Blogging & RSS Promotion

In my true 101 style, I want to recommend a new book for everyone that just started in the area of blogging. The release of the book, Blogging for Dummies, coincide this month with a blogging event this month (Northern Voice) on Feb 22-23 which you should attend if you want to know more about blogging.

New to blogs? Check out Blogging for Dummies, 2nd Edition.

Susannah Gardner of Hop Studios and Shane Birley of Left Right Minds are the authors of Blogging for Dummies, 2nd Edition (published by Wiley).

I know Susie personally since she is the one who has worked on my website. As such, I am especially delighted to know that they have used my site as an example in the book of what a “dummy” (yes, that would be me) can accomplish with little supervision. What can I do without my geek friends? Therefore, besides the fact that they are my friends, I would recommend this book regardless. (I did not read it yet)

Here is some more info about the book from Monique of Boxcar Marketing:
Susannah and Shane offer expert tips for new bloggers and bloggers looking for ideas and resources on improving their blog. The book includes explanations in plain English, quick information for techies and non-techies, tear-out cheat sheets and top 10 lists.

Blogging for Dummies, 2nd Edition is a great resource book for business and personal bloggers.

What’s the promise?
Discover how to create and maintain visitors to your blog, protect your privacy and your job, deal with spam and inappropriate comments, find your voice, and use your blog to promote your business.

Check it out for yourself and start blogging. It is addictive.

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I got a great article today and I thought I could not avoid the opportunity to sharing it around. According to many blogging experts, only 5 percent of businesses with fewer than 100 employees have blogs. For those who do have blogs, they benefit from it in a variety of ways. Blogging is a low-cost, high-return tool that can handle marketing and public relations, raise the company profile and build the brand. Since most of my Clients (and the potential ones who are reading this) are small-medium size businesses, this is for you.

Here is the stuff, by Marci Alboher, from the NY Times:

The blog of Sarah E. Endline described the arrival of the company’s first cacao shipment from South America.

That tool is blogging, though small businesses with blogs are still a distinct minority. A recent American Express survey found that only 5 percent of businesses with fewer than 100 employees have blogs. Other experts put the number slightly higher.

But while blogs may be useful to many more small businesses, even blogging experts do not recommend it for the majority.

Guy Kawasaki, a serial entrepreneur, managing partner of Garage Technology Ventures and a prolific blogger, put it this way: “If you’re a clothing manufacturer or a restaurant, blogging is probably not as high on your list as making good food or good clothes.”

Blogging requires a large time commitment and some writing skills, which not every small business has on hand.

But some companies are suited to blogging. The most obvious candidates, said Aliza Sherman Risdahl, author of “ The Everything Blogging Book “ (Adams Media 2006), are consultants. “They are experts in their fields and are in the business of telling people what to do.”

For other companies, Ms. Risdahl said, it can be challenging to find a legitimate reason for blogging unless the sector served has a steep learning curve (like wine), a lifestyle associated with certain products or service (like camping gear or pet products) or a social mission (like improving the environment or donating a portion of revenues to charity).

Even in those niches, Ms. Risdahl said that companies need to focus on a strategy for their blogging and figure out if they have enough to say.

“As a consultant, blogging clearly helps you get hired,” she said. “If you are selling a product, you have to be much more creative because people don’t want to read a commercial.”

Sarah E. Endline, chief executive of sweetriot, which makes organic chocolate snacks, said she started blogging a few months before starting her company in 2005 to give people a behind-the-scenes look at the business.

The kind of transparency is a popular reason for blogging, particularly for companies that want to be identified as mission-oriented or socially responsible.

A typical post on sweetriot’s blog described the arrival of the company’s first cacao shipment from South America and how Ms. Endline met the truck on Labor Day weekend after it passed through customs at Kennedy International Airport.

She wrote about climbing aboard to inspect the goods and then praised the owner of Gateway trucking company, who helped her sort through the boxes so that she could examine the product.

“At sweetriot we don’t use the word ‘vendors’ as we believe it is about partnership with anyone with whom we work,” she wrote.

For companies in the technology sector, having a blog is pretty much expected. Still, Tony Stubblebine, the founder and chief executive of CrowdVine , a company that builds social networks for conferences, said that one of his main reasons for blogging is to show that his business model is different from the typical technology start-up.

“Everyone in Silicon Valley is focused on venture capital funding and having an exit strategy,” he said. “Because I’m not focused on raising money, I can focus on my customers, since they aren’t a stepping stone to some acquisition or I.P.O.”

He added: “I’m trying to create a community of help for small Internet businesses like mine. My blogging philosophy is like the open source model in software. It’s sort of a hippie concept. If I can help other people, it’s personally rewarding. And those people will likely pay it back in some ways.”

Mr. Stubblebine said he gets new customers largely by word of mouth, and he uses the blog as a way to share news with friends and people who wield influence in his industry as well as a reference check for customers. “That’s why I cover the growth of the company.”

David Harlow, a lawyer and health care consultant in Boston, said he started his blog, HealthBlawg, as a way of marketing himself after he left a large law firm and opened his own practice. Besides, he said, blogging was easy to get started and the technology was straightforward.

Now, after about two years of blogging, Mr. Harlow said he was pleased with the results. He gets about 200 to 300 visits a day, he said. He has also become a source for publications looking for commentary on regulatory issues in the health care field and has even gained a few clients because of the blog. In addition, he has formed relationships with other legal bloggers (who call themselves blawgers) and consultants around the country.

Many small business bloggers achieve their goals even if only a handful or a few hundred people read their blogs. But some companies aim much higher.

Denali Flavors, an ice cream manufacturing company in Michigan that licenses its flavors to other stores, for example, is a small company with a limited ad budget. It decided to use a series of blogs to build brand awareness for Moose Tracks, its most popular flavor of ice cream.

John Nardini, who runs marketing for Denali and is responsible for the company’s blogs, said he has experimented over the last few years with different types of blogs to see which would generate the most traffic. One blog followed a Denali-sponsored bicycle team that was raising money for an orphanage in Latvia. Another tracked the whereabouts of a Moose character that would show up at famous landmarks around the country.

But by far the most successful blog, in terms of traffic, turned out to be Free Money Finance, a blog that has nothing to do with Denali’s business. Mr. Nardini’s plan was to create a blog with so much traffic that it could serve as an independent media outlet owned by Denali Flavors, where the company could be the sole sponsor and advertiser.

He chose personal finance because it is a popular search category on the Web and because he knew he would not tire of posting about it. And post he does, about five times each weekday.

He uses free tools like Google Analytics and Site Meter to understand how people are finding the site and which key words are working. Free Money Finance receives about 4,500 visits a day and each visitor views about two pages, which means they see two ads for Moose Tracks ice cream. The effort costs about $400 a year, excluding Mr. Nardini’s salary.

The site also accepts advertising, which earns the company about $30,000 to $40,000 a year, all of which Denali donates to charity. “We run ads because it legitimizes the site; it’s really not about the money,” Mr. Nardini said. “We’re hoping people will go into Pathmark, see the Moose Tracks logo and say, ‘Hey, I just saw that on the Web site I go to every day.’ “

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Blogging is an addiction. You can easily spend the whole day blogging and not work on anything. I am glad to see that my addiction is somewhat under control. I scored 65%. Try the fun little blogging quiz and share your results.

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Every week, I explain to new potential clients the power behind blogging and its relationship to the ongoing battle of increasing site traffic over time. Blogging has also a strong relationship with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on top of the fact that adding fresh content to your site (ie. Blog) helps improve your rankings. As you know, my Search Marketing Blog is only 6 months old and I am still learning how to do this right. So far so good. I can tell you that the process has been somewhat easier than anticipated but the results are far greater than what I expected. Before I show you the results, you must take note that I have been working on my blog approximately 5 to 10 hours per week. Here is the progression of readers I have had since March 15, 2007:

Not bad, eh? That is the kind of growth curve that I can live with.

And here is what you need to remember if you consider launching a blog, from my own experience:

It pays to have a blog! (real customers looking to buy from you)

It brings in better prospects

It brings awareness to the existence of your business (from those who just stumble upon your site)

It reaches an audience you did not previously have

It increases your potential customer-base

It solidifies your online presence

It raises your professional profile

It helps you becoming a better writer

It keeps you motivated as you evaluate your progress

It takes time

There are a lot of arguments for doing it and very few drawbacks. The ratio, cost (time) vs benefits is outstanding. Fortunately, as everything else online, you can measure your progress over time through Feedburner (owned by Google). Soon enough, we can speculate that the amount of subscribers to your RSS Feed (in this case 53 as of November 5, 2007) will become part of the Google search algorithm and this measure will help Google position your site organically. You can’t avoid it. If you are not sure which CMS (Content Management System) to use to incorporate a blog on your site and how to get this done, feel free to Contact me and I will suggest a few options and people to work with. For a thorough education process on Blogging, please sign up to attend the next Northern Voice Blogging Conference 2008 in Vancouver (BC) Canada (site to be updated soon). 

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Techvibes with Darren Barefoot of Capulet Communications and Christine & Tzaddi of Bluelime Media have been collaborating and launched last week the Techcouver.com site (and promotional 6″ x 9″ maps) just in time for Saturday’s Barcamp Vancouver 2007. The feedback was positive all around.

Inspired by Montreal Tech Watch’s Map of the Web, Techcouver will be a series of maps highlighting Vancouver’s technology industry on Translink’s zone map. The theme of the first map is Web 2.0 and they have included 22 local companies that they have identified as worthy.

They know that often start-ups are under the radar, so if you think you should be included, be sure to click on the Get On The Map link and let them know.

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As I am cleaning my inbox today, I came across an old email that was coming from Fred, a talented blogger, where I was asking for advices for my blog. Here’s a partial answer of what he has to say when you just start blogging:

1. Use lists.
2. Be topical… write posts that need to be read right now.
3. Learn enough to become the expert in your field.
4. Break news.
5. Be timeless… write posts that will be readable in a year.
6. Be among the first with a great blog on your topic, then encourage others to blog on the same topic.
7. Share your expertise generously so people recognize it and depend on you.
8. Announce news.
9. Write short, pithy posts.
10. Encourage your readers to help you manipulate the technorati top blog list.
11. Don’t write about your cat, your boyfriend or your kids.
12. Write long, definitive posts.
13. Write about your kids.
14. Be snarky. Write nearly libelous things about fellow bloggers, daring them to respond (with links back to you) on their blog.
15. Be sycophantic. Share linklove and expect some back.
16. Include polls, meters and other eye candy.
17. Tag your posts. Use del.ico.us.
18. Coin a term or two.
19. Do email interviews with the well-known.
20. Answer your email.
21. Use photos. Salacious ones are best.
22. Be anonymous.
23. Encourage your readers to digg your posts. (and to use furl and reddit). Do it with every post.
24. Post your photos on flickr.
25. Encourage your readers to subscribe by RSS.
26. Start at the beginning and take your readers through a months-long education.
27. Include comments so your blog becomes a virtual water cooler that feeds itself.
28. Assume that every day is the beginning, because you always have new readers.
29. Highlight your best posts on your Squidoo lens.
30. Point to useful but little-known resources.
31. Write about stuff that appeals to the majority of current blog readers--like gadgets and web 2.0.
32. Write about Google.
33. Have relevant ads that are even better than your content.
34. Don’t include comments, people will cross post their responses.
35. Write posts that each include dozens of trackbacks to dozens of blog posts so that people will notice you.
36. Run no ads.
37. Keep tweaking your template to make it include every conceivable bell or whistle.
38. Write about blogging.
39. Digest the good ideas of other people, all day, every day.
40. Invent a whole new kind of art or interaction.
41. Post on weekdays, because there are more readers.
42. Write about a never-ending parade of different topics so you don’t bore your readers.
43. Post on weekends, because there are fewer new posts.
44. Don’t interrupt your writing with a lot of links.
45. Dress your blog (fonts and design) as well as you would dress yourself for a meeting with a stranger.
46. Edit yourself. Ruthlessly.
47. Don’t promote yourself and your business or your books or your projects at the expense of the reader’s attention.
48. Be patient.
49. Give credit to those that inspired, it makes your writing more useful.
50. Ping technorati. Or have someone smarter than me tell you how to do it automatically.
51. Write about only one thing, in ever-deepening detail, so you become definitive.
52. Write in English.
53. Better, write in Chinese.
54. Write about obscure stuff that appeals to an obsessed minority.
55. Don’t be boring.
56. Write stuff that people want to read and share.

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I came across this today from the Twist Image Blog which talks about what Lee Lefever over at Common Craft have done recently to explain the power of RSS and subscribing to content. This video is titled, RSS In Plain English. If you don’t know much about blog & RSS, you have to view this. It is an excellent video.

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My friend James from Boxcar Marketing must have said it a thousand time: You should start a blog. For a year I also heard him say: We fear change. It is hard to admit it, but this can apply to me every now and then considering it took me this long to start a blog. Monique, James’ lovely girlfriend and partner in Work Industries, was kind enough to teach me the first few lessons about blogging 101 a few weeks ago which I post it here.

Since I find this helpful, I think it might help you too. Here are the first few tips about blogging for newbies:

1. be smart (it’s easy to make stupid mistakes and or post without
considering the implications. This is a public record of you.)

2. respect existing confidentiality agreements (don’t blab about your
current or former employers unless you really, really can do it
anonymously)

3. don’t break news, don’t disclose confidential info (Don’t leak
stories from your employers or clients, it could cost you your job.)

4. be cautious with third party info

5. respect prior employers and employees (don’t air dirty laundry,
especially on a blog)

6. identify yourself (don’t post anonymously in comments, etc. on
your blog or others)

7. be cautious in how you offer support or advice

8. Speak for yourself (don’t respond on behalf of your employer, your
client, your friends, etc. unless you are authorized to do so)

9. Think about reactions before you hit “post”, how would this look
on the front of the Globe and Mail

10. When in doubt ask

Hope that’s helpful. Other advice is spell check. Modify posts by adding a new post and linking to the old, or by adding an UPDATE to the original post rather than rewriting it. Thanks Monique!
If you like this, make sure you subscribe to her Underwire Newsletter: Full Support for Non-Techie.

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I am pleased to announce that I will host a session on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for blogs at Northern Voice 2007 Blogging Conference in Vancouver (BC) which will be held on Friday, February 23 2007. This session will be presented during MooseCamp, which is the un-conference as part of Northern Voice.

This session will present how to maximize your Blog’s visibility in search results including how to write search engine friendly Blog posts through keyword-rich Blog titles & content and how to capitalize on the long tail of search queries through Blogging. Other topics covered include Search Engine Optimization (SEO) basics, how to create good internal linking with anchor text, link baiting, deep linking and other relevant topics such as Blogging best practices for maximum online distribution. This session will be presented by Alexandre Brabant, Director of Search Marketing, Cossette Media and owner of eMarketing101.ca. As part of this conference, Alex will present the latest development with Sempo.ca and will kick-start the recruitment process for SEMPO Canada 2007.

Here is more on Northern Voice:

Northern Voice is a two-day, non-profit personal blogging conference that’s being held at the UBC main campus in Vancouver (BC) Canada on February 23-24, 2007. For even more info please visit the Northern Voice website.

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