introducing
Strategic Blogging for Business
Presented at The South Carolina Womens’ Business Center
Why Blog?
Companies that blog have
434% more indexed pages. And companies with more
indexed pages get far more leads.
--Search Engine Strategies Conference, NYC 2013
Why Blog?
Blogging is an essentialmarketing component for
your business
Why Blog?
• Improve Search Rank• Build for Long-Tail Content• Community and Market Education• Communicate High Trust Content• Build Lists, Conversions and Reach• Build Brand Value and Equity
--Search Engine Watch
Control of Message
You are a self-publisherNew earned mediaGain share of voice
Blogging Steps
1. Platform Decision2. Platform Setup3. Research4. Plan5. Create6. Post7. Promote8. Evaluate/Adjust
Technology Required
Self-hosted blog on your domain, if you want to drive website traffic.
Don’t compete with your own siteby blogging on external platforms
Alternatives to Self-hosted
• WordPress.com• Blogger.com• Tumblr.com
Why strategy?
If you put effort into planning your
marketing and content strategy you
you’ll have a higher success rate and also continue to execute based on a strategy,
versus reacting to what is wrong due to lack of organization.
Strategy
Before you deep dive into planning and executing your strategy consider and answer these critical questions:– How do you make money as a company?– Why do you make money in those ways?– What are you biz development goals?– What questions can you answer, problems can
you solve, or understanding can you add?
Research
Blog Posts
Business Goals
What your customers care about
What you care about
What you blog about
What do you post about?
Let’s Plan-Getting Focused• Story: Human, real. Connects with people. What’s
yours? • Message Development: What will you say in what
formats. Must fit your customers (photos, videos, text)
• Tone & Voice: Company persona, “voice” of person writing the posts
• Planning: Content calendars, trends to deliver timely content when that topic or idea is in the top of mind.
4 Tips for the Planning PhaseMore planning = More success
• SERP Data: Get keywords from that that people are looking for. Find ideas for what people want to know.
• Build a long-term and regular content plan.– Long-Term Content Plan: Use Google Trends to compare products and primary searches.– Regular Content Plan: What trend terms are big the past days and figure out what is
trending right now that your company can take advantage of.• Create a publishing schedule so you can see what content is going live when. The
key is to plan your marketing according to your content.• Measure your efforts to see what was successful and learn to make more money.
--Search Engine Watch
Research
• Consumer Trends– Search the professional associations, Google
Trends, Web for reports, analysis, surveys about topics or services your customer needs
– Note what is important to consumers using your products and services
• Take Away Tip: It’s all about the customer!
Research
• Competitors– Keywords
• Google Keyword External Tool– SEO results– Point of Difference
• Take Away Tip: Know your competition.
Research Examples
Live, real sources• Digg :: Cupcake• Storify :: Cupcake• Google Trends :: Cupcake• Twitter Search :: Cupcake• Alexa :: Cupcakes
To find this, search for “Google Keyword External Tool”
Plan Blog Categories
Cupcakes
Chocolate Birthday Decorating
Parent Category Child or
Secondary Categories
Plan ‘Tags’- Micro Categories
DarkChocolate
WhiteChocolate
MilkChocolate
ChildCategoryChocolate
Tags
Content Development
• Photos• Videos• Text / written articles• Curated content
Create Editorial Calendar
Topic Mon Tues Wed Thurs Fri Sat SunCakes Birthday
CupcakesChocolate Cupcakes
Desserts How to decorate cupcakes with real flowers
Favorite Milk Chocolate Cupcake Recipes
Superhero Birthday Cupcakes
Checklists & Tools
• Our planning document.• Our list of what to do to make sure you’ve
optimized your blog posts.
Publicize Your Posts
Questions?