Web logs, or "blogs", have invaded the small business community. Just search Google for "small business blog", and you'll get over 7,000,000 results. Blogs offer an opportunity to communicate in a casual atmosphere with your customers, often for free. Once small business owners are convinced of the promotional power of blogs, they often struggle with the next step: what to write about. Or they don't blog about the right things to most effectively promote their businesses. Use the following list of topics to help guide your blogging efforts, and never worry about "Blogger's Block" again!
Keep an eye on what other small business owners/bloggers are blogging about, and link to related material in your own blog. Include your own thoughts on the topic, agreeing or disagreeing with the original poster.
Post excerpts/tips from a book or Special Report you've written (then link to where your readers can purchase/download it! That's a key marketing concept: make the customer aware of a product or service, convince her she wants it, then advise her where to get it. You can do all that on a blog.)
Post links to positive reviews and/or media coverage for your book/products/services.
Create your own version of an Editorial Calendar to combat Blogger's Block. An editorial calendar can keep your blogging on track throughout the week: pick a topic to cover for each day of the week and stick to it. That way, you always know what topic to write about on a given day. Figure out what works best for you -- choose certain topics for each day of the week, a certain category to post in, or a certain type of post format (interview, top 10 list, etc). Or if you plan to blog only three times a week, decide to blog on upcoming events on Mondays, company news on Wednesdays, and give a project idea on Fridays.
Post a review of the latest resource book – your "insider insights" can help position you as an expert in your field. Or consider reviewing a book that is not marketed to your industry, but has valuable applications.
Mention mainstream newspaper and magazine articles that relate to your field. Show how it is making an impact on general society. Provide your own commentary, then link to where readers can get more info on your books/products/services.
Blog about upcoming book signings, appearances, classes, workshops, seminars, articles, sales/promotions, etc. Describe what you're excited about, who you expect to see there, what topics you're going to discuss, and where people can go for more information. If you're blogging about a seminar, post a screenshot from your PowerPoint to lure people in.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
A Multitude of Reasons For Starting an Online Business By Thomas J. Bronson
Only those who have been living under a rock are probably the ones who have not felt the effect of the economic downturn for the past few years. From your end, what are you doing to counteract the effects of the economic recession?
The good news is this: all you need to have is a computer with an Internet connection and a spare room or a tiny vacant space in your home which you can turn into an office. Naturally, you would need to spend the time and effort to work on it - but these are the only tools which are required for you to run an online business.
Revealing the Reasons why an Internet Business is a Viable Venture
Since there is an economic problem and people are doing everything that they can to save money, who would be the target audience for your online business in the first place?
If you're contemplating on starting your very own online business, remember that people are still buying goods. Some because there's a need, others because they simply want to.
However, they are a bunch of wiser consumers now - which is precisely the reason why you need to start your very own online business. Let's say that you are into affiliate marketing. For this, you will be getting commissions out of the Internet sales which are entered through your website.
The reason why consumers are buying goods online is because the items are cheaper and Internet shopping is more convenient. How can online stores afford to offer discounts to their customers? Take a look at the following reasons:
1. There is no brick-and-mortar office to rent or maintain.
2. There is no need to hire sales clerks.
3. No third-party selling is necessary.
Since there are no overhead costs, the savings can be passed on to the online customers in the form of great discounts. If you're looking for an idea for an online business, you can even start selling an original product yourself and reap the same set of benefits.
In addition, an online business is something that you can work on as hard or as little as you want to. Take your pick from using it as a primary or secondary source of income.
So what are you waiting for? Take advantage of the many benefits of starting your very own online business and have the confidence to say "What recession?".
The good news is this: all you need to have is a computer with an Internet connection and a spare room or a tiny vacant space in your home which you can turn into an office. Naturally, you would need to spend the time and effort to work on it - but these are the only tools which are required for you to run an online business.
Revealing the Reasons why an Internet Business is a Viable Venture
Since there is an economic problem and people are doing everything that they can to save money, who would be the target audience for your online business in the first place?
If you're contemplating on starting your very own online business, remember that people are still buying goods. Some because there's a need, others because they simply want to.
However, they are a bunch of wiser consumers now - which is precisely the reason why you need to start your very own online business. Let's say that you are into affiliate marketing. For this, you will be getting commissions out of the Internet sales which are entered through your website.
The reason why consumers are buying goods online is because the items are cheaper and Internet shopping is more convenient. How can online stores afford to offer discounts to their customers? Take a look at the following reasons:
1. There is no brick-and-mortar office to rent or maintain.
2. There is no need to hire sales clerks.
3. No third-party selling is necessary.
Since there are no overhead costs, the savings can be passed on to the online customers in the form of great discounts. If you're looking for an idea for an online business, you can even start selling an original product yourself and reap the same set of benefits.
In addition, an online business is something that you can work on as hard or as little as you want to. Take your pick from using it as a primary or secondary source of income.
So what are you waiting for? Take advantage of the many benefits of starting your very own online business and have the confidence to say "What recession?".
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
What You Need to Take Note About a Corporate Blog? By Alex Liu
Starting a corporate blog is definitely a very powerful choice to grow a business. Blogs are very good tools when it comes to word-of-mouth marketing, effective communication with market, following up, branding, creating customer loyalty and others. However, there're some 7 crucial points you need to take note for a successful corporate blog.
1. Objectives
What are the objectives for the blog? Is it marketing, communicate tightly with the market, announcing products or events, building relationship with customers. If corporate bloggers are blogging just for the sake to join the corporate blogging trend, the blog will loses its attractiveness. I used to own a blog and advertise it heavily. I couldn't understand why visitors are not staying until I realize my blog have no objectives and people don't find it attractive.
2. Readers
Who will read your blog? Who are you targeting? You can write your blog for the market you are in and the customer who you want to follow up with. However, you need to make it clear because your blog will filter readers who are targeted. If you are writing to your customers, customers would find the blog attractive because the blog looks like specially made for them. Besides knowing you are writing for customers or the market, you need to understand your readers. When you blog about your readers problems, pain and questions, they will find the blog even more attractive.
3. Who Is Writing
You need to show your readers clearly about who is writing the blog. What is his position in the company? Clearly defines what will he writes about the company. Don't use the word 'admin' to write blogs. It doesn't sound personal but too official.
4. Design
How your blog is designed is very important. Besides making the blog easy to read, navigate and beautiful, you need to create a unique design that explains to readers what is the blog about. People judge a blog with their feel and experience. Before they start reading, they will look at the design first. If they find the design is bad, they will judge the contents are low quality before reading. Since most internet users surf many websites everyday. So if the design tells them this is not what they are looking for, they will just leave. Your blog's design tells everything about your blog.
5. Writing style
Some corporate would still prefer to make each blog post official to announce events and new products. That's fine. Writing in a conversational style with some personality makes readers feel listening to someone talking rather than reading a newspaper. Conversational style allows you to build strong relationship with your readers. However, make sure your writing style is consistent. Don't switch your writing style. I read many blogs which announce new products and events. They are doing fine.
6. Follow Up
Make sure there's a method to follow up your readers. Encourage them to sign up RSS. RSS is a tool to follow blog readers. You could use autoresponder services too. Every time you update your blog, use the 'broadcast' function to tell your readers you updated your blog and remind them to come and read. This helps building strong relationship with your readers.
7. Comment Policy
Blogs are allowed to comment on. Your readers can give you their comment about your blog and blog post. However, there're people who intent to destroy your blog or people who want to advertise their services. They will give bad comments that impact your blog and readers negatively. Set a policy for your comments. Make sure you delete those harmful comments and reply to comments that contribute to your blog.
Hope you get a big picture about the key points to have a successful corporate blog and start enjoy blogging.
1. Objectives
What are the objectives for the blog? Is it marketing, communicate tightly with the market, announcing products or events, building relationship with customers. If corporate bloggers are blogging just for the sake to join the corporate blogging trend, the blog will loses its attractiveness. I used to own a blog and advertise it heavily. I couldn't understand why visitors are not staying until I realize my blog have no objectives and people don't find it attractive.
2. Readers
Who will read your blog? Who are you targeting? You can write your blog for the market you are in and the customer who you want to follow up with. However, you need to make it clear because your blog will filter readers who are targeted. If you are writing to your customers, customers would find the blog attractive because the blog looks like specially made for them. Besides knowing you are writing for customers or the market, you need to understand your readers. When you blog about your readers problems, pain and questions, they will find the blog even more attractive.
3. Who Is Writing
You need to show your readers clearly about who is writing the blog. What is his position in the company? Clearly defines what will he writes about the company. Don't use the word 'admin' to write blogs. It doesn't sound personal but too official.
4. Design
How your blog is designed is very important. Besides making the blog easy to read, navigate and beautiful, you need to create a unique design that explains to readers what is the blog about. People judge a blog with their feel and experience. Before they start reading, they will look at the design first. If they find the design is bad, they will judge the contents are low quality before reading. Since most internet users surf many websites everyday. So if the design tells them this is not what they are looking for, they will just leave. Your blog's design tells everything about your blog.
5. Writing style
Some corporate would still prefer to make each blog post official to announce events and new products. That's fine. Writing in a conversational style with some personality makes readers feel listening to someone talking rather than reading a newspaper. Conversational style allows you to build strong relationship with your readers. However, make sure your writing style is consistent. Don't switch your writing style. I read many blogs which announce new products and events. They are doing fine.
6. Follow Up
Make sure there's a method to follow up your readers. Encourage them to sign up RSS. RSS is a tool to follow blog readers. You could use autoresponder services too. Every time you update your blog, use the 'broadcast' function to tell your readers you updated your blog and remind them to come and read. This helps building strong relationship with your readers.
7. Comment Policy
Blogs are allowed to comment on. Your readers can give you their comment about your blog and blog post. However, there're people who intent to destroy your blog or people who want to advertise their services. They will give bad comments that impact your blog and readers negatively. Set a policy for your comments. Make sure you delete those harmful comments and reply to comments that contribute to your blog.
Hope you get a big picture about the key points to have a successful corporate blog and start enjoy blogging.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Blogging Software Comparison - A Comparison of the Top Four Blog Software Choices By Melody Campbell
I have already addressed the question of website vs. blog in another article, but is any blog suitable for building your coaching business? I'm going to explain here what the basic differences of the major blog software options available and give you my perspective on what I believe to be the best option and why.
LiveJournal: This is where I posted my first blog which was more like an online journal for me. There is a cost to use and host at LiveJournal. Customization is limited and complicated for the average user. The addition of simple programming for implementing marketing strategies is also limited and complicated. I suppose it serves a purpose in the social networking but I don't consider it a strong choice for business use.
Typepad: This was my next stop as I learned the benefits of blogging for my business. I actually liked this blogging software, but there are some of the same limitations with Typepad as with LiveJournal. There is a monthly fee for hosting and using the Typepad blog. Customization is a little easier with Typepad but still very limited. They make nice use of widgets that the blogger can add to enhance what the blog "does" in terms of marketability and monetization.
Blogger: this is easy blog software to use. While I have an account / profile there I don't actively post in a blog there. Apparently Google, who owns Blogger, does allow user to post advertising (which is important to the monetization of your blog). But Blogger, which is hosted and operated by Google, has a frequent planned & unplanned outages - downtime, which is extremely inconvenient if you're trying to run a business. I am also told that it doesn't take much to "exceed the bandwidth" and have too many visitors to your blog.
There are probably several more less popular options that because they are less well known there are limited resources for customization and upgraded programming to make your blog more "powerful" in terms of what it can do for your business.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of some of the most popular bloggers on the Internet - Wordpress is by far the most developed software platform for blogging for business.
Wordpress - Wordpress is software which can be operated for a community hosted site at Wordpresss.com or you can self-host on your own domain.
Here's the biggest differences between the community or Wordpress.com hosted blog software. At Wordpress.com there is no software to install - just pick a free theme and start writing posts.
* does not allow ads - such as Google Adsense for the blogger's account
* does not allow programming for lead capture forms
* adds links to other peoples blogs at the end of your posts instead of other relevant posts within your blog
* limited customization available - many free themes but no truly custom premium themes can be used.
IMHO - Self-hosted WordPress blogs are the ONLY way to go if your blog is a serious part of your overall marketing plan. At sites like MySmallBusinessWebsite.com, the blog installation is done for you, however you do need to customize it...but more on that in another article.
* the blogger has full control over customization of blog - much of it is simple for the average user to control with minimal explanation
* hundreds or possibly thousands of widgets and plug-ins have been and are being developed that are completely free to add to your blog
* tools are available for attracting traffic to the blog, capturing leads and engage in with visitors to your blog.
* the blogger can place ads on the blog with out worry of being shut down like other community hosted blog software.
In a future article I will explain "widgets & plugins" - what are they, what to use and why. Is your blog a strategic part of building your coaching business online? Do you devote enough time and attention to developing content that attracts your ideal prospect?
LiveJournal: This is where I posted my first blog which was more like an online journal for me. There is a cost to use and host at LiveJournal. Customization is limited and complicated for the average user. The addition of simple programming for implementing marketing strategies is also limited and complicated. I suppose it serves a purpose in the social networking but I don't consider it a strong choice for business use.
Typepad: This was my next stop as I learned the benefits of blogging for my business. I actually liked this blogging software, but there are some of the same limitations with Typepad as with LiveJournal. There is a monthly fee for hosting and using the Typepad blog. Customization is a little easier with Typepad but still very limited. They make nice use of widgets that the blogger can add to enhance what the blog "does" in terms of marketability and monetization.
Blogger: this is easy blog software to use. While I have an account / profile there I don't actively post in a blog there. Apparently Google, who owns Blogger, does allow user to post advertising (which is important to the monetization of your blog). But Blogger, which is hosted and operated by Google, has a frequent planned & unplanned outages - downtime, which is extremely inconvenient if you're trying to run a business. I am also told that it doesn't take much to "exceed the bandwidth" and have too many visitors to your blog.
There are probably several more less popular options that because they are less well known there are limited resources for customization and upgraded programming to make your blog more "powerful" in terms of what it can do for your business.
In my opinion, and in the opinion of some of the most popular bloggers on the Internet - Wordpress is by far the most developed software platform for blogging for business.
Wordpress - Wordpress is software which can be operated for a community hosted site at Wordpresss.com or you can self-host on your own domain.
Here's the biggest differences between the community or Wordpress.com hosted blog software. At Wordpress.com there is no software to install - just pick a free theme and start writing posts.
* does not allow ads - such as Google Adsense for the blogger's account
* does not allow programming for lead capture forms
* adds links to other peoples blogs at the end of your posts instead of other relevant posts within your blog
* limited customization available - many free themes but no truly custom premium themes can be used.
IMHO - Self-hosted WordPress blogs are the ONLY way to go if your blog is a serious part of your overall marketing plan. At sites like MySmallBusinessWebsite.com, the blog installation is done for you, however you do need to customize it...but more on that in another article.
* the blogger has full control over customization of blog - much of it is simple for the average user to control with minimal explanation
* hundreds or possibly thousands of widgets and plug-ins have been and are being developed that are completely free to add to your blog
* tools are available for attracting traffic to the blog, capturing leads and engage in with visitors to your blog.
* the blogger can place ads on the blog with out worry of being shut down like other community hosted blog software.
In a future article I will explain "widgets & plugins" - what are they, what to use and why. Is your blog a strategic part of building your coaching business online? Do you devote enough time and attention to developing content that attracts your ideal prospect?
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