Blog Content Provider .com

Online marketing is about finding a niche and building on it. You could say harping on it. Blog Content Provider has been showing businesses how to capitalize on niches for over two years now. As many online marketers are talking about the increasing difficulty of marketing online, we’re talking about how increasingly easy it is becoming. It is easy - if you know how.

The problem with most companies is they don’t know how. Company after company come to us to start a blog only to find out that there is a power play between the management and the marketing department. The fact is, most company marketing departments are not successful at marketing their company’s website online. They may be great at traditional marketing, but online marketing isn’t traditional marketing.

Off line you can integrate all of your marketing efforts seamlessly under one department. Online, it is better to segregate your efforts into niches. A television campaign that highlights the benefits of doing business with your company can work wonders, but you are better off online targeting each division of your company to the target market that is interested in that doing business with that niche. If you market your company this way then you could end up with 50 or 100 blogs in addition to 50 or 100 separate websites - one for each division of your company. That OK. You’ll be much more effective that way.

You don’t have to set up all 50 of your websites and blogs in one day. Start with one. When you see the results you’ll be amazed and you’ll share your success story with other department heads. We know. We’ve seen it many times. I’m sure we’ll see it again.

In a forum the other day I had an interesting conversation with a couple of marketers. They believe somehow that content isn’t king. In fact, one of them went so far as to say that links are king. But if you try to build links to a web page with no content then Google is going to have a hey-day with you. My view is that links are just another form of content - off-page content.

Links are important, but on-page content should always be your starting point. Some people think that quantity of content is what makes or breaks your site or blog. Not true. Quality of content is far more important. But quantity does help. Especially on a blog.

Google will only rank one page on a website for a particular key phrase. Which blog post do you want that to be? Preferably, it will be your blog’s index page. But you won’t get your index page ranked highly on Google for popular key phrases without targeting that key phrase consistently over time. We’ve proven that you can do this. Yes, it takes time. And the more competition you have for your key phrase, the longer it will take.

At Blog Content Provider, we don’t discourage alternate ways of driving traffic and making money. But we do encourage using the search engines to take advantage of the natural, free ways you can rank your pages. Consistent daily blogging is one of those ways. We’ve done it time and time again, and we’ll keep doing it as long as it works.

Audio blogging hasn’t caught on yet, but it will. It’s just a matter of time. All it requires is a microphone, which is built into most laptops now, and the software to record your voice. Audacity is a free software that can take care of that for you. With WordPress and its podcast plugin, you can have your very own audio blog.

To create an audio blog all you need to do is set up WordPress the way you would an ordinary blog and install PodPress, the plugin. Download Audacity then take an article that you’ve written and record yourself reading the article. You should also be able to find some free music that won’t require permission or a copyright notice to use as an and opening and closing theme. After you’ve got your podcast edited to your satisfaction, upload it through PodPress and write a description of 50-100 words to give the search spiders something to feed on. Otherwise, they won’t know your podcast is there. Save and publish and you now have an audio blog post. That simple.

Need a blog consultant?

When it comes to commercial blogging, there is more than one way to skin the mountain lion. Here are a few types of blogs that others have set up in the past:

• Made For AdSense - A Made For AdSense blog is a blog that you set up specifically to showcase AdSense ads. The content is there to attract organic search visitors for specific keywords and doesn’t really have to be that great. In fact, most of these blogs do not have good content at all because the owners really want their visitors to click the ads.
• Affiliate Blogs - An affiliate blog is set up to specifically promote one or more affiliate programs. You do want the content on these blogs to great content. You are not really selling the products that you are affiliates for. You are pre-selling. Your goal is to spark an interest in the product and drive traffic to the affiliate program’s website. When a visitor from your blog makes a purchase then you are paid a commission because your link has your own special affiliate ID code embedded in it.
• Onsite Company Blog - Your ownsite company blog is designed to be the face and voice of your company. You want good, solid content on this blog because every post is a separate web page that gives organic searchers a chance to find your company. Great for SEO, these blogs add fresh, daily content to your existing static website and that invites the search engine spiders to your site to crawl it more often.
• Offsite Promotional Blog - This type of blog is similar to a company blog, but it has a standalone web address. You definitely want to update this blog every day and add fresh content daily. Best used as a link building tool, the offsite promotional blog is very effective in driving traffic to individual pages on your company website. Through each blog post and through sidebar links, you can drive traffic right to where you want it to go.
• Product Promotions Blog - This type of blog is designed to promote one specific product or suite of products. You want the blog to have a name associated with the product that you are promoting. It can be “sponsored” by your company or be disassociated with your company, but its main goal is to promote the one product or family of products that you wish to promote. It can be on your company’s static website or have its own standalone web address.
• Industry Dialogue Blog - The Industry Dialogue Blog is designed to address important topics within your industry. The focus can be on your competitors, partners, and/or suppliers, or it can be on the industry itself. You can encourage dialogue within your industry or simply use the blog as a platform for addressing important topics within the industry.
• Customer Service Blog - A customer service blog is usually a part of your company’s website, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s primary focus is on delivery timely news on aspects related to your customers. It should communicate items of interest that any customer or prospect would be interested in and be used to provide better service and to solicit feedback on your service from your customers.
• Department Blog - Sometimes you have a department head who wants to address issues related to his department. In today’s complex, global business environment, you may have people within your department in different geographic regions who need to receive the same information. You can communicate that information through a department blog.

A blog can be used for any purpose, really. The important thing is that you communicate with the right audience in the right way. Need help setting up your blog? Just let us know.

The latest trend in blog marketing is guest blogging. It’s really nothing new. Newspapers, magazines, websites, and publications of all kinds have featured guest writers for hundreds of years. Now, you can promote your own website and blog through someone else’s by becoming a guest blogger. Here’s how:

• Read a lot of blogs in your niche - Subscribe to every blog within your niche that you can find. At the very least, read the top 10 or 20.
• Take note of the latest trends - Know what people are interested in.
• Comment on blogs - Become a commenter, but not an annoying one. Don’t just comment for the sake of commenting. But when a topic comes up that piques your interest, comment on that blog post. This will give bloggers an idea of who you are so that when you express an interest in being a guest blogger then they will already be familiar with you.
• Respond to queries - Many blog owners who plan to use guest bloggers will run a notice on their own blogs first. It makes sense to start with your own readers. When you see a notice asking for guest bloggers, toss in your name.
• Be courteous and professional - Always be nice. You’re on someone else’s property.
• Don’t wait - Don’t wait for an invitation. If you have something to say and you’ve already been a regular reader for some time who has left comments and participated in the community, send a short, friendly query to the blog owner asking if they use guest bloggers. Don’t be pushy. After sending the e-mail, sit back and wait. A blog owner may be on vacation or be busy and can’t get back to you in a few days. Be patient and your answer will come. Be prepared for “No” and don’t be disappointed if you are told “No.” The blogger may decide to use guest bloggers in the future and you could be their first choice.

Many blog owners use guest bloggers. Usually, you’ll get an author bio and a link back to your own blog, a real meaningful benefit that often leads to new readers, more traffic, and higher conversions.

Interested in guest blogging for Blog Content Provider? Send an e-mail to allen at articlecontentprovider dot com. You might also ask about guest blogging opportunities for the Article Marketing Blog.

Is there a trick to using your blog for business? Basically, no. You can develop relationships with your customers and use your blog as a tool for building business. There are two ways to go about it.

Many people try to keep their blog focused on developing relationships and providing quality content. The reasoning is that as people learn to trust you more they will feel more comfortable doing business with you. That’s a good strategy.

Another useful way to do it to use your blog as an SEO tool. Links and search engine saturation are two important measures of SEO success. By using your blog to build these two measures of SEO and therefore improve your search engine rankings you increase your chances of attracting business through organic searches.

Of course, there are no guarantees. There are risks associated with choosing one of these strategies and ignoring the other. If you use both strategies simultaneously then you increase your chances of attracting new business through your blog. Learn more about how this works at Blog Content Provider.

Here are a few tips to help you turn those social bookmarking visitors into loyal readers:

• Make your RSS subscription icon highly visible - Don’t put your RSS button at the bottom of your blog. Put it at the top where people will look first and make it big enough to see.
• Allow subscriptions by e-mail - If you use Feedburner, you can add a subscribe by e-mail button in addition to your RSS by feed reader button. This will allow new Internet users who are not familiar with RSS to subscribe to your news feed and read your blog in their e-mail.
• Add a bookmark button to every post - Whether you use ShareThis, AddThis, or one of the other umpteen bookmarking buttons available, use one. This will encourage people to bookmark your posts and share with their friends. As an added bonus, allow your readers to send your posts to their friends via e-mail.
• Reply to comments - Quickly.
• Encourage comments - Allow readers to comment on your blog and make it easy for them to do so.
• Don’t talk down to your readers - Make your blog posts interesting and easy to read. People will stick around longer.

Need someone to manage your blog?

Who is your blog about? If you write a lot about yourself then you will likely lose readership. That’s one of the biggest mistakes new bloggers make. You need to make your blog about your customer or potential customer. How do you do that?

No. 1, you want to discuss the benefits of your business without making it appear as if you are selling. People don’t like to feel that they are being sold to. So don’t do it. But you want to appeal to their emotions in some way and get them to take action. There are a number of ways you can do that:

• Tell them a story - People love stories. Especially if the stories make them laugh. Pull on those heartstrings and people will love you
• Talk about the benefits - What are people looking for? What problem are they trying solve? Solve their problem for them and they’ll buy from you.
• Make yourself human - People only trust other people. Humanize yourself and build trust.
• Stick to the 7 basic emotions - Fear, greed, envy, lust, pride, laziness, vanity. People are people and if you want to snag their interest you have to present them with something that pulls on one of these 7 emotions.
• Paint a picture - Make people see what you see. Get them on your side and they will want to please you.

People are selfish. They want to know what’s in it for them. So tell them. When you do that then they will buy from you, but first they have to trust you. Use your blog to build trust.

One overlooked aspect of blogging by many new bloggers is promoting previous posts. You can actually drive traffic to your previous posts by linking to them from current posts. It’s called cross linking.

Don’t go crazy with it though. One or two cross links per post is enough and you don’t want to do it in every post. Just every once in awhile. When you find yourself blogging on a topic you’ve covered before you might allude to that previous post with a link back to it for reference. Your new blog readers will go back to look at that other post and older blog readers who have forgotten the older post will check it out again.

Just a useful tip if you’re writing your own blog.

Before you set up your business blog you should start reading a few other blogs in your niche. What is your competition doing? How are they doing it? And take notes, lots of notes.

What you want to do is take note of things you like about the other blogs. What do you like and what do you not like? Write those things down so that when you start your own blog you have an idea of what it is that appeals to you. But it also helps to understand why your competition is using a particular strategy. Why did they put that graphic there? Why are those links in the sidebar? Understanding why something is done can go a long way to helping you develop your own blogging style and philosophy.

You might also want to leave a few comments on blogs. Just because you don’t have a blog yet doesn’t mean you can’t join the conversation. You can. But your comment won’t have a link that will let others visit your website. That’s OK. You can still do a pre-branding effort by using your name and when you do start your own blog then you’ll have some limited name recognition within your niche. It will be easier for blog readers in your niche to identify you because they’ve seen your name before.

The most essential thing to do before you start your business blog is to visit other blogs in your niche and get involved. That’s how you develop your own style.