggshell hands out cards, sponsors industry events and does high profile charity work, Brad Officer of BradOfficer.com who is in the highly competitive real estate industry says he uses his online blog for real offline help "In this industry, people always ask questions about their mortgage, their home, their situation." He can collect a business card and after the event email his new contact a link to a specific blog post that answers their question. It's a great way to follow up in a meaningful way. Content Design Use Appealing Headlines - Gary Unger of GaryUnger.com who is the author of a popular book and runs a successful LinkedIn group mentions "The better the headline the more attraction I receive. Especially if I use the word 'twitter' in a headline." Name Names – there's relevancy and then there's relevancy. It never hurts to mention people, products or concepts by name – especially if it's a topic that is particularly relevant to your audience. Gary notes that "Landing a good person or product to blog about" has really helped his blog posts to get found and also get shared making it one of his top 5 blog marketing techniques. Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.Share:Easily share "Top 13 Ways to Drive Blog Readership" on TwitterFollow:Follow me on TwitterFeed:Add "The Internet Strategist"RSS updates to yourreader or your Web siteRead Related Articles by Maisha:13 Must Have Blog Techniques & Tools8 Basic Blogging Features You'll Actually UseBlogging for CoinBuild Your Blog 7689@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2010-01-14T14:05:25-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/11/13-must-have-blog-techniques_t.html click hereto retweet Last week we talked about basic blogging tools and techniques you should pretty much always have. But when you think of maximizing what your blog can do for you there are some other tools you'll want to make sure you have. Blogging can be awfully time consuming and I want to help you blog smarter not harder. While there are a many many ways you can get the most out of your blog, some ways are simpler and more universal than others. Here are 13 of the simplest yet important tools and techniques you should be using to maximize the value of your blog: SEO support – if you are considering using your blog to boost your search engine rankings, make sure your blog supports all of the features that Search Engines want to see in your content. Things like explicit, unique title tags and good meta description tags. For a pretty complete list of the things you'll want to include in your HTML code see this post I did explaining how to optimize your site for Search Engines. Often blogs require a plugin to enable you to control/edit the items in the list I provided. Get stats on your blog. The same way you want to know how your Web site is succeeding, you'll also want to know what's working on your blog. How many page views and unique visitors are you getting? Where are visitors coming from? How do they find you in search engines? Which posts and categories are most popular? You can either use the analytics software your blog hosting company provides, or install Google Analytics. WordPress.com has it's own stats tool and self-hosted WordPress has a Google Analytics plug-in that makes installation relatively simple. Automated email updates. As with most marketing, you have to do it consistently in order to maximize it's value. But consistency can be awfully time-consuming. This is why we love technology! Feedburner and Feedblitz are two great tools to use that simplify your blog email marketing. They both will take care of two major tasks for you 1) enabling visitors to sign up to receive an email when you make a new post to your blog 2) automatically send the email each time someone posts to your blog. If you want to see how this works subscribe to this blog here Yes that was a shameless plug, but the point I make is no less valuable because of it! TweetMeme retweet counter. This little tool is a quick and easy way to get your posts retweeted and show their popularity. Note that it doesn't work so well if your title tags are not unique. Categories. Make it easier to find things on your blog. It's great to have things organized by date but this isn't particularly intuitive to a reader who is looking to find out what you write about or looking for help or answers on a specific topic. Use categories to help readers find what they're looking for and put the categories in your sidebar. Don't be afraid to put a post in more than one category. Remember the categories are for your *reader* so make them as intuitive as possible to the reader. I Can Email You When I Post to this BlogClick here to get notified of new posts to The Internet Strategist by Email Feed & email tool. Note that Feedburner and Feedblitz can also help you set up a feed and do all kinds of neat things with your feed. But most blogging software comes with an internal feed tool. If you're wondering what RSS is, here's a nice definition of RSS, but my explanation is basically if you're using myAOL or iGoogle or myYahoo and you have stories from different online magazines and Web sites appearing on those pages, you're probably using RSS. It allows you do see the most recent headlines from CNN or Inc. or the Economist without having to visit the site. The headlines are clickable. Click on the headline and it takes you to the article. Neat! (re)Captcha. Captcha is the tool that asks users to type in a set of letters or numbers before submitting a form. This tool is now available as a plugin for Web sites and blogs. (re)Captcha is captcha with a consience. While commenters are typing in the confirmation text, they are also helping to decipher text from very old books being saved by digitizing them. If you allow comments on your blog, you will definitely want some sort of spam defense. Even though it will not eliminate all comment spam it will help A LOT. Comment following. Make sure that people who make a comment will be notified when others comment on the same post. Taps into the voyeur in all of us. Super viral. Links to your clones. Make sure that if people like your style they have ways to connect with you. Enabling them to subscribe to your RSS feed and automated email update is great but how about you on Twitter? You on Facebook? You on LinkedIn? While you may not want to promote all three of these choose at least one and close that loop in the relationship with your reader. Related Articles by Maisha:8 Basic Blogging Features You'll Actually UseBlogging for CoinBuild Your BlogBlogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2 Comment moderation. If you open your blog to comments (which you don't have to do) you must review the comments. You will get spam. Spam looks silly on your blog. If you have some sort of captcha system the spam will be minimized but you will want to prune your blog of spam on a relatively frequent basis depending on how much traffic you get. Related Articles. I love this feature both as a blogger and a reader. It allows people to find other great content that they will probably want to read if they're reading the current article. Very easy to do and also viral. Your own domain name. Unless you already have a brand (or you're leapfrogging off of someone else's), I do recommend getting your own domain name. It shows dedication and seriousness. If you're just starting out can you have a successful blog without one? Of course! Is it harder? Of course! What now? Provide some indication of what you want people to do if they like your blog. Just read more? Consider hiring you? Buy a book? Come see you speak? Shop at your store? Two important notes: Get Your Blog FeaturedI will be highlighting a variety of companies as examples in upcoming posts. If you've had success with your Blog and can describe results/back it up with real data, you can submit your Blogging strategy here. Get a Free Blog or Web Site!Even in a bad economy there's a silver lining. I'm giving away a free Web site! If you'd like to be the lucky business owner tell me about your business and why you should win here. I acknowledge I'll be choosing the winner purely based on my own discretion. Heck I may even choose more than one. I look forward to seeing your entry! Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.Share:Easily share "13 Must Have Blog Techniques & Tools" on TwitterFollow:Follow me on TwitterFeed:Add "The Internet Strategist"RSS updates to yourreader or your Web siteRead Related Articles by Maisha:8 Basic Blogging Features You'll Actually UseBlogging for CoinBuild Your BlogBlogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2 6594@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-11-30T16:00:00-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/11/8_basic_blogging_features_youl.html click hereto retweet Blogging tools are designed to be easy to use. They generally don’t provide all the advanced features of a complex content management system, but rather do one task — publishing a blog — very well. To this end, they can help you: Create posts. Since the purpose of a blog is to be able to post new text or information to the site frequently, creating posts is usually quick and easy. Upload or embed pictures and multimedia. Pretty much all blogs allow you to upload pictures to your posts. Some will also enable you to upload video and audio/mp3/podcasts. One significant note here is that most people do not have video that is in a "Web ready" format and often the video you have is just huge which means you risk spending a lot of money for the space to host the video and the bandwidth that enables people to view it. My general recommendation is to post your video on one of the video sites like YouTube or Vimeo and then use their embed feature to embed the video into your site. Quick, easy and no-cost. I Can Email You When I Post to this BlogClick here to get notified of new posts to The Internet Strategist by Email Configure the appearance and layout. Tools vary widely in the degree to which they allow you to configure your blog, and the methods they offer to do this. Most blogs are built on themes – essentially a design template that can be installed and modified. Display posts & comments to visitors. A blogging platform makes it easy for readers to view your posts and to add their comments. Moderate. you will want to remove some of comments left by readers and you will eventually have to fight comment spam. Different platforms provide varying degrees of spam protection and moderation features to weed out unwanted contributions. Related Articles by Maisha:Blogging for CoinBuild Your BlogBlogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs Publish RSS feeds. RSS feeds allow more tech-savvy users to subscribe to your blog and get headlines via myAOL, myYahoo, iGoogle or another RSS reader. Find support. Not every blogging tool offers the same degree of support: while some offer personalized assistance, others have forums where you can find answers to your questions. Host your blog. While some blogging software lives on your own server, others are hosted by the software provider or vendor. A great example of this is WordPress.com which is hosted by WordPress vs. WordPress.org which you download and install on your own server/hosting account. These are some of the basic blogging features that pretty much all blogs provide. Next time I will describe another set of features that you may not know about but will definitely be useful to maintain your blog. Two important notes: Get Your Blog FeaturedI will be highlighting a variety of companies as examples in upcoming posts. If you've had success with your Blog and can describe results/back it up with real data, you can submit your Blogging strategy here. Get a Free Blog or Web Site!Even in a bad economy there's a silver lining. I'm giving away a free Web site! If you'd like to be the lucky business owner tell me about your business and why you should win here. I acknowledge I'll be choosing the winner purely based on my own discretion. Heck I may even choose more than one. I look forward to seeing your entry! Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.Share:Easily share "8 Basic Blogging Features You'll Actually Use" on TwitterFollow:Follow me on TwitterFeed:Add "The Internet Strategist"RSS updates to yourreader or your Web siteRead Related Articles by Maisha:Blogging for CoinBuild Your BlogBlogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs 6592@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-11-24T11:33:11-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/11/blogging-for-coin.html click hereto retweet In my last few posts we covered what a blog is, and the benefits of blogging as a technique to boost your business. For any blogging initiative you'll need at least three things: what are you going to blog about (covered in my last post) how will you set up your blog (software & hosting) how will you market your blog Last time we began the discussion of blogging software, focusing on ways you can build and maintain your blog for free using services like WordPress.com, Blogger.com, or Blogher.com. The key with free blogging software is knowing what you're getting. Here are some explanations these companies have provided outlining the features they offer: WordPress free features: http://en.wordpress.com/features/ premium (paid) features: http://en.wordpress.com/products/ Blogger (all free) http://www.blogger.com/features Blogher features http://www.blogher.com/using-this-site I Can Email You When I Post to this BlogClick here to get notified of new posts to The Internet Strategist by Email But as anyone who has experienced "buyer's remorse" would know, equally important is knowing what you're NOT getting with these services. Since we all tend to be rather shy about broadcasting our deficiencies, I'll respectfully let you in on some of the downsides. These services do come with some caveats, namely, that you have to abide by their Terms of Service, the details of ownership can be somewhat nebulous, you have limited control over the look and functionality of your blog, a free service (because it's hosted separately) will limit the SEO value of your blog and you cannot, as of this writing, place ads on your blog. For those who want design control, functionality control, clear ownership of content and want to be able to generate advertising revenue -- installing your own blog is probably the ticket. If that's you, let's talk about the two other options for how to build your blog – paid upgrades and downloadable version. What ponying up will get you Most blogging software have more or less the same features. Google owned Blogger really surpasses in terms of what it offers for free, but if you throw a little coin into the game you can get everything you need. The two options when you're considering upgrading from free are: pay the blogging company directly for an "upgraded" version. Still hosted by them but with access to more features, or pay a hosting company. Have someone download a copy of the blogging software for you and install it on your own hosting account. These two paid options give you more control over your blog, your brand, and your content. Here is a chart showing who offers each option from least control to greatest: Free SoftwareFree hosting Paid SoftwareFree hosting Free Software DownloadPaid hosting WordPress x x x Blogger x Blogher x TypePad x x B2evolution x Expression Engine x Moveable Type x Free Software Free Hosting With a completely free tool like WordPress.com, WordPress owns the server, provides you the software to build your blog and hosts it for you, all for free. They can generate advertising revenue off of the blog you build but as of this writing you cannot. Note also that this version most likely means your Web site and your blog (if you have both) are completely separate hurting your SEO and possibly weakening your brand with very different designs. Related Articles by Maisha:Build Your BlogBlogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2Blogging's 11 Big PayoffsTo Blog or Not to Blog Paid Software Free Hosting Here again, the software and hosting are both provided by a company like WordPress but you can get more by paying a one time or periodic fee. For example on WordPress you can pay to use your own non-WordPress domain, to get extra hosting space, to customize the blog's design, to upload & store video, or to turn off advertising on your blog. Note that as of this writing WordPress still does not let you post your own ads or upload a completely custom theme even if you pay for an upgrade. Also note that Google-owned Blogger, although far less popular, lets you do all of these things for free. One other note on either free or paid software hosted by the blogging company, if you ever decide to move your blog beware. The process of moving the content itself could be a little challenging but more of a concern is your links. Each post you create will have it's own "permalink" or a permanent link that people can share, bookmark etc. If you move your blog it may be difficult or impossible to re-create the same structure on your new blog as you had on your old blog, meaning all of your links will no longer work. Free Software Download Paid Hosting (by your hosting company) This is the most flexible option. You get a hosting company (like HostGator), get your own domain name and have a developer download your own copy of WordPress or other software and install it into your hosting account for you. The options for customization are unlimited, you can use whatever design theme/template you like or hire someone to create one from scratch. You can install whatever widgets or tools you like to add to your blog's functionality, you of course own all of your content, you can post whatever you like (within the terms of service of your hosting company), and you can sell ads on your blog as a revenue stream. Just like the "paid software" version above, you pay a monthly fee but it goes to your hosting company. This version can be set up just as quickly but usually with the help of a development company. Basic hosting will be anywhere from $5-$15 depending on what you need. How to choose? Generally I suggest the free version if you don't plan to generate advertising revenue, and don't need sophisticated customizations or a custom design. Also if you're not planning to generate a lot of traffic to your blog in the beginning, you won't be as concerned about moving it (and breaking the links) later. The paid upgrade gives you a bit more but it doesn't eschew the limitations and restrictions that are inherent in working with the blogging companies. If you are ready to invest I generally recommend the downloaded version which will give you total control over your content, your design, your features and maximum SEO benefits if you have an existing site you want to integrate the blog with. I hope this has helped you understand a bit better how the world of blogging software works and how to decide which path is right for you. If you're still wondering which version is right for you, post your question below. I'd like to hear from you. Two important notes: I will be highlighting a variety of companies as examples in upcoming posts.If you've had success with your Blog and can describe results/back it up with real data, you can submit your Blogging strategy here. Even in a bad economy there's a silver lining. I'm giving away a free Web site!If you'd like to be the lucky business owner tell me about your business and why you should win here. I acknowledge I'll be choosing the winner purely based on my own discretion. Heck I may even choose more than one. I look forward to seeing your entry! Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.Share:Easily share "Blogging for Coin" on TwitterFollow:Follow me on TwitterFeed:Add "The Internet Strategist"RSS updates to yourreader or your Web siteRead Related Articles by Maisha:Build Your BlogBlogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2Blogging's 11 Big PayoffsTo Blog or Not to Blog 6575@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-11-16T20:00:00-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/10/build_your_blog.html We are knee deep in the basics of blogging! click hereto retweet In my last few posts we covered what a blog is, and the benefits of blogging as a technique to boost your business. If you've decided you'd like to blog, or if you just want more information before taking the plunge, there are a few more steps, namely: what are you going to blog about (this one's kinda important) how will you set up your blog how will you market your blog Deciding what you'll write about is clearly a highly subjective decision that goes beyond our scope for today (although maybe a good idea for a future feature? Hmm…). But I read a nice piece on this very topic the other day by Sonia Simone on copyblogger. The article was "Steal This Trick: The #1 Secret of Confident Bloggers". When choosing a topic, Sonia advises: Strong headlines, smart copywriting technique, celebrity gossip, telling stories, making readers laugh, stategic [sic] use of controversy, reviews of the latest technology, reveling in your love of Steve Jobs and all he creates. They each have their advocates, and they can all work. But there’s one insider’s trick that makes the rest of it easy…Start by picking a crowded topic [and then] Instead of being a big fish in a small pond,… Be a small, ridiculously evolved, very rare and weird fish in a great big pond. Her overarching point: write about a topic lots and lots of people are interested in, but write about it in a way that is uniquely you. I Can Email You When I Post to this BlogClick here to get notified of new posts to The Internet Strategist by Email Once you know what you're going to write about (or if you plan to work through it publicly) the "how" then takes center stage. To construct a blog you will need two things. a blog-style Web site and a Web site host. To get the blog-style Web site, pretty much everyone uses some form of blogging software. Blogging Software Just like any other site you can build your blog from scratch (I don't know a single person who does this) or you can use a Content Management Tool aka Content Management System aka "CMS". The CMS is a piece of software. In the same way that Microsoft Word allows you to create and maintain Word documents, a CMS allows you to create and maintain a Web site. Pretty much every blogger uses a CMS. Popular CMSs include: Related Articles by Maisha:Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2Blogging's 11 Big PayoffsTo Blog or Not to BlogBuilding Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) WordPress Blogger TypePad Live Journal Movable Type Expression Engine the list goes on. With blogging software you can design and create your blog. If you keep it simple you can even do it without needing a developer. The CMS also enables you to add text and images to your blog in the form of posts. While these tools are very similar, they're not actually the same and they each have variations. This takes us to the second thing you'll need... Blog Hosting As with any Web site that you build, you need a physical home for your site – literally. You need a computer where all the files that make up that site are stored and from where your Web site can be viewed by others. That computer is called a "server". The good news is that to keep things simple, all of the companies we mentioned above (except Expression Engine and Movable Type) in addition to offering the blogging software also will host your blog. Software as a Service This model of providing software and hosting that software for you (instead of you having the software installed on your computer) is what's called Software as a Service -- if you always wondered what SaaS stands for, now you know. The Software as a Service model is very popular in the blogosphere. As I mentioned all of the blogging companies listed above offer you their CMS and most of them will host it for you too. Another bonus, some of them are free. You can go to WordPress.com, sign up and instantly have your CMS and hosting and be ready to create your first post in about 5 minutes. No joke. Making a choice The catch with all of these services is that they have both limitations in terms of how much you can customize their software (design, features etc.) and they have somewhat daunting and controversial Terms of Service that restrict the kind of content you can publish, allow them to shut down your blog, prohibit you from selling ads on your blog (so no revenue generation) and generate questions about whether they in some way have ownership of your content. A bit scary. I think these tools are a great way to get started with blogging – especially the free ones. They let you dip your toe into the world of blogging to make sure that it's somewhere you really want to be before diving in completely. If you are going to be a serious blogger however (meaning using it to really build a brand and/or drive traffic and search rankings to your site) I would suggest another option. Next time we'll cover some of the blogging options that cost money. They are typically not that expensive and will give you total control over your blog setup, design, revenue generation and your content. Two important notes: Get Your Blog FeaturedI will be highlighting a variety of companies as examples in upcoming posts. If you've had success with your Blog and can describe results/back it up with real data, you can submit your Blogging strategy here. Get a Free Blog or Web Site!Even in a bad economy there's a silver lining. I'm giving away a free Web site! If you'd like to be the lucky business owner tell me about your business and why you should win here. I acknowledge I'll be choosing the winner purely based on my own discretion. Heck I may even choose more than one. I look forward to seeing your entry! Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.Share:Easily share "Build Your Blog" on TwitterFollow:Follow me on TwitterFeed:Add "The Internet Strategist"RSS updates to yourreader or your Web siteRead Related Articles by Maisha:Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2Blogging's 11 Big PayoffsTo Blog or Not to BlogBuilding Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) 6515@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-10-27T15:45:00-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/10/bloggings-11-big-payoffs-pt-2.html click hereto retweet From the comments and emails I've received, the benefits I described in the first half of Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs have hit home but also helped you think of new ways that your blog can help you build your business. I liked the issue raised in a comment by SaveMoneyCostCutting from last week. Sometimes it is a fine line between too much marketing and just enough. It is important to establish a position on this that will work based on what you're selling and to whom you're selling it. There's no one-size-fits-all on that one. Blogging is a tool you can use creatively to get out what you need to say to the world, and/or as a serious business tool for driving leads, creating advertising inventory (aka traffic), generating sales and building a brand. Just be true to the brand and the tone you establish. I also like jimfracis' comment that blogging helps him "shape his convictions". As I mention towards the end of the "Credibility" paragraph helping you to actually articulate what you know or believe is definitely a big benefit. If you think that blogging might be a great leads or revenue generator for your business, the problem is how to justify the fact that blogging is *really* time consuming, especially when you consdier that typically you'll spend at least the same amount of time marketing your blog as you do writing it, often more, sometimes, 2-3 times more. So to help you to decide whether to blog or not to blog, I'll outline the final 5 of Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs. I Can Email You When I Post to this BlogClick here to get notified of new posts to The Internet Strategist by Email Networking I think many people don't understand what it really means to "network" (not that I'm a guru). But instead of focusing on "networking" I'd like to talk specifically about "how to build" a network that will educate you, inform you, support you emotionally, and tell you about opportunities, and one that will also enable you to inform, support, provide opportunities for and educate it. This is a network that serves your needs 360 degrees. When you're building a network it's critical that people in your network know what it is that you need, and what you have to offer. Regularly publishing content that makes clear your areas of focus is a great way to help people very tangibly understand why they should connect with you. It's one thing to say you're an expert, it's another thing to write 50 articles about it that are read, appreciated, forwarded, reposted etc. Making it very clear what how you can help people is ironically also a great way for other people to figure out how they can help you. Customer Loyalty, Customer Service & Customer Education Product details, how-to instructions, usage hints can all be smart content to provide to build both sales and loyalty especially if your product is technically complex or has a lot of hidden features. A blog can be used like individual FAQ posts to answer both old and new customer questions. And just like FAQs, your posts/answers can highlight features that customers don't know about, or help customers understand the best way of using your product or service. Related Articles by Maisha:Blogging's 11 Big PayoffsTo Blog or Not to BlogBuilding Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2) Case Studies One of the greatest benefits of Case Studies is self-identification. Case studies offer detail and context about a specific situation your product resolved and provide more information about the customer you worked with. This is wonderful for potential customers, enabling them to see themselves and see their specific needs, situation, challenges not only laid out in front of them and tangibly understand that you can fix it. Social Media Content Social media strategies and campaigns are built around content. Whether the content is video, images, or text, those businesses who invested in the idea that "content is king" now have a leg up in creating social media strategies because they have a store of content that can be used to support, encourage and extend dialog. If you have a blog you also have the beginnings of a wonderful social media strategy. Consistent Presence Presuming you blog with some regularity, blogging, like all social media tools, has the excellent benefit of helping you strengthen more of your weak ties by communicating with large numbers of people frequently and with relevance. Advertising Revenue Not that I created this list in any order of priority, but I do advise making a mental note of how far down on the list this one is (at the bottom). While generating significant revenue from your blog by selling advertising can still work for some bloggers, these days it is a difficult way to justify the investment if advertising revenue is the only payoff. You have to either have a significant amount of traffic (I'd think about 50,000 page views minimum) or have a captive audience of readers who are extremely difficult to reach else where, or both. While Google AdWords are great it generates tiny amounts of monthly revenue for most bloggers so don't assume that's all you'll need! So Now What? You may have looked at this list of payoffs and recognized several that fit squarely into your business strategy. So now what? Armed even with knowledge of what reasonable goals are, I find that businesses trying to dive into the world of blogging are still somewhat at a loss for how to start. How on earth do I build an effective blog? How much time will it take? What tools are available and which ones make the most sense for our needs? How do I actually get all the payoffs? Stay tuned – next time we dive into the technical side of blogging and how to get started. Till then I look forward to hearing more about blogging benefits and what you get out of blogging for your business. Two important notes: Get Your Blog FeaturedI will be highlighting a variety of companies as examples in upcoming posts. If you've had success with your Blog and can describe results/back it up with real data, you can submit your Blogging strategy here. Get a Free Blog or Web Site!Even in a bad economy there's a silver lining. I'm giving away a free Web site! If you'd like to be the lucky business owner tell me about your business and why you should win here. I acknowledge I'll be choosing the winner purely based on my own discretion. Heck I may even choose more than one. I look forward to seeing your entry! Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.Share:Easily share "Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs pt 2" on TwitterFollow:Follow me on TwitterFeed:Add "The Internet Strategist"RSS updates to yourreader or your Web siteRead Related Articles by Maisha:Blogging's 11 Big PayoffsTo Blog or Not to BlogBuilding Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2) 6457@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-10-12T16:00:00-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/10/bloggings_11_big_payoffs.html click hereto retweet In last week's article I discussed what a blog actually is and its relationship to both your business and to your regular Web site if you have one. The purpose of blogging in general, is usually to establish and/or support an existing brand with an understanding of how that brand generates revenue. This week, as promised, I'm getting into the real payoffs. Why does it make sense to spend hours of time each month, writing content, then giving it away for free and if that's not enough, even more hours marketing that free content to make sure people will know it's there? Here's what makes that multi-hour investment worth it. I Can Email You When I Post to this BlogClick here to get notified of new posts to The Internet Strategist by Email Intimacy I loved this advice from Oliver Vass on LinkedIn who according to his title, is not a marketing industry professional, but a customer and business owner. In my village there are two shops that sell newspapers and sweeties for the children. I use Gordon's shop. Why? Because when I go there he chats with us, he tells us what's happening in his shop, his life and the village. He doesn't push products or sell to us. He just makes us feel welcome and keeps us in touch. The other shop waits until I've made my choice of purchase, then takes my money and thanks me politely. That's how business blogging helps a business. Engagement. Making your customers feeling a part of your enterprise. It isn't to get people to buy more, that'll be seen through as marketing. It is to ensure that when people buy, they do it from you, not your competitor. I found this so wonderfully put and direct (erudite even) I had to give kudos. Thank you Oliver. By posting content on a regular and even reliable basis, your blog can not only have a huge impact on your efforts to establish your brand, it can make your relationship with your audience and customers far more intimate. In mature industries where products and services become almost commoditized, the difference between Company A and Company B may be entirely built upon this intimacy. Search Engine Optimization Because you are writing so much content on a (presumably) regular basis, your blog can be an excellent way to improve search engine rankings. Note if you want to leverage your blog to optimize a whole Web site you really need to have your blog integrated into your domain name – so that your blog and your non blog content are part of the same Web site. So that means if you're a consultant and you want your consulting company's Web site to show up higher in search results, having a blog at myconsultingcompany.wordpress.com just won't do it for you. Keep everything at myconsultingcompany.com -- install a copy of WordPress wherever you are hosting your existing site and build your blog, and your SEO rich content there. Building Community Related Articles by Maisha:To Blog or Not to BlogBuilding Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2) Small Business "Success Studies" Using LinkedIn As I stated in an earlier post, every business needs a team or as Seth Godin would put it "a tribe". Being open with your content through a blog can help you establish one. When you share content you not only define your areas of expertise, you also create good will in addition to attracting relevant people to your brand. An added benefit is that simply showing that you have a community of people interested in your content can help that community itself grow in addition to growing your business. Customer Research The interaction you receive from your readers in the form of comments, feedback and emails is a great way to learn who your blog is attracting, but also what are your consumers interested in? What needs do they have and how can you meet them? What questions do they really need answered? Almost every company can do a better job of understanding the needs of its customers and a blog is an invitation for your readers (and customers) to help you do just that. Credibility There's nothing like a blog to truly help people understand what it is that you do, what your area of expertise is, and that you are, in fact, an expert or highly knowledgeable. The simple fact of posting useful content, on a specific topic, that is of course also relevant to your target audience, and on a regular basis, will help people understand very specifically what you do, how you can help them and the depth of your abilities. One added benefit of this is that blogs force you as a writer to come face-to-face with what you do and do not know, and fill in any gaps in your knowledge. It can also help you to be able to articulate what you know (because you've spent so much time thinking about how to write it!). When I told my father that I would be writing this blog for Inc. and that my postings needed to be weekly, his response was "wow – do you really know that much to write about?" If I've managed to convince my dad I'm an expert, there really must be something to this blogging thing. Differentiation This morning I was on a live radio show sharing Internet Strategy tips for solo entrepreneurs with Ed Able the founder of Skillpreneur.com (I'll post the link to the podcast tomorrow -- subscribe here if you'd like me to email you when it's up). The focus of the show was "differentiation". How can you differentiate yourself from all those competitors out there? I think you know what I'm going to say. BLOG! While blogging isn't necessarily the solution to differentiation woes anymore (because, well, so many people are blogging) it is a way to broadcast your differentiators once you know what they are. Because the point of blogging is to blog regularly, one of the best things a blog can do for you is brand you. Branding has many benefits and getting the point across about what makes you different is one of them. Choose carefully what you decide to cover in your blog and/or how you decide to cover it – it can be a great way to help you separate yourself from the crowd which again will help both your business and your blog grow. More to come! Next time I'll cover the last 5 -- but I'd love to see you beat me to it! Two important notes: Get Your Blog FeaturedI will be highlighting a variety of companies as examples in upcoming posts. If you've had success with your Blog and can describe results/back it up with real data, you can submit your Blogging strategy here. Get a Free Blog or Web Site!Even in a bad economy there's a silver lining. I'm giving away a free Web site! If you'd like to be the lucky business owner tell me about your business and why you should win here. I acknowledge I'll be choosing the winner purely based on my own discretion. Heck I may even choose more than one. I look forward to seeing your entry! Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below. Share:Easily share"Blogging's 11 Big Payoffs"on Twitter Follow:Follow me on Twitter Feed:Add "The Internet Strategist"RSS updates to yourreader or your Web site Read Related Articles by Maisha:To Blog or Not to BlogBuilding Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (final/part 3) Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2) Small Business "Success Studies" Using LinkedIn 6425@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-10-05T23:34:17-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/09/to-blog-or-not-to-blog.html 6389@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-09-29T03:24:29-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/09/building_your_tribe_-_6_linked3.html 6359@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-09-21T16:00:00-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/08/building_your_tribe_-_6_linked.html Craft & Deliver the Message - NileGuide's messaging strategy was a great example of creating a targeted message that caters to your audience. Josh Steinitz, CEO of NileGuide describes how they did it: "We referenced a personal connection in order to qualify ourselves. Then, as a relatively new company, we knew we needed to provide a short, pithy introduction that summarized our core value proposition and differentiation in the marketplace. Finally, we summarized in no more than 2-3 sentences or bullet points some areas of opportunity, indicating that we'd been thoughtful about their business before contacting them... and had some specific ideas to discuss." BIG CAVEAT: they never attempted to add the new contact to their network "saying you know someone when you don't undermines your credibility (not to mention that it can get you 'dinged' by LinkedIn)." The Investment - the NileGuide team invested 20 hours to contact approximately 100 people. Related Articles by Maisha:Small Business "Success Studies" Using LinkedInLinkedIn the 11 Most Useful Features for Small BusinessHow to Use your LinkedIn Profile – a ChecklistAn Introduction to LinkedIn: In Restrictions a Gold Mine They also spent time creating a visually detailed landing page on their site, and in a few cases they put together creative mockups customized to the contact. NileGuide learned that these visual aids were key. The sooner a contact got to "seeing something interesting, the more likely they were to 'buy' from us." Also something critical for business owners to remember – sometimes it just takes a while for people to respond. Give your initiative time to play out fully. Josh recalls "it wasn't uncommon for us to get responses weeks or even months after our inquiry." --> The results - roughly 33% of their inquiries yielded immediate results, which is an incredibly high success rate. These partnerships have yielded customers, brand benefit, content, and a variety of other valuable assets for NileGuide. Promoting a Blog – Traffic and Brand Building A blog is basically about building a community. Instead of a community of people who meet, it's a community of readers and comment-ers. So generating traffic for a blog can certainly use all of the "tribe" techniques, although when you are using it to drive traffic to your own blog, you have to be a little more careful about how you reach out. Connecting with other practitioners, industry experts, leaders of communities where your target audiences congregate, and directly with the communities themselves needs to be done respectfully or else face the "spammer" label which could get your ability to email and invite people on LinkedIn dramatically limited. A great example of how to drive traffic to a blog or content site and build your brand via LinkedIn is the new content portal Ventureneer started recently by Geri Stengel. Ventureneer offers free Webinars and other content relevant to socially driven enterprises. When launching her business and Web site Geri had three goals – 1) to build her brand, 2) to build relationships with content providers and 3) to build her "contact" list including email subscribers and Twitter followers. Here's what she did: Build the Network - Geri spent 9 months carefully building out her connections on LinkedIn one person at a time. Mind you these were not *new* connections – these were people Geri already had worked with, served on boards with, volunteered with, gone to school with. Geri now has more than 300 close connections on LinkedIn – their familiarity with her makes them more likely to be interested in what she has to offer. She spent about 2-3 hours per week doing this for 9 months (72-108 hours). Plant the seed - when Geri was ready to start letting people know about her Webinars, she very carefully chose groups and carefully chose discussions within those groups to post to. She spent 20-30 minutes per week finding and posting LinkedIn discussions. Support growth with valuable content - Geri's marketing also extends beyond LinkedIn, and the things she used to fuel her growth include: - free Webinars - Twitter - regular online submission of press releases - a viral survey - a blog with regularly updated content - a staff member who helps her write, edit, manage and publish her content Her results – having launched her site just a few months ago, she has more than 1,600 followers on Twitter (@ventureneer), more than 300 LinkedIn connections, and gets about 150 attendees per week to her free Webinars. Way to go Geri! Tune in next week… We still have a whole block of advice, stories and strategies to share. Coming up: Getting work as a freelancer or consultant Promoting a product Strategies for everyone I look forward to hearing more about your LinkedIn strategies in the comments below and to hearing from you the next time I'm looking for businesses to feature! Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed? Your feedback, comments, real world experience and questions are an important part of the discussion. Post your comment, question or feedback below.Share: Click here to share "Building Your Tribe - 6 LinkedIn Success Studies (part 2) " with your fans on TwitterStay up to date: Follow me on Twitter Add "The Internet Strategist" RSS updates to your reader or your Web siteRead Related Articles by Maisha:Small Business "Success Studies" Using LinkedInLinkedIn the 11 Most Useful Features for Small BusinessHow to Use your LinkedIn Profile – a ChecklistAn Introduction to LinkedIn: In Restrictions a Gold Mine]]> 6306@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-08-31T22:58:34-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/08/linkedin_small_business_success.html 6230@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-08-19T08:50:00-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/08/linkedin_the_11_most_useful_fe.html 6211@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-08-10T16:29:33-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/08/how_to_use_your_linkedin_profi.html 6193@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-08-04T01:00:15-05:00 http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/2009/07/an_introduction_to_linkedin_in.html and perhaps most importantly as a professional participant. I've spent (and spend) many hours in online communities digging into the dynamics of online interactions and understanding how things like a particular stated mission, a prominently placed button, a set of carefully designed restrictions, usage recommendations or "rules of play", the absence of certain features and the presence of others can completely shape how a particular social network is both perceived and used. With all of that experience when I stumbled upon LinkedIn back in '04, it was easy to see that it was different from all of the other online communities that were popular at the time. LinkedIn was attempting to mold restrictions in usage, interface design choices, and a carefully selected but limited feature set into a social network that actually stuck with it's stated purpose - to be both perceived and used for professional networking and nothing else. Their success in sticking with this stated purpose, and limiting the site's functionality around that purpose is what enables you as a business owner to use LinkedIn as perhaps the most significant tool in your social media marketing tool box. It is this context of (usually) subtle limitations that gives the three keys I describe above their great usefulness on LinkedIn. There's a lot to cover, far too much for a single post, so next week I begin breaking down those keys one-by-one. In the meantime I'm giving you a homework assignment! Below is a screenshot of my LinkedIn profile with the areas of most interest highlighted. Take the next week to start investigating LinkedIn. There are probably gems there that you didn't even know existed. Come back with your questions, strategies, tactics and stories. If you've had particular success with LinkedIn and can describe results/back it up with real data, let me know. I will be highlighting a variety of companies as examples. You can submit your LinkedIn strategy here. Post Your CommentHave a question? Got something to share? Something I missed?Your feedback, comments, real world experience and tactical questions are an important part of the discussion. If you have a comment, question or feedback post it below.Share: Click here to share "An Introduction to LinkedIn: In Restrictions a Gold Mine" with your fans on TwitterStay up to date: Follow me on Twitter Add "The Internet Strategist" RSS updates to your reader or your Web siteRead Related Articles by Maisha:Top Twitter Techniques (or 9 Good Excuses if you want to Ignore Twitter)Facebook Demystified: Profiles and Pages and Groups (oh my)A Guide to Social Media Tools and their UsesThe Weakest Link - Your Social Media Marketing "Killer App" Homework Assignment - investigate the LinkedIn profile hotspots: (click to view the full the image with hotspots highlighted, it will open in a new window)]]> 6137@http://blog.inc.com/e-commerce/ 2009-07-27T16:00:00-05:00