Since my company, Say It For You, offers not only blog writing services, but corporate blog training sessions, I’m always reading others’ blog posts and learning new ideas I can emphasize in those training meetings. One blog I follow, Steele Marketing Concepts, offers a thought–provoking statement: "What made a good website just a couple of years ago, does not constitute what most would consider an effective website today". Steele explains that "not so long ago your website was considered an electronic version of your promotional brochure….today it is an interactive means to interface with your customers and prospects."

The emphasis, is on the word "interactive". Phil Steele lists what he considers to be the key attributes of a good website. Every one of the points he makes is relevant to my work in providing corporate blogging for business. Blogging, in fact, is the "and then some!" for each of the positive outcomes Steele expects from well-designed websites. In other words, while a website does not replace a blog, nor a blog replace a website, there are certain things for which blogs are the perfect tool. (Sure, you can get a picture hook into a wall using the handle of a screw driver, but the right tool might get the job done more precisely.)

What blog content writers need to remember is that the initial messaging visitors see needs to answer their primary questions about how you can help them.
This is emphatically true of blogs and is the ruler by which we freelance SEO copywriters measure the relevance of our content.. Online searchers are not likely to spare more than a few seconds to decide if they’ve come to the right place for the products, information, or services they need.

Your website must be able to differentiate your offering from your competitors’. 
In fact, one of the ongoing tasks of a professional ghost blogger is to bring out, using different approaches in different blog posts, each client corporation’s or organization’s –  "unique sales proposition". While I agree a well-done website will offer evidence of the company’s specialties, the blog can use the "drip" method to get that point across over time and in ever-varying ways.

Top websites are used as the hub of a company’s marketing efforts.  By interfacing with other online tools like Facebook, Twitter, you Tube, and others, customers are given multiple channels in which to interface with your business.
All true, but it’s easier to arrange to automatically "ship" each new blog post out to social media sites, than to expect the reader to do the clicking from your website to Facebook, Twitter, and friends. Blogs are simply smaller and more nimble than even the best-designed website..
 

I think of the website as a refrigerator, which stores and is ready to serve up content whenever someone opens the refrigerator door. The blog, on the other hand, is like those ice dispensers – you stick you glass under and lots of little cubes emerge!.

 

 

Verbification, as I explained just a couple of weeks ago in one of these Say It For You blog posts, can be a good tool for small businessowners using corporate blog writing as part of their marketing strategy and tactics development.

For one thing, verbs connote activity and excitement, as Bits.blogs.nytimes points out, making business blog writing more dynamic.  And, if a “verbified” noun catches on, readers will repeat it to others, bringing that company’s brand to mind.

When I do corporate blogging training, one of the points I try to drive home is that corporate blogging for business works best when it’s conversational in tone.  I remind blog content writers to avoid hard-sell advertising, although a certain amount of skillful “bloggerising” (notice the verbification combo) is more than acceptable.

A lot has been written about using business blog writing to create conversation.  While reader comments may not be what makes the corporate cash register ring (Doug Karr and Chantelle Flannery say as much in Corporate Blogging For Dummies, pointing out that the 1 in 100 visitors who comment are not the ones who typically convert into customers), I do believe that writing for business should be expected to generate a back-and-forth process:

• The conversation begins when searchers find your site because the inquiry they entered into the search engine matched your products and services.
• You then offer information and various Calls to Action.
• Customers respond by providing personal information, submitting questions, or ordering product, and …
• You come back with the appropriate response.

  As a freelance SEO copywriter and corporate blogging trainer (and in the spirit of verbification),  I’ll call that back-and-forth process “Bloggersation”!