All Entries in the "Blog Marketing" Category
Why Your Site’s Bounce Rate Is Important For Rankings
Blogs are at a disadvantage in one regard: Traditionally, they have high bounce rates. That’s because readers generally read one post and they’re gone. This is especially true of subscribers.
But that may not matter in the long run even though bounce rates are important for ranking purposes. This isn’t proven, but I believe it’s true. Google has stated publicly that they measure traffic and rank websites based on traffic. But a high traffic site may not necessarily be of any value any more than a low traffic site with a low bounce rate. All things considered, a high traffic site with a high bounce rate may actually be holding a negative, not a positive.
Consider this: A site receives 100,000 daily visitors on a regular basis. 80% of those visitors are unique and 80% of those read one page and they’re gone, never to return. Would you want that? Or would you prefer to have 1,000 daily visitors of which 80% are loyal and return on a regular basis? I think we’d all rather have the latter, right?
Particularly if your site is a blog. You want readers coming back.
A loyal readership is much more valuable than high numbers of people that show up and leave. But I do believe that your site’s bounce rate may be an indicator of user value in the eyes of at least one search engine. Work on creating valuable content and your bounce rate will go down. You might even see a resulting increase in search ranking for some of your keywords.
Is Business Blogging Really That Different?
Is business blogging different from personal blogging? In a certain sense it is, but then in another sense it isn’t. It really depends on your goals as a blogger and as a business.
Most corporate blogs couldn’t get away with personalization. You have to maintain a business image and make sure all of your communications stays on track with your message. Everyone’s got to stick with the talking points.
A small business, however, can make their blog almost as personal as a personal blog. You still have to watch your p’s and q’s, but you can get a little personal. It won’t hurt you. To some extent, a corporate blogger may get away with it if done correctly.
But where a business blog and a personal blog go there separate ways is in the mission of the blog itself. A business blog is making marketing, making money, and increasing the size of your market share. You want your readers to become customers. And to do that you have to write it in such a way that you attract buyer-oriented readers. But you don’t want to push them away with strong sales pitches on every blog post. You want to draw your readers in with valuable content and get them to start a conversation about doing business with you. Is your blog doing that? Why not?
Why Do I Need a Blog?
Why do I need a business blog and why should I hire someone to manage it for me?
By now, most business Website Owners have learned there are advantages to having a company blog. But why do I need a company blog? How will it really help me?
Most bloggers, even those who have been blogging for a long time, do not truly understand all of the ways a blog can benefit your business. They are good bloggers. They even may know a little about SEO and can put all the keywords and phrases into your blog. But do they really know about blog marketing and what the benefits are for their clients? Do they really know SEO or the technical aspects of operating a blog?
Do you know all of the benefits of having a business blog?
Let’s see;
Why does my Business need a Blog?
A business blog is the most cost-effective way to add fresh content to your website daily.
It is the most affordable way to build link popularity.
A business blog can make you money through Conversational Marketing.
A business blog will help drive more traffic to your website.
It gives you a place to offer special deals, make announcements, issue press releases, and get feedback from customers.
You can have a private blog that your employees or shareholders read.
There are way too many ways your company can benefit from a business blog to list on one page. As they say; “Think Outside The Box” and create new ways blogs can be used. All the uses for a blog have not even been invented yet. Be the first to try something new. Call us at 786-317-8774 and get a free business blog consultation. We’ll brainstorm with you!
Your business blog can be within your website or on it’s own domain name.
Your company blog can be used to help capture a specific search phrase or phrases in the search engines.
You can have a company blog in your website and one on its’ own domain name, each achieving a different purpose.
You can have multiple blogs all working for you at the same time. The options are endless.
It is not a one-size-fits-all deal. Our Blog Consultant will talk with you, analyze your business, and come up with a strategy that benefits your business. Click here to get a free business blog management quote.
Blog Management and Marketing
Blog Content
Your blog content will make a lot of difference to how well you do with both the search engines and with visitors. Whatever your goal is for your blog, to make your blog popular to read, to make sales, to drive traffic to your website, to get people to sign up for something like a newsletter or affiliate program, or something else, you will need good, original content.
Not only do you need good original content on your blog, you need it every single day.
Blog search websites like technorati.com and Google’s BlogSearch list blogs by the most recent posts that match the user’s keywords. If you are not posting daily, you can get buried beneath all of the other blogs that do one post or more every day. Our daily blogging service will make sure your blog is updated every day or more often if you choose that option.
Blog Posting is more than just writing. If you want your blog to be interesting to user and also rank well in the search engines, you need to know how to structure your blog posts properly.
Do you know the proper way to write your blog post titles?
Do you know how to use keywords in your blog post for the search engines without seeming spammy or obvious to your readers?
Do you know how to use good anchor text and a proper linking strategy?
Our bloggers are trained to write relevant, interesting blog posts that are also optimized for the search engines. Read more about our Daily Blog Posting Service.
Social Bookmarking and Social Networking
Social Bookmarking and Social Networking are extremely beneficial to your blog. It can help you with link popularity, attracting more visitors to your blog, more comments on your blog posts, and even help you rank better with the search engines. However, social bookmarking is time consuming.
Many people try to automate the process for that reason. Automated social bookmarking will not get you all of the benefits that social networking will get you if you take the time to do it yourself. Most business owners do not have the time it takes to participate on these social networks. That is why Blog Content Provider does it for you. Our basic social bookmarking package comes with our Daily Blogging Service, but we also offer social bookmarking as a standalone service. Read more about our Social Bookmarking Service.
Professional Full Service Blog Management
Let our staff completely manage your business blog for you. We will handle everything. We will choose a domain name for you where necessary, provide blog hosting, do the installation, create or choose a blog template, optimize your blog for the search engines, provide the daily content, and do the social bookmarking. You turn your business blog over to us and we do it all for you. Read more about our Complete Business Blog Management Service.
Blog SEO and Programming
Blog Installation
WordPress claims you can install wordpress in just 7 minutes. Some cpanels have fantastico that will automatically create a database and install wordpress for you. But is that all there is to installing a wordpress blog? No. There are better ways to securely install a wordpress blog on your server.
Then you need to choose the right plugins to enhance the usability and improve the SEO of your blog. Every blog is different. Every blog has different goals and obstacles. So choosing the right plugins is more than just going to someone’s favorite list of plugins and using them all.
Some blog service companies brag that they install wordpress with more than 80 plugins! Wow! 80! How many of those plugins do you really need? Usually just a few. We securely install your wordpress blog and choose plugins for you that fit your specific needs. Read more about Blog Installation.
Blog Setup and Configuration
A lot of people will tell you that choosing the settings in the admin area of your wordpress blog is self-explanatory. To who? There are a lot of choices to make in the admin area.
An experienced Blog Manager knows which settings are best to use from experience. For instance;
Do you know the best sites to put into your ping list?
Do you know the proper way to create categories?
Post Slugs?
Is time-stamping a good idea?
Do you know how to configure all of the plugins or get an API Key?
Our Blog installation specialists will set everything up for you. Read more about Blog Configuration.
Blog Theme Installation and Editing
Here again, it sounds easy. You choose a theme, upload it to your themes directory, and voila! You’re done right? No. Choosing a theme isn’t as easy as it sounds. There are tons of free themes on the web. You could buy one from a designer. You can have one custom made for you.
Do you know a good theme from a bad one? I mean besides how pretty it is. Did you know that sometimes free themes have hidden malicious code in them, put there by the programmer/designer?
Are you able to determine good code from bad code? Is the code in the theme written in a way that will hurt your chances in the search engines?
Do you know how to edit the php in the header.php file, sidebar.php, or footer.php to add the enhancements that will make your blog both more attractive and more productive?
Choosing the right theme for your blog is more than just finding one that looks nice. You do not need to have a custom blog theme built. You can use a free blog theme. But you need to know how to choose the right one. Our Blog Installation Service includes choosing and installing the right theme for you. If you want a custom theme, you can read more about Custom Blog Themes here.
Blog SEO
You need to optimize your blog for the search engines. That means editing the code of your blog theme, setting up proper permalink structure, creating the right categories, and even choosing the right plugins, among other things. Our Blog SEO specialists go over your blog theme line by line to get rid of unwanted or unnecessary code.
We fix the blog title structure. We install and configure your blog plugins. We create a proper permalink structure. We edit your blog template to install feedburner, email scripts, affiliate buttons, or whatever else you need. Our clients are very happy with the search engine rankings their blogs are getting. Let us show you how we can improve your results. Read more about Blog SEO.
If you are not sure what you need, call us at 786-317-8774 for a free business blog management or SEO consultation.
YouTube For Bloggers Just Got Better
YouTube has always been a good source for bloggers. Now it’s even better. But there are two ways to use YouTube on your blog and only one of them gives you the power to publish a TV channel with your name on it.
The first way to use YouTube is to embed someone else’s videos on your blog. While that’s great for getting you content on your blog it is content that you can’t control. Content, nevertheless, and it can be good content. But you don’t control the content.
The best way to use YouTube, however, is to create your own videos and start your own channel. That is content that you do control. It is your own brandable content and you can actually build a pretty decent, targeted list of prospects with your own YouTube channel. And embed those videos on your own blog. But it does get better.
Google just announced that YouTube is integrating with Google Analytics, which means you can have your own brandable YouTube video channel and measure the results you get from that channel. That will give you actionable intelligence on your embeds. Now, isn’t that a whole let better?
