SEO Tips for Your Blog, Business

By Donna Fuscaldo – FOXBusiness

With social media here to stay, many entrepreneurs smartly figure they have to be part of the 24-7 conversation, and not simply an observer.

For Michael Wink, when starting a law firm last summer with his wife Gailyn, co-authoring a blog was a no brainer. The husband and wife bankruptcy-attorney team started Wink & Wink in Broomfield, Colo. to both make a living and help people – and, they said, a blog helps facilitate both goals.

“We can share information about bankruptcy law that can be quite useful and for people looking for an attorney it gets us through to prospective clients,” said Wink.

Increasingly small businesses are embracing the idea of writing blogs to coincide with their business. For many, it’s a way to connect with existing customers and reach out to potential new ones. The successful ones are able to strike a balance between offering opinions and coming off as an expert in their chosen field.

“There’s a lot of sources of information on the Internet. To the extent you’re merely authoritative you may not stand out quite enough. Of course if it’s only opinion it may not come across as professional enough,” said Wink.

Both husband and wife take turns writing the Wink & Wink blog called He Said, She Said. The blog, which is updated at minimum once a month, focuses on interpreting the laws of bankruptcy, issues facing people considering it, and current events that may impact a decision to file.

“People don’t always understand that bankruptcy can help them,” said Wink. “At the minimum they need to understand their rights with bankruptcy.”

For Wink, starting the blog wasn’t too overwhelming of an endeavor. He had dabbled in using the medium with his former venture, running a fish farm. There he said he first discovered the power of a blog to share information.

While it’s hard to quantify how many new clients came to Wink & Wink because of the blog, Wink said it has helped the law firm move higher in rankings on Google when someone searches for a bankruptcy attorney in Colorado.

“One of the most palpable marketing goals achieved through the blog is search engine optimization,” said Wink. “The more authoritative content the better ranking it gets you.” For Wink & Wink, a new firm trying to gain market share, a blog is a “relatively inexpensive” way to gain clients.

Wink said for small business owners considering writing a blog, one of the best things to do is actually write it, instead of having a ghost writer. After all, the goal of the blog is to connect with clients and what better way than by showing your true voice.

Stacks & Stacks, the San Francisco retailer of de-cluttering products, said its goal of staying on top of current technology pushed it to launch its blog cluttercontrolfreak.com in August of 2007. The blog, which has content written by company staff as well as experts in the field of organizing, provides consumers with tips to reduce the clutter and get organized.

Eva Wallace, Web site and social media manager at Stacks & Stacks, said the blog garners positive feedback, but measuring how many sales come as a result is difficult to do. She said it gets 9,000 to 10,000 visits per month.
Wallace tries to keep the blog casual and doesn’t shy away from including personal stories.

“It’s not too personal, but enough so there’s an actual face behind the brand,” said Wallace, noting she does try to inject some humorous pictures and stories. One recent blog post focused on washing clothes by hand after the washing machine broke, while another simply said Happy Easter and features a picture of a dog with bunny ears.

Wallace said that small business owners considering launching a blog should be sure you are willing to commit the time needed to update and manage it. Spending two-to-four hours a day on the blog isn’t unheard of for Wallace.
“You have to be consistent and put up posts two to three times a week at least,” said Wallace. What’s more, she said small business owners need to be transparent and balanced when it comes to the blog.

“They have to let readers know they do represent a brand and not try to hide that,” she said. “[But] try not to be really self serving [and/or] make everything about the company.”

www.onlinebusinessstrategist.com
Having An Online Presence Isn’t An Option, It’s A Necessity

http://www.foxsmallbusinesscenter.com/technology/2010/04/14/seo-tips-blog-business/

Getting connected: Business owners join LinkedIn, Facebook to network Read more: Getting connected: Business owners join LinkedIn, Facebook to network – Birmingham Business Journal:

Are you LinkedIn? Do you have a Facebook profile? Do you ‘Tweet’? If not, consider joining the social media crowd
BIRMINGHAM BUSINESS JOURNAL – BY Lauren B. Cooper STAFF

Read more: Getting connected: Business owners join LinkedIn, Facebook to network – Birmingham Business Journal:
TicketBiscuit’s Eric Housh said he picked up 10 to 15 new leads on clients in the entertainment industry across the country in a matter of days last week.

No, he wasn’t racing from airport to airport like O.J. Simpson or spending hundreds of dollars to wine and dine potential clients for the local online ticketing and entertainment marketing firm he works for.
He was sitting at his desk, maintaining the company’s Twitter feed, he said.
Not sure what Twitter is? (See box.) It, along with LinkedIn, Facebook and other online social media and blogging sites, is what some say is the fastest growing marketing tool and a way to keep track of what’s going on with your clients, your industry, your competitors and your friends.

And Housh isn’t alone. He’s joined by millions of CEOs, top executives, dedicated employees and professionals of some of the nation’s largest and most respected companies, including Home Depot, Zappos.com, Best Buy and Dell to name a few, that have expanded their presence through online social media and blogging, claiming increased visibility and the ability to respond to customers instantaneously.

Doing so takes time and transparency, but if done properly and with a plan some experts and those who use the sites say it can be a very affective marketing tool.

Housh, chief marketing officer for TicketBiscuit, said while he uses Facebook and LinkedIn on a more personal basis, Twitter allows him to keep track of what’s going on in the entertainment industry and what people are saying about his company and his competitors.

For example, he said, last week he was able to monitor what people were saying about the announced merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster and reach out to those looking for a more independent ticket broker and event marketer.

“The benefit for us is put in one word – visibility,” he said. “I search on what people are talking (or ‘Tweeting’) about. If anyone mentions TicketBiscuit, I can see what people are saying about the company and immediately respond, if it’s positive or constructive or I can say, ‘Let’s fix this situation.’”

Sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn are another way to get a company’s name on people’s mind or connect with other like-minded professionals, said Kara Kennedy, head of consulting firm Kennedy Resource Development and director of external affairs for Samford University’s Brock School of Business.

“LinkedIn is a good value for marketing,” she said. “You get to write a profile and your accomplishments. On LinkedIn there opportunities for business discussion groups that have questions about (human resources) or accounting and you can pose a question that more than likely will get answered immediately.”

Kennedy said she often uses Facebook to post Samford alumni events and updates and LinkedIn to maintain a growing database of contacts where other companies can look for business and potential employees.
“You can guarantee your competitors are online,” she said.

However, gauging the effectiveness of online media for companies is a daunting task, since there are many different ways to measure how many people you reach, said David Griner, social media strategist for advertising and public relations firm Luckie & Co.

“It’s a daily struggle finding ways to tell clients about its effectiveness,” he said. “But it’s opening the lines of communication and that’s the rewarding part.”

Griner said some corporate cultures just aren’t ready for online social media, but warns that those companies should be prepared to face the fact that their competitors probably have a strong online presence.
“They are staking their claim on being the company that’s listening and being involved,” he said.

Griner advises to have a plan before launching an online marketing campaign and be prepared to update and participate consistently, because it’s something people can’t do half way, he said.
TicketBiscuit’s Housh agreed.

“Most people’s hands are being called because they can’t afford print advertisement any more,” he said. “You can’t get in there blasting and take, take, take. There’s a delicate balance. If you blast in, people tune you out.”
But balancing all that takes a lot of time.

Derek Waltchack, a principal at Shannon Waltchack Investment Real Estate, said his company recently started a blog to convey to investors and other brokers the type of work the company does.
“You have an idea to do it and you go great guns at first,” he said. “But continuing to have content is more daunting than it seems. You have to feed the beast.”

But so far the blog has enlarged the company’s sphere of influence, he said, with more brokers and investors going online to learn about the company and other bloggers linking to Shannon Waltchack Investment Real Estate’s site and blog entries.

www.onlinebusinessstrategist.com
Having An Online Presence Isn’t An Option, It’s A Necessity

http://denver.bizjournals.com/birmingham/stories/2009/02/23/smallb1.html

Online marketing evolves away from banner ads

Denver Business Journal – by Lyn Berry Tech

The year was 1996. The place, the Internet.

As with its predecessors, television and radio, the Internet showed incredible promise as an advertising medium.
Scads of companies jumped on this new electronic bandwagon, snapping up Internet “banner” advertising space, while marveling at the medium’s interactive capabilities. Not only could banners accomplish brand recognition, but with the click of a mouse, products could be bought and sold.
Now, a new trend shows the popular banners are losing steam, while direct e-mail marketing is emerging as the high-growth darling of electronic advertising.
“Demand for e-mail marketing is definitely soaring,” said Ben Addoms, executive director of MatchLogic Inc., a Westminster-based provider of online advertising and marketing products and services.
MatchLogic reported a 2,000 percent increase in its clients’ direct e-mail usage, when comparing first quarter 1999 and 2000 results.
“However, our brand advertising was only up in the neighborhood of 300 percent during that time,” Addoms said.
MatchLogic’s experience mirrors a national trend spotted by Forrester Research. The Massachusetts-based independent research firm predicts the direct marketing share of all interactive advertising will swell from 25 percent in 1999 to 65 percent in 2003, producing a $5.5 billion market.
“What we’re really watching is the evolution of online marketing,” said Addoms. “Pricing and demand for different kinds of advertising are reflective of their performance, and e-mail is more effective on a cost per basis.”
This doesn’t mean e-mail is less expensive on its face, however.
The cost for a banner ad can run between $3 and $30 for 1,000 “impressions,” or people who see the ad. Direct e-mail marketing is much more expensive per thousand, falling in the $275 to $450 range.
Despite the price differences, e-mail marketing can save a company money down the road because it is a more targeted form of advertising, according to Pete Estler, founder and managing partner for iBelay, a Boulder-based Internet holding company that invests in a number of online direct marketing companies.
“It comes down to how many responses you get for each contact,” he said. “E-mail is getting much more response.”
According to a study published by E-BuyersGuide.com, e-mail promotions inspired 63 percent of consumers to shop online in December 1999, while only 38 percent of consumers were motivated by banner ads.
“Brand advertising is not very targeted,” said Estler. “You’re playing banners to everybody. There aren’t any consumer characteristics tied to banners.”
E-mail, on the other hand, is not only more targeted, but it allows a company to “get smarter” in its marketing efforts every time it receives response from customers, which happens more quickly than with other marketing techniques. “It’s an opportunity to refine the next e-mail effort and send it to a tighter audience, which improves performance,” Estler said.
Most e-mail solicitations are driven off of “opt-in” or privacy-protected databases, such as NetCreations Inc. and YesMail. These databases store lists of subscribers who have opted in to receive information about certain products, through avenues such as e-mail newsletters on the Web.
“This is a more receptive audience that is involved in the company’s marketplace and interested in its topic,” said Dan Murray, e-mail marketing strategist for Boulder-based MessageMedia Inc. “This leads to a much higher percentage of response.”
The database approach works especially well for companies that strive to maintain their current customer bases.
“It’s a lot cheaper to grow your current customer base than to go out and beat the bushes for new customers each month,” Murray said. “E-mail allows a company to provide excellent customer service by keeping customers updated.”

www.onlinebusinessstrategist.com

Having An Online Presence Isn’t An Option, It’s A Necessity

http://denver.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2000/06/12/newscolumn1.html

Bringing a Smarter Search to Twitter, With Fees

By: Todd Woody

Bill Gross, the serial entrepreneur who pioneered search advertising, is unveiling a venture on Monday that aims to make money by allowing people using Twitter to bid on key words to give their posts top ranking.

Called TweetUp, the service will also organize the posts according to their popularity as measured by how often readers repost them and click on links they contain.

Mr. Gross said he had signed deals with other outside Twitter services like Seesmic, TwitterFeed and Twidroid to display TweetUp’s rankings. A TweetUp search bar will appear on Web sites like Answers.com and BusinessInsider.com. TweetUp will split revenue evenly with each partner, he said.

The goal is to cut through the clutter of thousands of irrelevant posts on topics of interest and keep the useful ones from disappearing into a torrent of messages.

The gamble is whether Twitter users who have turned the microblogging service into global communications phenomenon will be willing to pay to get their 140-character messages noticed — and whether other Twitter users will view such paid placement as legitimate.

“We feel Twitter is unbelievably powerful, but finding the thoughtful tweets amid all the noise is unbelievably hard,” said Mr. Gross, founder of Idealab, a technology company incubator based in Pasadena, Calif. “What we’re bringing is a new sort-order to tweets.”

Mr. Case said he was persuaded to invest in TweetUp by Mr. Gross’s role in developing paid search at GoTo.com, an Idealab spinoff, in the late 1990s. Advertisers bid to have their listings placed at the top of search results, a controversial practice at the time. Yahoo acquired GoTo.com, which had been renamed Overture, for $1.6 billion in 2003.

“TweetUp is to Twitter what Google is to the Web,” Mr. Case said.

Here is how the service will work, according to Mr. Gross: people can bid on key words or phrases, like “iPad” or “solar energy,” to push their Twitter profile or posts to the top of TweetUp’s rankings. Bids begin at 1 cent and people will pay each time their profile or a post shows up in a search.

Mr. Gross stressed that bids were not required to appear in search results. The service will also calculate rankings based on an algorithm that uses data from a company called Klout that measures a Twitter user’s influence. Bit.ly, a service that shortens Web addresses for display on Twitter, will provide data on how often people click on a link in a post.

So who does Mr. Gross expect to pay to put something as ephemeral as a Twitter post on top of the charts? “I think everyone who is looking to build a following will pay,” he said. That means companies that want to build their brands as well as individuals who hope to drive readers to their Web sites.

Loic Le Meur, chief executive of Seesmic, said TweetUp would appear as a new search option for his one million users.

Seesmic has had discussions with Twitter executives about their moneymaking strategy, Mr. Le Meur said, but he does not believe TweetUp will conflict with those plans.

Mr. Gross said the idea of rankings intrigued him as he followed thousands of Twitter posts related to the Copenhagen climate change talks. “It was mostly noise, so I wrote a very thoughtful blog piece on renewable energy and tweeted it,” he said. “Then 20 seconds later as I gloated in my success, I typed in ‘Copenhagen’ and my tweet was bumped off the page by people saying, ‘Where do I buy mittens in Copenhagen?’ ”

At the TED technology conference in February, Mr. Gross said, he read 10,000 Twitter posts about the gathering. “There were only 200 to 300 great ones, and I thought it would be great to be able to filter those,” he said.

He pitched his idea for TweetUp to venture capitalists attending the conference, including Danny Rimer of Index Ventures, a European firm. By the time Mr. Gross left TED, he had a handshake deal to finance TweetUp and quickly enlisted Idealab workers to begin writing software.

“We have been scavenging the marketplace quite comprehensively, and we haven’t seen anyone come up with what TweetUp’s doing by adapting Bill’s original Overture model and layering it on real time,” Mr. Rimer said. “The big bet, of course, is whether people are going to adopt it.”

This story originally appeared in the The New York Times

www.onlinebusinessstrategist.com
Having An Online Presence Isn’t An Option, It’s A Necessity

The Top 10 Companies on Twitter

Top ten companies on Twitter… let us help you become one of them.

1. Dell
“For overstock and obsolete equipment, getting outlet inventory sold fast is the name of the game. Twitter is the fast-paced grapevine that gets the word out – to the tune of $3 million in annual sales.”

2. Whole Foods Market
“Whole Foods uses Twitter to go deep on their customers’ needs, test concepts, and extend the conversation about values that drive them.”

3. Zappos
“Extending the zany brand relationship between the online shoe company and customers, encouraging everyone from CEO to newbies to join the party.”

4. JetBlue
“Never again for JetBlue after their 2007 ‘day on the tarmac’ PR nightmare. Constant communication with 1.6 million followers keeps them from falling out of touch; plus JetBlue Cheeps broadcasts fast-moving deals to their most devoted 50,000.”

5. Comcast
“The cable TV giant stages a perceptual makeover of customer disservice by converting a gripeline into a testimonial factory through @comcastcares”

6. New York Times
“This publisher broadcasts all the news that fits in 140 characters to keep in touch with 2.4 million readers, with subchannels for specific interests.”

7. Southwest Airlines
“Replicating that same fun, casual flying relationship to enthrall their customers. The (only) airline that knows how to make customers LUV (the company’s ticker symbol, based on the Love Field airport in Dallas) them, one tweet at a time.”

8. Starbucks
“The #1 most socially engaged of the Interbrand Top 100 brands, Starbucks is on top of ‘in the moment’ customer interaction. Starbucks says, “It’s about the relationships we form with our customers, not marketing.”

9. Kodak
“With a Chief Blogger and a Chief Listener both hooked onto the party line, this venerable brand now uses the most forward communications to help them stay up-to-date with their product and market.”

10. Home Depot
“The Home Depot goes beyond just product and store questions to help showcase how consumers use the store in their home improvement projects.”

www.onlinebusinessstrategist.com

http://www.cnbc.com/id/36421561

Having an online presence isn’t an option, it’s a necessity.