10 Good Business Blogging Tips

Posted on September 18, 2013 by ianotr

10 Good Business Blogging Tips

Top 10 List of To Do’s for Business Blogging

Business blogging is changing. Some old rules no longer work; some new rules take over. If you’re smart, you’ll trash the old ones and incorporate the new rules into your content strategy. Take the lead in business by following these 10 rules.

1. Do Publish Something Fresh, New and Creative

Gone are the days when bloggers are expected to post daily. Nowadays, readers expect you to give them something that hundreds of blogs haven’t published yet. Others, resist the temptation to publish your content just because you have to.

Invest time on finding fresh ideas or topics and on crafting your content. Follow blogs outside your industry and see if you can borrow some ideas.

2. Do Care About Human Psychology

Read books on color psychology or books that guide you in understanding human behavior. Pick up books authored by Daniel Kahneman, Dan Ariely, Robert Cialdini, Timothy Wilson, Dan Gilbert and Daniel Pink.

These authors will help you become a more effective communicator and influencer.

3. Do Learn the Basics of Good Copywriting

Reading books on how persuade others to do stuff is a good start. But you have to get your message across, clearly and forcefully. Hire a top-notch copywriter or blogger, or agency that understands the language your brand and your customers speak. If you can dedicate the time learn how to write a good copy yourself and raise your blog’s standards.

4. Do Kick Some Butt by Showing Some Personality

Is your tone friendly and approachable? It should be. If tone sounds too formal or condescending, readers will ignore you. The best business blogs are great at being human and professional at the same time. Theirs is a distinct voice everyone can relate to.

5. Do Something Different

Blogging is really cool if you’re the type who thinks outside the box. Tired of the usual business blogging tactics the “pros” offer? You don’t really have to offer long-form articles that sit unread for days. Take a look at blogs by iDoneThis and 37 Signals for a change.

6. Do Know Who Your Readers Are

It’s not enough to write a brief report on your target audience. Fictional or made-up characters are good but they’re not good enough. Real people who consume your blog are great. Get to know them through a form in your blog or through any of your social channels.

7. Do Invite Others to Join You

Are there other influencers in the industry your readers might care to read? Bring them in. Let them write an article or two for your business blog. Or feature them in your next post.

8. Do Make Your Website Attractive

Aesthetically, viewers want something easy and pleasant on the eyes. Give it to them. Use clean, readable fonts. Make use of white space. And avoid clutter like plague.

9. Do Invest in Your Content Tools

Your business blog is pretty but your content producers are suffering from your lack of good tools. Make your workflow painlessly smooth by using collaborative tools such as Editorially for writing, Trello for project management. Also, if you’re accepting outside contributions, be sure to have an editorial guideline.

10. Do Make Your Own Rules

Take the advice of a “professional” business blogger with a pinch of salt. It may work for his blog, not for your blog. But that’s alright. You can always make your own rules. Run some business blogging experiments and test for results. Want to include SoundCloud clips on your blog? Want to offer member-only content? Sure, go ahead.

Ready to take the lead in business blogging? Start with these rules now.

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions a web development company building marketing websites since 2000 with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.

OTR Web is a Value Added Partner with HubSpot.

For all your Inbound Marketing and Website requirements Contact OTR Web.

Responding to a Blog Post to Your Own SEO Advantage

Posted on July 16, 2013 by ianotr

Responding to a Blog Post to Your Own SEO Advantage

If you write any amount of blogs you will have had the experience of receiving comments back (often software driven or many times written by an offshore SEO specialist and most times in poor English) that hopefully your spam blocker catches or if not, you read and think, you have to be kidding me! Here is one from a clients site. This one was written well enough that the Askimet Plug In ( a pretty good WP spam detector) was not certain about it and placed in the possible spam box. “Car shopping can be very time consuming. There are plenty of cars you can look at, as well as a handful of factors to consider. You need to make sure you are aware of what you need to make it a better experience. Consider the following helpful advice for making things easier on you.” All good except the blog post was about personal life coaching! Into the spam bucket it went, even though it was manually placed there. The bottom line is the comment never made the light of day on the blog.

The main SEO reason for commenting was the hard sought after authoritative back-link. In times past many blogs designated the link back to your website as “follow” whereas now most are designated as “no-follow” and as such there is not the benefit of back-links from different sources. BUT there are still a benefits to be gained if you are willing to put in the time.

Improve Your Visibility with a well written comment in a related blog. Almost always your link is included with a blog comment and there is a good chance the reader will go to your blog and read it …. IF your comment is actually helpful and not just spam.

Establish Credibility again with a well written comment. Just adding a comment without having actually read the blog and the other comments will just make you look silly and will probably never get published. Be sure you know your topic and speak authoritatively and you will enhance your brand and market.

Build Relationships again with a well written comment. When you write intelligently about a topic you encourage responses and that builds relationships not only with the readers but also with other industry specialists. They all like to read good intelligent comments, sometimes they might disagree but the responses create ongoing dialogue.

Back-links, again with a well written comment you can capture the attention of the blog author as well as the the readers that have commented. Blog authors love authoritative and intelligent commentary and will often encourage you to write more by including your link in their post.

Did you happen to notice the key phrase in each of the points? I will repeat it again “A well written comment” that is relative to the original blog post (which you have actually read) and the ensuing comments will most often capture peoples attention and draw a response. By all means at the end of your comment leave an open-ended CTA such as, “I’d love to discuss this further, feel free to drop me an email.”

If you want to learn more about how to use blogs to your SEO advantage then click the link below to gain some valuable tips.

Your comments are always welcome.

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions a web development company building marketing websites since 2000 with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America. OTR Web is a Value Added Partner with HubSpot.

For all your Inbound Marketing and Website requirements Contact OTR Web.

Social Media – Luxury or Necessity

Posted on February 3, 2012 by ianotr

Ask yourself this question. Will my business succeed without regular interaction with my customers and employees? I think most business people recognise that they will not be successful if they eliminate or restrict communication with their customers and employees.

What is Social Media? Quoting direct from Wikipedia, … define social media as “a group of Internet-based applications that build on the ideological and technological foundations of Web 2.0, and that allow the creation and exchange of user-generated content.”[1] Social media is media for social interaction as a super-set beyond social communication. Enabled by ubiquitously accessible and scalable communication techniques, social media has substantially changed the way organizations, communities, and individuals communicate.”

Well that was a mouthful … in simpler terms social media allows people and business to communicate and interact within a public forum. Customers and employees are expecting companies today to listen, engage and respond and that is what Social Media does best.

The ever-present fear from many businesses is that if we implement a Social Media platform for our business, people or employees will say something bad about the company, our services or products. The truth is they are saying it regardless and what a Social Media strategy accomplishes is to allow you to monitor your reputation and deliver your message. The other side of that coin is people are going to say good things about your company, services and products. Social Media interacts with every touch-point within your business from sales to customer service to human resources.

Another aspect of Social Media or what is now often called Social Business is the corporate blog which allows for you to become recognised as an expert in your field. People read what you write and you give them the opportunity to ask questions and you answer … well it doesn’t get much better than that for positive reinforcement of your business. Another benefit of the corporate blog is that it adds regular pages of fresh content to your website and I cannot think of a single search engine that does not like that to take place. People read your blog, “like” your blog on Facebook, share your post or Tweet your post and all that creates links and traffic to your website. So aside from interacting with your customers and employees you are also building traffic to your website!

Again quoting from Wikipedia, … According to a report by Nielson “In the U.S. alone, total minutes spent on social networking sites has increased 83 percent year-over-year. In fact, total minutes spent on Facebook increased nearly 700 percent year-over-year, growing from 1.7 billion minutes in April 2008 to 13.9 billion in April 2009, making it the No. 1 social networking site for the month.”

The concluding fact is that business cannot ignore Social Media and they must participate and have a Social Media strategy in place. Social Media is not a luxury or even a necessary evil, it is a positive tool for business to hear, communicate and interact with their customers and employees. Without a Social Media platform and strategy in place, you risk being left behind your competition.

What is a blog post without a call to action … if you recognise that your business needs to participate in Social Media, OTR Web has solutions for your company. Visit our website, our Facebook page or contact OTR and we will discuss how we can help work with your business.

Ian Conklin is the President of OTR Web Solutions a web development company since 2000 with offices in Canada, USA, Europe and South America.