Over the last three weeks in Australia as Deborah and I spoke on blogging for business and New Media Marketing in Sydney, Brisbane, and Perth we’ve gotten a lot of questions regarding the basics of business blogging. Just this morning in Perth as we were speaking with several attendees about our presentation last night. I was again amazed at how hungry entrepreneurs and business owners are for a firm grounding on effectively blogging for business.
To help out the 1,000 or so new subscribers we have from down under I thought it would be a good idea to revisit a special series we did here at Advanced Business Blogging just over a year ago. The series was called “21 Ways to Boost Your Bottom Line Using Business Blogs.” It’s a very valuable series that I’ve regretfully forgotten about, but now have “seen the light” and am bringing back to the forefront for your benefit right now.
Today I’ll share the first 1/3 of the direct links to each part of the series, and in the next two posts I’ll share the remaining two-thirds of the series.
OR… if you prefer to download or print a special expanded report in PDF format (complete with images and full introduction,) you can do that by clicking here >> Business Blogging Basics Revisited.
John-Paul Micek is the premier Click-and-Mortar Business Coach. He’s been described as the “Communication Commando” and “Profit Matrix Master” by peers and coaching club members. With four multi-million dollar businesses under his belt and over 8,500 hours of experience coaching business owners and marketers to success from the inside out, J.P. is ready to help you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business online and off-line. His latest book Secrets Of Online Persuasion is the definitive guide on marketing with New Media. J.P. is a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].
Optimizing your business blog to boost your page rank and search engine rankings is much simpler that you think. The foundation is developing legitimate authority content that others find relevant. On the other hand, discovering how Google determines those primary contributors of search ranking are what remain a black box for most business bloggers, owners, and marketers. But here’s something that will help.
Many experts in the search engine optimization and search engine marketing arena believe Google has derived their primary algorithm from a document titled, “Hilltop: A Search Engine based on Expert Documents.”
As someone using business blogs and other New Media to market, this paper will be a great help — both practically and as motivation. You’re on the right track! Here’s just a brief excerpt of why:
“… our technique is a dynamic one and considers connectivity in a graph specifically about the query topic. Hence, it can evaluate relevance of content from the point of view of the community of authors interested in the query topic. Unlike Topic Distillation we enumerate and consider all good experts on the subject and correspondingly all good target pages on the subject. In order to find the most relevant experts we use a custom keyword-based approach, focusing only on the text that best captures the domain of expertise (the document title, section headings and hyperlink anchor-text). Then, in following links, we boost the score of those targets whose qualifying text best matches the query. Thus, by combining content and connectivity analysis, we are both more comprehensive and more precise.”
(Emphasis added.)
The authors Bharat and Mihaila define the roots of optimization for top search engine rankings, and why business blogging, podcasting, and other New Media marketing methods are the key to success. This paper clearly shows why Google has degraded reciprocal links and old school optimization, and embraced New Media and “live” content such as business blogs deliver. It was no mistake.
If you’re serious about optimizing your business blog and getting the most out of your New Media Marketing — read the Hilltop paper. You’ll get a thorough understanding of what Google sees as requirements for top ranking.
The rules of ranking have changed significantly and now favor authority sites. Now’s the time to shift your approach to achieving top search engine rankings and the targeted traffic that brings.
Happy business blog optimization! I’m off to pack for our speaking tour in Australia… (More on that in my next post. If I take any more time tonight I’ll be looking for a new business partner tomorrow AM when I leave for the airport. )
Enjoy!
New Media Marketing Reference Links For This Article:
John-Paul Micek is the premier Click-and-Mortar Business Coach. He’s been described as the “Communication Commando” and “Profit Matrix Master” by peers and coaching club members. With four multi-million dollar businesses under his belt and over 8,500 hours of experience coaching business owners and marketers to success from the inside out, J.P. is ready to help you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business online and off-line. His latest book Secrets Of Online Persuasion is the definitive guide on marketing with New Media. J.P. is a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].
When you’re looking to optimize your business blog for both search engines and humans alike — sharing valuable content that adds value to your target audience is what matters most. And that makes becoming a power searcher (high performance user of search engines) a top back-end priority for blog optimization.
Now while we don’t advocate the parroting of news, tips, or other goings-on across the web for maximum influence — the better your skills as a power searcher are — the better the quality of content you’ll have to build your business blogs posts, business podcasts, videos, etc.
Search Engine Optimization expert Stephan Spencer put together a terrific free ebook that will help you become a Google power user. It’s a completely updated version and contains some of the best tips and techniques for digging deep with Google that I’ve ever seen.
One note on the Google services reviewed, Stephan created this ebook prior to Google Trends service coming out. Google Trends is one more terrific service to use in analyzing the entire marketplace, New Media included. We’ve used that tool for lots of great analysis and in gaining significant competitive advantages in innovative marketing strategies.
Enjoy!
New Media Marketing Reference Links For This Article:
John-Paul Micek is a Business Acceleration Coach with four multi-million dollar businesses under his belt and over 8000 hours of experience helping entrepreneurs like you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business. He’s a published author (Secrets Of Online Persuasion,) a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].
Discover the fastest, easiest way to unleash the full promotional power of your business on any budget. Get your free preview of the proven New Media system that puts all your marketing on multimedia steroids –BLOG Interactive 360™.
Alright, in Part one of this series you saw how New Media Marketing was used correctly by the design/build firm of Rosenlof/Lucas. And in Part two you learned three simple ways that the company could have substantially increased the marketing impact of that one video invitation. And now it’s time to learn from the mistakes of another landscape company that’s been left green with envy.
If you haven’t followed this series from the beginning, you definitely want to return to part one and start there to learn the most from this New Media Marketing case study. If you have been following along, here’s the Rosenlof/Lucas video again as a quick reminder to make the comparison really stand out. Just click the small play button under the video image.
Now, to save the second company the pain of humiliation and shame with deep analysis let’s just take a look at the video and make a quick summary. Watch this one minute video and be prepared for a BIG difference.
Click the image below to open the video in a new window
Obviously this is not much different than some mass media style commercial you’d see on your local cable station. And actually, that’s probably where this video came from. It looks like a recycled cable commercial for this landscape company.
From a New Media Marketing standpoint — why would anyone pass this video along and share it with family or friends? There’s no online persuasion here. Heck, there’s not even any clear call to action at the end of the video other than “Stop by today…” so even by direct response marketing standards, it’s useless.
Use this shocking contrast with the little you learned about New Media Marketing in part one and two of this series to drive a big point home…
If a landscape company can use New Media to market their business so can you!
Once again you see how there’s no excuse for missing out on the impact and effectiveness of marketing with blogs, podcasts, social networks, and all New Media. If one of the lowest tech industries in the world can effectively market with New Media to get new business and new profits — so can you.
If you haven’t already done so, grab the excerpt of our upcoming book Secrets of Online Persuasion. When you do you’ll automatically get a free one-year subscription to the New Media Marketing Journal where you’ll get fresh new ideas and insightful case studies like the one you just read. When it comes to marketing with blogs, podcasts, RSS, and other New Media — it’s only too late if you don’t take action today!
John-Paul Micek is a Business Acceleration Coach with four multi-million dollar businesses under his belt and over 8000 hours of experience helping entrepreneurs like you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business. He’s a published author (Secrets Of Online Persuasion,) a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].
In part one of this New Media Marketing case study, you learned how effective stepping beyond marketing with business blogs is. And you saw why this type of marketing with New Media can work in generating buzz, building your prospect list, and boosting profits. Today let’s take a look at three simple things Rosenlof/Lucas could have added to their video foray into New Media Marketing for even greater impact on their bottom line.
#1. Encourage immediate action: Along with the invitation shown at the end of the video there could have been a simple landing page where an “Invite Acceptance” was completed by the viewer. This one added step would do three things very powerful things from a marketing standpoint –
a. The pre-qualified viewers contact info would be captured for later follow-up whether he or she actually shows up at the party or not.
b. By completing the “Invite Acceptance” the viewer will have taken a small action that psychologically motivates them to follow through and actually showing up on October 5th.
c. With full contact info collected, all confirmed attendees could be mailed a post card confirmation or be sent a text-message the day before to remind them of the party.
#2. Reward immediate action: To really create anticipation and excitement Rosenlof/Lucas could have added a contest to the “Invite Acceptance” process. Something as simple as offering all “Confirmed Guests” the chance to win one $3000 design/build certificate would go a long way in getting people jazzed about the event. And a further note that the winner would be announced at 8pm the day of the party, and that the invitee had to either be there live.
#3. Leverage the business blog: OK, so let’s end with the simplest and most effective marketing addition to this entire optimized process — the linkage to Rosenlof/Lucas’s business blog. (Which I was surprised to not find. )
If the two online persuasion strategies highlighted above were used, then after the registration form for the “Invite Acceptance” was completed, the new registrant would be taken to a special post on the company business blog where they are encouraged to share their opinions on the video or what they’d like to see more of.
This interaction and participation builds rapport and trust before the prospect would even talk to Matt or his partner.
Also, I can’t comment on how much (if any) effort Rosenlof/Lucas put into using this video with their existing client list, how they used other New Media channels, or if they took advantage of any off-line PR, publicity, or promotional opportunities. I now that with a solid click-and-mortar marketing approach this New Media Marketing blitz would be the type of HUGE list building event that would keep the business swamped for months.
So if this is the way the oldest profession in the world can market correctly with New Media, what’s the wrong way to do it? We’ll cover what you can learn from the mistakes of others in Part 3.
John-Paul Micek is a Business Acceleration Coach with four multi-million dollar businesses under his belt and over 8000 hours of experience helping entrepreneurs like you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business. He’s a published author (Secrets Of Online Persuasion,) a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].
New Media Marketing Case Study: A Tale of Two Landscape Companies Leaves One Green With Envy — Part 1, Done Right
YES! Even the least techie industries in the world can use New Media to market, build their prospect list, and boost profits. It’s true that all business owners and marketers have access to the same technology and tactics of blogs, podcasts, RSS, social networks, etc. But the “secret” to successfully marketing online or offline is the same as to achieving goals in any other area of life. The difference between winners and losers is not in the technology — it’s in strategy, mindset, and the ability to influence.
As some of you know, the way Deb and I got to live our ideal lifestyle in Hawaii is through my starting, growing, and selling two multi-million dollar companies in the horticulture industry. Both were big money makers but my passion always lay with the design/build work we did for affluent clients with private estates. Because of that past life, I still keep my finger on the pulse of the horticultural industry. That includes monitoring how companies in that industry are using New Media to market their business.
Part of that monitoring of the New Media Marketplace includes subscriptions to track new videos at the top viral video sites.
The world’s oldest profession shows how to (and how NOT to) use New Media Marketing
While we were speaking in Baltimore two weeks ago, a video popped up at You Tube that really caught my attention. Not just because it was a landscape design/build firm. But because these members of the world’s oldest profession (yes, gardening is what Adam was told to do in the Garden of Eden) used New Media Marketing to influence, persuade, and connect with new prospects and their existing client base in a memorable way.
As a comparison, the second video is from a company that is using New Media — but their strategy is completely mass media/interruption marketing inspired.
The business that got it right
The landscape design/build firm Rosenlof/Lucas in Minnesota had a project that was the focus of an episode of an HGTV program. But instead of relying on a single episode of a cable show to generate buzz, they created a simple four-minute video that has given the project a very productive life attracting new clients using New Media channels.
Click on the small play button below the video to watch and the read on to learn from what they did right marketing with New Media.
OK, so it may be pretty obvious what they did right at the end of the video, but let’s start at the beginning and go through seven online persuasion strategies they incorporated with this New Media foray.
New Media Marketing done right
1. Use a personal/informal tone: The video starts with an informal and completely “personal” intro to the company. You feel as if you’re riding along with Matt Olsen.
2. Grab your target audiences attention up front: The initial intro to Rosenlof/Lucas is brief and immediately defines what differentiates their design/build firm from the competition. Don’t be afraid of losing people. If you don’t turn off (and turn away) some people, you’re probably not going to really turn anybody on either.
For example; not everyone likes contemporary design. But Rosenlof/Lucas specializes in that styles, so they’d be foolish to not make that clear. Who cares if people who don’t like contemporary design tune out. That’s not their target audience.
3. Tell a story: Matt starts the story feel right in the beginning of the video and that continues throughout the four minute clip. He and the owners of the subject property (owners of Hive Modular Homes) share their personal thoughts, inspirations, and most importantly — their passion for what they do.
Recently while a business blogging discussion on a niche social networking site for business owners I was asked this question. Here’s the question on why blog for business, and my answer with the top three reasons. BTW, I did not make up this person’s nickname, it’s for real…
Business Blogging Question:
Hey All,
So I have to ask you something… where are you wanting to go with blogs? Are you trying to increase revenues/sales etc, or just trying to meet friends on the internet to fill time? BIG difference here.
Think about it… Do you have the time and will the time you spend doing this interfere with other more profitable ways to apply your time?…
Dragginbutt
The Business Coaches Answer:
Not sure if “Dragginbutt” is being serious or not here, but the comments he/she shared are common misconceptions that business people have about blogging for business in particular, and marketing with New Media in general. Blogs may have originated with political pundits and spread by teenagers, but business people have a ton marketing benefits they can gain.
The power of blogging for business is multi-faceted and practical for even the smallest business owner — IF they’re interested in:
1. Top search engine rankings
(We regularly maintain top 20 rankings for dozens of targeted keywords with ease. Students and business coaching clients of ours are matching and exceeding those SEO results regularly.)
2. Steady increases in highly targeted traffic
(A steady growth of 3,000 visitors per month is the low side of traffic increases when business blogging is done strategically. We’ve had coaching clients boost traffic as much as 3,000 visitors in 24-hours.)
3. A growing prospect list
(The money is in the list! Even on blogs with a very tight niche we have daily averages of 7-8 new subscribers per day. )
And that’s just for starters. Branding, buzz, positioning as an expert, and more are benefits that come with a solid business blogging strategy.
New Media Marketing and search engine optimization both have costs to get results. You’re either spending time or money, or you’re not getting new business. For most small business owners, business blogging is the simplest, most cost effective, and the most effective method for gaining top search engine positions and generating targeted traffic. The only alternatives are to hire “professionals” at $3,00 - $10,000+ per month.
And as far as time to do things yourself — you don’t have to! Check out this article series that clears up this misconception about blogging for business, and many others: Blogging For Business: Clearing the Muddy Waters.
John-Paul Micek is a Business Acceleration Coach with four multi-million dollar businesses under his belt and over 8000 hours of experience helping entrepreneurs like you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business. He’s a published author (Secrets Of Online Persuasion,) a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].
Discover the fastest, easiest way to unleash the full promotional power of your business on any budget. Get your free preview of the proven New Media system that puts all your marketing on multimedia steroids –BLOG Interactive 360™.
Today we’re going to remove a major stumbling block for busy business owners and sales professionals. In this ongoing multi-part series with Filter #5 will help clear the muddied waters of business blogging even further. Since Part One we’ve been sharing how well-intentioned blogging evangelists have let their habits and protocols become “rules of the road.” Rules directed not just at full or part-time bloggers, but for any serious business person looking to market or otherwise grow their business using blogs. And that’s dangerous.
But today’s filter will expose and remove the biggest thing scaring business owners and sales professionals away from blogging…
Blogging for business, Filter #5: Consistency trumps frequency
When stepping into the New Media Marketplace with a business blog as a starting point, one of the biggest, most frequent stumbling blocks we hear about from business people is related to advice on posting frequency. Many blog evangelists advocate posting several times per week, and some even actively preach creating new posts daily or multiple times per day.
Hearing this type of advice, most utilitarian (and very busy) business people turn away in disappointment thinking that they can’t join in and benefit from marketing with the New Media. But nothing could be further from the truth. If you’ve ever wondered if blogging for your business would be worth it if you can’t find the time to personally blog five or six times per week — there’s good news! You don’t have to!
A regular posting schedule with a consistent/reliable frequency of at least once or twice per week is all you need to satisfy both the average prospect/customer and search engine spiders alike
Your posting frequency doesn’t have to be multiple times per day, or even daily. A regular posting schedule with a consistent/reliable frequency of at least once or twice per week is all you need to satisfy both the average prospect/customer and search engine spiders alike. This is especially true when you apply the advanced SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategies shared in the BLOG interactive 360 system. Traffic and rankings remain remarkably stable.
You can bump your frequency up to accelerate results, and for initial momentum that’s often a good strategy. That gives you a rapid in search engine rankings and the accompanying increase in traffic. But in most niches, you don’t need to maintain a massive barrage of fresh content on an ongoing basis.
And while I’m one the topic of web traffic, keep in mind that you’re looking for a different type of traffic than professional bloggers are. (More on that in the next installment with Filter #6.)
The bottom line is – knowing what you learned right off the bat in Filter #1 — you’ve now realized that you don’t have to create all the content yourself. And whether you create the content yourself, delegate, or outsource content creation, there are little known software tools that help manage an automate content creation and posting for your business blog.
Now when I say “software” don’t think I’m talking about blog-and-ping type junk or blog spam software that violate the 3P’s of the New Media Marketplace — People, Participation, and Persuasion. I’m talking about real blog posting management software that dramatically accelerates content creation and automates the posting of legitimate content to your blog on the schedule you set, whether you’re there or not. These are the types of tools that further help busy business owners like you harness the marketing power of blogs for you business. (We’re excited and pleased that this time saving software will be part of special BLOG interactive 360 home study packages.)
In the next installment we’ll clear the muddy business blogging waters even further with the distinction between subscribers that matter to blogging evangelists, and subscribers that matter most to business people.
John-Paul Micek is a Business Acceleration Coach with four multi-million dollar businesses under his belt and over 8000 hours of experience helping entrepreneurs like you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business. He’s a published author (Secrets Of Online Persuasion,) a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker. You can reach J.P. directly via [communicationcommando@gmail.com].
Discover the fastest, easiest way to unleash the full promotional power of your business on any budget. Get your free preview of the proven New Media system that puts all your marketing on multimedia steroids –BLOG Interactive 360™.
While doing some online networking the other day Alan posed a good question regarding generating traffic for his business blog. It’s a common point of confusion with business owners, so for your benefit here’s the question and answer.
Business Blogging Question:
Do you consider blogexplosion/blogazoo/clicker to be quality traffic? From my understanding those visitors are only there to get points to get you to visit their blog. What’s the best way to get targeted traffic to my blog if it’s to promote my business?
Appreciate your coaching advice!
Alan
The Business Coaches Answer:
Aloha Alan,
Your understanding is dead on. Traffic from any type of “exhange” is going to be completely un-targeted. That means lots of eyeballs, but very few qualified prospects from your ideal target audience. This does not make for a very efficient use of your or any employee’s time.
One caveat to mention on un-qualified traffic is if a business person was providing a generic product/service that could appeal to just about anyone. (i.e.: diet, weight loss, etc.) Then unqualified traffic COULD be worth some time. Although we’d advise it NOT be your own time. Generating traffic though exchanges would be a great task to outsource at $5.00 - $10.00 per hour max, or have an intern do.
With that said, understand the vast majority of people are not using blog exchanges to find you or your business. And the same is true for blog specific search engines (like Ice Rocket or Technorati.) They’re going to Google and Yahoo and MSN, and doing searches. So getting top rankings in the organic searches for your targeted keywords should be your primary focus if large amounts of targeted traffic is what you’re using your business blog for.
When you can consistently be in the top 20 of organic search results for strategically selected keywords — you will get the highly targeted traffic you’re after. That’s where your most valuable time should be spent.
Another caveat HERE is…. if you’re in a technology field, then those types of readers will be more familiar with blog specific search engines. That means you’d want to split your time proportionally between gaining organic results in regular search engines and top rankings in blog specific search engines. That means more commenting and interaction with other bloggers.
The most important point on traffic — conversion!
Targeted traffic is great, but what are you directing those visitors to do when they get to your business blog? This is where a lot of business people go wrong in listening to the advice of blogging evangelists in that they completely forget about the proven rules of marketing.
Contrary to what you may have heard, you can proactively market with your business blog. Marketing, blogs, and business are an excellent promotional blend. To be successful just means using influence and persuasion instead of interruption or mass media style marketing.
It’s true that a well planned business blog is a powerful tool for building relationships, opening a dialog, and developing trust with your audience. But you still need to influence those visitors to take the next step in developing a relationship with you. A blog on it’s own is not enough to do that.
At the very least a good starting point is adding a free download offer in the visual hot zone (upper left corner) of your business blog. An offer for something that will benefit a visitor from your target audience. And keep in mind that an offer to sign up for a “newsletter” is not going to be sufficient incentive for people to hand over even their first name and email address.
Add that registration incentive and that will take care of the most important step in moving strangers > friends > customers > raving fans.
Best of luck Alan, enjoy your complimentary copy of Business Blogging 101, and email us if you’d like more help using New Media to market your business.
Deborah Micek is a Business Acceleration Coach. She and her partner have over 8000 hours of experience helping entrepreneurs like you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business. She’s a published author (Secrets Of Online Persuasion,) a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker.You can reach Deborah directly via [communicationcoach@gmail.com].
Discover the fastest, easiest way to unleash the full promotional power of your business on any budget. Get your free preview of the proven New Media system that puts all your marketing on multimedia steroids –BLOG Interactive 360™.
Is blogging for business a serious way to achieve and maintain reliable search engine rankings? Yes! Is (true) business blogging a way to open dialog with your ideal audience, build relationships, and have your prospects and clients market WITH you? Yes! Yes! And yes!
But ask if blogs are the place for proactive marketing, and the answer you’ll get from blogging enthusiasts and blog evangelists is — absolutely not! And that’s why this next filter is dedicated to these dangerous purveyors of online advice.
Blogging for business, Filter #4: Beware the blogging evangelists and enthusiasts
Don’t get me wrong, Deborah and I are passionate about the market-equalizing power of blogs and New Media, especially for small business owners. That’s why we wrote the book Secrets Of Online Persuasion. But there’s a difference between the utilitarian passion of a business owner and the idealistic rantings of a digital socialist who advocates the eschewing of any action or activity that has even the hint of capitalism or profit. That, unfortunately, is the poisonous blogging advice that so many of the long-time blogging enthusiasts out there advocate.
The key to this filter is understanding the terms “enthusiasts” and “evangelists“. As I detailed in Part One of this series — you always need to be looking at where so-called “advice” is coming from.
In this case, upon analysis we see that most blogging enthusiasts and evangelists are people who have a regular job. They blog part time. Some do it for fun. Some for release. And others just to have their opinion heard, even if it’s only by a few dozen friends. And that’s all find and good — IF they would keep their “long time blogging” opinions to themselves.
Why is their advice so dangerous for business owners?
First off, because none are business owners. None of them know what it is to need to make sales to keep the lights or heat on. None of them know what it’s like to get and keep a certain number of customers each month or else face losing their home mortgaged to the hilt to finance the start-up of a dream. And none of them ever lost any sleep worrying about how payroll for people in their employ might be met on a particularly tight week.
A poverty of business experience allows blog evangelists and enthusiasts to spew ideological anti-capitalist guidelines
With complete poverty of experience in these and many other business areas, blog evangelists and enthusiasts can afford to spew anti-capitalist ideological guidelines. They promote rules that all but threaten burning at the stake for any business owner who dares enter the realm of the blogosphere without adhering to their commandments.
Secondly, the vast majority of these blogging enthusiasts lack the understanding of how marketing and other capitalist systems work for the good of the entire society. With their biased opinions they slash away at the roots of profitability (intentionally or unintentionally) trying to bring business owners (more…)
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or joining in on the Secrets Of Marketing With New Media coaching program.
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