Monthly archives for July, 2008

The Power of Blogging



You need to be blogging, if you are not already. Blogs are a very powerful and effect marketing tool.

The pros of blogging are:

• they provide fresh content to your website
• the search engines love them and will index blog posts very frequently
• installation and the “optimizing” of your blog is not too time consuming
• they are tons of ways to promote your blog via directories, link etc.
• they are a social marketing tool, thus can help you connect to others in your field or subject matter

Now there are some cons and the two major ones are:
• they can be time consuming-for writing and/or promoting ones blog
• some technical knowledge is needed to install and properly “optimize” the blog

Now these cons can be overcome but hiring someone to do it for you but of course that cost money :)

The main point of this post is to share with you a couple of examples of the power of blogging.

A while back, I got a phone from SuperPages asking about my account. I told them everything was fine and not to bother me again. Well after a few more “telemarketing” type calls from them (from an overseas call center) I decided to blog about it and vent.

Not two days later, someone from SuperPages called me and asked for details! I was impressed and amazed that someone actually called. Within a week, they had taken care of the problem and took the time to call me back.

I asked them how they heard about my blog post. They said that someone in marketing saw the post via Google Alerts and took action.

Another great example is from my associate Tim at Convert Offline. I will let you read his blog post but basically he got a new “dream job” because a company looking for someone with his background and experience, found his blog, contacted him and within an hour, offered him a job.

The point is that people and companies out there reading, searching for information on-line and blogs are a perfect vehicle for getting your message across. If you are promoting yourself, your company, or your product and service. The pen is mightier than the sword!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Larry Sullivan has been online for over 8 years – helping small business to increase their online visibility. Larry specializes in local search marketing and blogs about local search and other related Internet marketing topics at LocalBizBits.com.

Posted in Blog Marketing - Tagged ,

Blog Content: Should You Break A Post Into A Series?



Is there such a thing as to much content, or in this case, a post that is too long? I would argue that, at times, posts can be to long. Blog content can be fickle and your readers more so.

There are two solutions to a post that is too long. One, break it into two or more pieces and post it as a series, or edit it back to a shorter post. Blog content needs to be bite sized or provide a quick read. These are two options generally suggested to bloggers. There is one further option which can often be the best solution.

People want a quick fix. Occasionally however, a longer article is worthy of its place as a single entity. For a series to work,  each unit of the series needs to be able to stand alone. Many articles cannot be written this way. A good example is a “how to” with many complicated steps. It needs to be followed from A to Z and will not break naturally into two posts – let’s face it, who wants to get half through baking a cake then wait until tomorrows post to find out what to do with the batter?

When caught in this situation, the post is probably better off being a static page and not post. Publish the article and then write a post that summarizes the steps and then points to the static page using appropriate anchor text.

The benefits are many. You now have two items to publish for the price of one. You will have created an authority page and future reference point. Blog content does not have to be about regular posts. If you use a software package such as WordPress, then creating a static page is as straightforward as creating a post. Don’t waste a post because it is too long – put it to better use.

Posted in Blog Content - Tagged
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