Business Blogging Tips, Part 2
Here are more tips on starting a blog, continued from Business Blogging Part 1:
- Sign up for Google alerts and put one on your company name, products, or buzzwords so you can track what is being said about your company online. (Read what we’ve written about Google Alerts). Then you can comment back, get ideas for posts, and write about what people are saying.
- Make your blog readable - it’s hard to read online. Avoid large blocks of text. Use shorter sentences, headers, and bullet points. Give some white space.
- Use categories - categorize the post by a general theme. One post can have several categories.
- Add links! New bloggers don’t often link to other sites which really hurts their visibility.
Link back to a relevant page on your site.
Link to related articles.
Link to examples on your web site.
Also put links in blogroll to sections of your site. - SEO your posts. Use keywords in anchor text and title of blog posts. If you use Wordpress install the plugin Headspace 2 to auto-generate SEO-friendly links (I love 1-click installer to easily add new plugins to your blog). Also change your permalinks so words rather than numbers become the URL of your posts.
- Respond to comments, which encourages more comments and can lead to an idea for another post. If the comment is negative, respond fast and thank them for expressing their opinion. Ask how you can improve, point out ways you’re addressing the issues. This is a chance to right a wrong with the public watching.
A Couple of Examples
This blog is so dense there is no space to breathe! They have done well on categories though.
Kodak has done well on their blogroll - it links to major sections of their web site. They use links but not many keywords. This blog has been very successful for Kodak. They get invitations to speak at conferences and recognition. Notice how many pictures there are.
This blog from a small winery has a lot of personality, creativity, and authenticity - so much that it’s fun to read even if you don’t drink or live nearby!
One last thing - to find popular blogs (they are ranked) try blog search engine Technorati. You can also submit your blog to their list.
3 Comments, Comment or Ping
tom
Tom from Kodak here. Thanks for the props.
We like pictures for some reason
btw, is that Orange Nehi or Crush?
Sep 24th, 2008
Janet Meiners
Tom, thanks for stopping by. Looks like you use Google alerts (or something simliar) to track your blog. I don’t think I did a trackback. I’d love to hear from you exactly how your blog has impacted your business at Kodak. You got a lot of good press lately and I’m curious what you did or how that came about.
I use these examples all the time when talking to clients who are new to blogging.
Thanks,
Janet
Sep 24th, 2008
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