Business Blogging

Just imagine for a moment you spend less time with good paying customers and they love you and how you help them.  These evangelists then sing your praises to everyone they know, bringing more customers your way.  Sound good?

How?

Your best customers are those who get it, don’t struggle with the message and do everything you suggest (which works).  When something does go wrong, your best customers call you and you solve the problem.

Write down everything about this ideal customer.  Age, income, education, marital status, religious and political believes, hobbies, children, the type of house they live in, and everything else you can think of.  The more you can define, the easier it will be for you to write articles that appeals to the prefect prospect.

For example (extreem as it is), if your ideal customer is socially conservative but your written article is very liberal then your words will not echo with the target prospect.

Create one client profile at a time, otherwise you’ll confuse the language.  Client profiling includes building sample language and topics of interest.  Your blogging strategy should including creating an inventory of topics that are appealing to this perfect customer.

Write your client profile, then write two sample articles and ask a friend to give you feed back.  Does the articles speak to the client profile defined on the page?  The trick here is making sure your client profile is very detailed.  For example, if you only state you want to do business with people who have money, then when reviewing your article, your editor will not be able to give you constructive feedback.

When starting your blog site, be sure to limit the number of client profiles your are writing for.  Readers will get confused it the language is trying to speaking to too many different people all at once.

Happy Blogging!

For more information about how we can help you and your company build a lasting business blogging strategy, please call me at (503) 709-1454.  We want to earn your business.

Ed Bejarana Zenith Exhibits, Inc.

There is no right way or wrong way to write you blog articles.

This outline is just one suggestion on how to compose your blog publications, we suggest you talk with other business people and find out how they are creating blog articles.

There are two basic goals for blogging:

1. Building more inbound links to your company website.
2. Present you and your ideas to a wider audience.

We suggest you:

• Write articles that are 250 words (+/- 25 words)
• Format your article into four or five paragraphs
• Construct paragraphs that have three to five sentences
• Write interesting titles that are less than 12 words long
• Keep your article focused on a single topic
• Use the most appropriate category from those available
• Add tags that further classify or categorize your article

In your first paragraph, state your thesis.

The middle paragraphs should support your thesis, be easy to read, and use few filler words (e.g. and, the, where-with-all, etc.).

You last paragraph needs to state a conclusion.  If possible make your conclusion action centered.  For example, if your article is on a decision made by the City Council, then conclude with an action challenge to make you voice heard at the next council meeting.

Always sign your document and add a link back to your company website.  Where ever possible, use keyword rich text and the achor for your link.  For example:

Affordable Website Hosting

.vs

BusinessBlogging.net

Be sure to add text to the “Excerpt” field located below your main article window.  The Excerpt text is used on the home page as the lead in for your blog articles.

Also, make sure you have updated your user profile with your company’s webaddress, because each article will show your name as a link back to your website.

Write articles that your target customer finds interesting.  For example, if you know your best customer’s love dogs, then write about your dog.  When presented with two options, your prospect will choose the service provider they like the best (when all else is equal).  Social marketing is being socialable.  Give the world a window view into your soul.

Happy Blogging!

Should you wish to get more help building your business blogging strategy or writing blog articles, contact Ed Bejarana at (503) 709-1454.  Editorial assitance is only $25 per article.

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Every year hundreds of thousands of companies pack up their wares and setup shop in convention centers all across America.  Bright colorful graphics, lots of brochures and an endless sea of business cards line row and row of these portable market centers.  This is kind of like what you are doing with you Business Blog, you stand before billions of people observing trillions of electronic brochures and bright colorful graphics!

Searching a random key term, “Auto Industry”, on Google produces a list of 67 million exhibitors.  The first listing, by the way, is a blog site.  The 2009 North American International Auto Show hosted about a hundred exhibitors and more than 650,000 visitors.  What then does a blog site have in common with a tradeshow?

Show Audience Attention Time Span

When walking by your booth or visiting your site, we have about 10 seconds to make a lasting impression that compels the visitor to want more info.  How you write your blog article will influence how many visitors continue reading and how many bounce back to the search engine.

• Use catchy headlines
• Relevant graphics
• Specific examples
• Clear, easy to read, text

Targeting a blog article length of about 250 words is optimum, but for some subjects you might need as many as 400 to 600 words.

Unlike the tradeshow floor, your blogs search engine visibility will depend on the perceived value of your content.  Make sure the words you use are clear, to the point and informative for your reader.  Don’t try to sell the visitor, use your blog as the beginning of the relationship, not the end.

Ed Bejarana LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/edbejarana Twitter:  http://www.twitter.com/bejarana Company Site:  http://www.ZenithExhibits.com Delicious:  http://www.delicious.com/bejarana

While there is no published formula for How To optimize your web page, we are going to give you a basic page organization structure to serve as a starting point.

Always remember, CONTENT IF KING.  There are no gimmicks, tricks, or content formula that will work to give you a guaranteed first page ranking.  Be wary of ANYONE who tries to sell you a first page ranking–it can not be done.

Organizing Information

Before looking at pictures, column layouts, or even keywords; define who your target customer is.

Pick a page topic.  Keep the topic scope of your page narrow.  Don’t try to say everything on one page.

Break the topic into three major categories.

Divide each Major Category into three sub-categories.

Spell out keywords for each of the category and sub-category fields.  Here is an sample outline:

1. Major Category 1
   1. SubCat A1
   2. SubCat A2
   3. SubCat A3
2. Major Category 2
   1. SubCat B1
   2. SubCat B2
   3. SubCat B3
3. Major Category 3
   1. SubCat C1
   2. SubCat C2
   3. SubCat C3

While it is not necessary for your page to follow this outline format verbatim, building your content in this fashion will give you the very best starting point for organizing your page.

The Major Category should become a page heading tag (H1 or H2 tag).

Sub-Category keywords should be used smartly in a short paragraph.  It feasible, use bullet points, but be sure to support the bullet points with action driving text.  Use your target customer profile as the foundation for picking the right words and language you use.

Supporting The Message – Multiple Senses

Until we can add scratch and sniff web pages, we are left with sight and sound.  Useing these two sense we need to set the right emotional hook.  Website visitors will read very little of your page so use pictures as supporting cast members for your website’s message.

Pick photos that complement your written message.

Ask For Feedback

Do not trust that once you build your webpage that it is perfect.  Do not get so attached to page content that you become defensive when your trusted advisors suggest alterations.

Look to the Small Business Development Center, trusted industry experts and even other business owners to give you constructive feedback.

Measure Everything

Do not settle for visitors and page reads stats.  How long did visitors stay on your site, which links did they click and how often, what type of web browser do your visitors use and what size population center does your visitors originate?

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