Go Ahead – RSS Your BLog Off!

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RSS stands for Rich Site Summary or Really Simple Syndication, depending upon whom you ask.  Either way, readers of your blog posts who sign up for an RSS feed are saying they find value in your content to the point they want to "subscribe".

First invented by Netscape almost twenty years ago, RSS technology saves time for people who regularly visit the web.  For your company, delivering blog posts to your readers’ "doorstep", via either a "feed" or via email, provides a wonderful means of developing loyal followers.

A blogger colleague of mine, on Problogger.net, explains that when a surfer bookmarks a favorite site, that surfer still needs to remember to visit the bookmarked site to check if any new content has been posted.  With an RSS, your readers will be notified each and every time you post new material on your blogsite.  Your browsers turn into your subscribers!

In today’s world, it’s not enough to "hand out" materials such as postcards and brochures, or even to post billboard ads.  Don’t get me wrong – all of those things can still be valid marketing tools.  But blogs are "available for acting and reacting", as I brought out in an earlier post (see "Buildings, Like Blogs, Can Be Interactive"). Not only do your blogs invite readers to post comments, the RSS feeds allow them to get updated on all your latest doings, while allowing you to be a trusted resource for relevant and timely information.  Readers can also easily go back to your earlier posts and read in greater depth on topics of special interest to them.

I invite you, on both your main website and your blog, to invite your readers to subscribe. Everyone benefits, so go ahead – RSS your blog off!

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Who Foots The Bill For Blogs?

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If it’s true, as Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware stresses in webinars and white papers, that only 5-15% of business conducted online comes about as the result of
pay-per-click advertising or paid sponsorships, why do search engines reward blogging and give us business bloggers all that “free space” in which to strut our stuff across the runways of the blogosphere?

Elementary, my dear Watson.  Search engines such as Google attract advertisers by bringing visitors who have come to rely on Google as the place to most quickly and easily get the information they need. If Google (or any search engine) can lure double the number of visitors, the advertisers’ 5-15% will also double. Happy searchers + happy advertisers = happy search engine! 

And the most important winners are….(drum roll) my clients and all the other businesses that provide up-to-date, easy-to-understand, and relevant content by regularly posting blogs.

A few facts of blogosphere life will lend some insight into the enormously effective symbiosis I’ve just described.  First of all, as David Verklin and Bernice Kanner stress in their book Watch This. Listen Up. Click Here, “Google is the undisputed leader in search….and search is the most lucrative activity on the Net..”
 
The authors go on to explain a second fact: “The true drivers of its (Google’s) ad bounty are AdWords and AdSense.”  Advertisers choose and bid for keyword terms that bring up their ads next to search results, paying Google only when a web surfer clicks on their ad.  Since both the advertisers and Google are making money, the system continues.  Meanwhile, we business bloggers provide the smorgasbord of content that keeps those visitors coming, all the while driving traffic to our respective business web sites.

Indianapolis small business marketing maven Lorraine Ball says blogging is no longer optional for entrepreneurs.  “Even traditional business-to-consumer, nontechnical businesses are going online and adding blogs to their marketing mix.” Ball cites some of the unique benefits of blogs: they’re simple, less invasive than email or snail mail, they’re interactive, and they provide a way “to share the latest news about the company, new products, industry trends, and the occasional comment from a customer.”

So who foots the bill for blogs?  I like to think of it this way: The advertisers foot the bill, while we business bloggers fit the bill by providing exactly the kind of knowhow, information, products, and services visitors came to find!

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In Blogs And At Starbucks, It Goes Back To The Grind

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Instead of grinding coffee only in the morning, Starbucks employees will grind beans for each new pot.  The Wall St. Journal says the change is part of an effort to re-invigorate the “Starbucks experience” in the face of competition from other brands.  Howard Schultz, the former CEO, retook  leadership of the company, saying the switch to pre-ground coffee had “taken the romance and theater out” of a trip to Starbucks.

Forgive me for brewing a metaphor here, but I truly believe Shultz is onto a secret blog marketers need to hear. Just as visitors to a Starbucks shop need an “experience” – crackle, aroma, and all – to keep coming back for more, online visitors to your blog need to find an experience along with information.  Word tidbits, unique points of view, special how-to tips, links to unusual resources, and humorous touches – all these things make your blog post special.

According to Schultz, “We achieved fresh-roasted bagged coffee, but at what cost? The loss of aroma – perhaps the most powerful nonverbal symbol we had in our stores.”

Having “sipped” the content of your blog post (that’s all they will probably take time to do, as online searchers tend to be scanners, not readers), visitors must be enticed to click through to your website to savor the full range of what your company has to offer – what you sell, what you do, and what you know.  Each digital “hit” is a chance for you to “make a hit” with your potential customer or client

Apparently, whether at Starbucks or in business blogging, we need to go back to the grind!
 

 

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Pare Down, Don’t Dumb Down, Your Blog

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"A writer should always feel like he’s in over his head," says Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Cunningham in O Magazine. Cunningham has advice for writers that I think all bloggers need to hear:  "You can’t bore people – ever!"

We business bloggers love to write, but we sometimes forget online searchers don’t generally like to read.  What they like to do is scan. If it becomes quickly obvious your blog content answers their question, shows them how to satisfy their need, and offers a fresh approach, they’ll stick around awhile.  Otherwise, they’re outta there faster than you can say "bounce rate".

Cunningham’s rather rueful observation is that he’s always aware he’s writing for someone at least as smart as he is, "who is busy and has a job, and a mate, and a whole life going on".

Blogging for business shares only some of the challenges of creating a novel, but Cunningham’s observations apply nonetheless.  While technology has revolutionized the way businesses market themselves, writing for folks as least as smart as you is a "keeper" rule for bloggers.

In a number of my earlier Say It For You blog posts, I’ve stressed the importance of keeping blog content short and relevant.  What Cunningham reminds us is that paring down the quantity shouldn’t mean "dumbing down" the concepts presented in the posts.  To the contrary, we want online searchers to get a clear sense of our unique approach to our business and our astute insights into the issues they face. 

Smart bloggers write with smart readers in mind!

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First-Take And Second-Thought Messages In Your Blog

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"We know life isn’t like the movies," says July’s O Magazine, reviewing four "chick flicks".  Still, "O" apparently thought there might be lessons to be learned at the movies after all, going on to ask Philadelphia-based psychologist and author Dr. Judith Sills for her opinion on how the films’ messages hold up in real life.

After a quick summary of the plot of each movie, Dr. Sills offers three types of comments on each:

• First- take message – What’s the main piece of life wisdom the flick offers?

• On second thought…What other ideas come to mind after seeing the movie?

• We wonder… What are some areas we want to explore further after viewing the film?

As a professional ghost blogger for business, I especially liked Sills’ idea that, as people absorb material presented to them, they do it in three stages. It occurred to me that when searchers read blogs, those readers might unconsciously be using the same three steps.   Business blog posts, then, should be aimed at helping potential customers move through all three stages, clicking through to the business’ website and becoming increasingly engaged, eventually becoming users of the products and services the blogger’s business offers.

For blogs, the first-take message is crucial. Key words and phrases need to have lead spots in blog post titles, and be used early in the text of the blog posts, so that searchers will receive a first-take impression that they’ve come to exactly the right spot to find the information they need.

According to blogging mavens Shel Holtz and Ted Demopoulos, while “entire books can be written on search engine optimization, using key words and phrases is a simple technique that words and should not change quickly.”

On second thought, as fellow blogger Erik Deckers points out, “there aren’t that many good writers out there…The best writers are trained professionals who understand language and the written word.”  A good blogger, Deckers explains, must be able to put your business
message  into simple language customers can understand.  To that I’d add that the content needs to warrant “second thoughts” – besides being informative, it’s got to be engaging, varied, and interesting!

We Wonder…In blogging for business, your goal is to induce “wonder” in searchers who find their way to your blog. Your post has served up just enough food for thought to make them wonder if, after all, there are even more ways in which what you have to offer is exactly what they have to have!


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