Blogs for Marketers Like You

By Mark Widawer

Owning and running a blog has a bunch of fantastic benefits for marketers like us. You and I want a blog that will attract traffic, engage our readers in a conversation about our topic, and lead them to other resources that they’ll pay us for.

So if you have an ebook about tomato growing, you really should have a blog about the same thing — or maybe the more general topic of vegetable gardening.

You’re going to learn what it takes to do the same kind of thing for your web-based business.

But why a blog, you ask? In a nutshell, blogs help in these ways:

- Attract traffic to your website

- Attract traffic for your other websites

- Are very “Search Engine Friendly”

- Allow you to learn more about your customers

- Create or improve your relationship with your customers

- Create or improve relationships with other marketers

- Demonstrate your expertise or knowledge

- Make it very easy to add content to your website

- Help you sell your product or service

- Create the possibility of persistent and passive revenue

* The Power of the Long Tail

I recently received a question from one of my workshop members. “How many pages should be up at the same time?”

The answer is “All of them.”

You see, a blog isn’t something where you put pages up and then take them down. You put them up and they stay there. . . forever. It’s from this constant growth and constant refreshing that blogs become so attractive to the search engines.

Google, Yahoo, and the other Search Engines LOVE new content. They love websites with growing content.

They love websites that are authoritative in their field. They love websites all about different facets of the same topic.

As your blog grows, you build what is referred to as a “long tail” of content.

In his book “The Long Tail,” Chris Anderson talks about how marketplaces are changing from a “big hit” model, where lots of people buy the same things, to a “long tail” model, where few people buy many more of fewer things.

As an example, in the 80′s, The Cosby Show, the Evening News, and ABC’s Wide World of Sports were extremely popular. That’s because there was only a small amount of bandwidth (i.e., only a few channels) for people to watch.

Now, we’ve got thousands of cable channels to entertain and inform us. We’ve got cable channels devoted to the arts, nature, sports, women, men, race cars, golf, crafts, comedy, and countless more topics I’ve got no idea about. Plus, we’ve got several 24 hour news channels for you to watch. As a result, there will never be a TV show approaching the same popularity as those from 20 years ago.

Back to your blog. . . why does this matter to you?

The web works the same way. Not only is your website likely to be part of the long tail of the Internet, but you’ll have a long tail within your website. People aren’t always going to be searching for the main topic you write about. They’ll be searching for the specific, niche-y topic you probably think no one else cares about.

Every topic is very important to someone. Eventually, someone will search for that very obscure thing you wrote about, discover that your page appears as the number one listing for your topic, and be ecstatic at his miraculous luck at finding you.

So even on your own website, you’ll have the most popular pages, and then you’ll have a long tail of other less popular pages.

You’ll have your own long tail.

And over time, you’ll find that fully half of your traffic will flow to the 80 or 90 percent of your less popular pages. So, it’s important that you feed your long tail.

* Your Blog Strategy

Your blog has an important place in your marketing plan. Principally, you want the blog to do three things for you.

- Attract traffic

- Get people to know, like and trust you

- Feed your sales website

You do that by building your blog properly and using it effectively, always keeping those goals in mind.

Here’s how you can do that.

1. Write good original content about your topic

2. Have an open comment policy

3. Place an Opt-in form on your blog

4. Put a Question form on your blog

5. Link to your Sales pages from your blog

Having a blog can be a powerful marketing strategy for your business. By creating a blog that delivers solid content on a consistent basis, you can build trust, credibility, and make sales in the process. And that, after all, is the point.

This article is by Mark Widawer. Mr. Widawer has a FREE blog that shows you how to convert visitors to buyers convert more of your site’s visitors into buyers, but also shows you what makes an Internet business really work. Find out more at http://www.TrafficAndConversion.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Mark_Widawer
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By Lisa Barone

Happy 2010, folks! With so many social media studies showing that companies are looking to up their involvement in social activities this year, I thought I’d help cure that age-old “what should I blog about today?” question. Or at least give you a healthy head start for the year by providing 100+ potential blog topics for your small business blog.  Consider it my contribution to your yearly editorial calendar. I know you’re creating one, right?

So, here are some potential topics. Grab a pen and jot down your favorites. [Or maybe just hit Print.]

Focus on your Industry

1. Write 10 ways your industry will change this year
2. Break down the new laws that will affect your niche in 2010
3. Create a list of the best industry resources
4. Talk about why things are better today (or not) than they were 10 years ago
5. Attend industry events and blog about them
6. Your best marketing tips
7. How your industry is like Your Favorite TV Show [I suggest using Glee. Because that's my favorite show.]
8. The ugly truth about your industry
9. The 8 people in your industry you want to meet
10. What someone needs to consider before getting involved in your industry
11. Comment on an industry-related conversation going on in LinkedIn or Google Groups
12. Talk about the “thing” that would rock your industry if invented or put together
13. Create a chart that breaks down a complicated industry issue or problem
14. Interview someone well-known in your world and profile them
15. Rewrite an old post with fresh eyes and new ideas
16. Publish a presentation you gave somewhere else (with permission)
17. Have a chat with a competitor and blog about it (again, with permission)
18. Search Google News for relevant press releases and news about your industry. Write your own take.
19. Debunk a long-standing myth
20. Host a seminar or meetup and blog about
21. Create a list of the 10 books that someone in your industry should read.
22. Post about what you’d like to see fixed in your industry
23. Conferences people in your industry should attend/speak at
24. Your favorite untapped traffic sources in your industry
25. Issues in your space that deserve more attention

Go Social

1. How you’re using Twitter to increase earnings
2. Post a video that has nothing to do with your industry but that you think people would enjoy.
3. Post a picture. [Browse StumleUpon for inspiration]
4. Participate in a blog meme like last month’s Best of 09
5. Share the best social media campaigns you’ve seen, big and small
6. Hold a contest and pit people against each other
7. Create a poll. Blog the result.
8. Invite a guest blogger to post on your blog
9. How social media increased your ROI this year
10. How social media did nothing but confuse you this year
11. Search Delicious for popular posts on your topics and take a new stance
12. Go to your industry’s Wikipedia page and see what people are talking about in the Discussions area. Comment on it on your blog.
13. Post photos from your company party/team building workshop
14. Find a question on Yahoo Answers or OnStartups and respond on your blog
15. Create a list of the Must Follow Twitter people in your industry

About your Business

1. Why you’re different (and better) than your competition
2. A video tutorial showing how to use your most popular product
3. The problems your sales people hear about most
4. The answer to the most common email you get
5. Share the tools do you use to do your job
6. The secret ways to use your site/product
7. The top 10 WordPress plugins you use on your site
8. How you use your favorite social media site
9. How you built your email list
10. How you’re using Facebook
11. Look at your site logs & answer customer questions
12. How you delegate tasks (or what you mucked up by not delegating)
13. Use Wordtracker’s Keyword Question Tool and answer popular questions
14. Write about why you’re not using social media at all
15. Answer questions left in your comment section
16. Write about the personal branding tactics you use
17. Give 5 reasons to sign up to your email newsletter
18. How you learned to do what you do
19. Create a list of your favorite X
20. What you’re doing to beat the summer slump or winter blues
21. Share a case study
22. Provide an end of the week link roundup
23. Review something
24. Reveal the best niche blogs to guestblog for
25. What keeps you up at night
26. Share a time when you got it wrong in 2010
27. Your strategies for coming up with blog topics.
28. Branding tips that have worked for your business
29. 50 reasons why someone should hire you
30. 5 things people should be focusing on but aren’t
31. What can other industries learn from yours

Highlight Your Customers

1. Put the spotlight on your most active commenters
2. Praise your best customers
3. Post a question and let the community to answer it
4. How customers can woo your customer service department for free stuff
5. Give something away to one of your blog readers.
6. Feature a video detailing a customer’s success with your product
7. Share your biggest screw up with a customer…and how you made it right
8. Publish a customer testimonial
9. Explain the benefits of being a customer
10. Share local organizations you support and ask customers to share their favorites
11. How customers can connect with you on social media
12. Hold an event for Twitter followers to meet and blog it

Get Personal

1. What have you read lately that inspired/angered you?
2. Introduce your staff
3. Share the best decision you made as a SMB
4. Your biggest challenge as a SMB owner
5. What you love best about being a SMB owner. What you don’t like.
6. The danger of doing everything by yourself
7. Write about the achievement you’re most proud of
8. A time when you got it right in 2009
9. Create a video introducing your team to your community
10. Get your rant on
11. How to remain productive working at home
12. Introduce a new employee and what they bring to the table
13. Share the local vendors you trust
14. Give people a video tour of your building
15. Describe your company culture
16. Your new baby (whether that’s a real baby, a pet, a new project for 2010, the car you’ve been restoring for the past two years, etc)
17. Share your company’s history or story
18. Tell a story not about your company
19. Share 10 things you’re thankful for
20. What’s next for your company
21. A list of your most trafficked posts

The point is, there are TONS of things for a small business owner to blog about and share with their audience.  Now that I’ve helped get the ball rolling, get to it.

About the Author

Lisa Barone is Co-Founder and Chief Branding Officer at Outspoken Media, Inc., an Internet marketing company that specializes in providing clients with online reputation management, social media services, and other Internet services. She blogs daily over at the Outspoken Media blog.

5 Ways To Overcome (Blogging) Shyness And Be More Productive

August 26, 2007

Are you by any chance a shy bloogger? I have a sad news for you: you are going to fail as a blogger if you have not already. Blogging is about socialising, and a self-conscious person lacking good social skills can never be a blogger, let alone a good blogger.

Not sure whether you are a shy blogger or not, and what do I mean by that? Here are some clues: You think a hundred times before writing a sentence, you delete whole paragraphs from your posts just because they make you look bad, you are scared to say something foolish, and.. you are too shy in dealing with your readers. If you are shaking your head in horror, you are, sadly, a shy blogger.

Not to worry though, because shyness can be overcome once you know you are unreasonably shy about things others could care less about.

Shyness is characterized by fear, self-doubt, and lack of confidence. A shy person, in real life, would fear mingling with other people, lock himself in his room, and would try his mightiest to hide his shortcomings from others.

Those are all unreasonable fears, and can be eliminated with little effort on your part.

Here are my thoughts about overcoming shyness in blogging, and in real life in general (therefore not too focused on any one of them)

Kill your blogging persona

If you are shy, you probably have created a persona to represent you on your blog. The first step you are going to take is kill that persona. It’s your blog, and your readers look forward to hearing from you, not your persona. If you think you can hide behind a fake representation of yours, you are mistaken. People who are clever enough to be surfing the web and reading weblogs have powerful BS detectors. They’ll know you are being dishonest to them. You are not a good actor.

Reveal your innermost feelings

Are you afraid of darkness? Tell the world you are, don’t put up false bravado. If it’s any consolation to you, many people are afraid of darkness. When you reveal your innermost feelings and your so-called secrets, you’ll be amazed to know that many of your readers share your thoughts, and have experienced the same kind of emotions as you. You aren’t the only king of the embarrassing moments in the world.

Are you afraid of dogs? *cough*

Turn your shyness into excitement

Shyness usually comes with accelerated activity of adrenaline. Imagine the moment just before going to a party, do you feel a rush of anxious excitement in your spine? If you look at the excitement of going to the party positively, you can start looking forward to meeting all those people you dreaded facing (girls baby!) Make use of that adrenaline while it lasts.

And how does it relate to blogging you ask? Look at it this way: While writing a post, you remember a personal anecdote of falling into a street gutter. Your adrenaline starts flowing because of embarrassment and you are forced to craft a fake version of that anecdote. You tell your readers that your friend fell into the gutter while you watched him. Now, since you are kind of feeling guilty about being dishonest to your readers, you’ll probably leave a clue for your readers that your anecdote is all made up (shy people are not very good at being shy) So, why not relate the anecdote as it really happened and let your adrenaline pump some excitement into it? It’s even more exciting to see people laugh at your ‘cuteness’.

Be outspoken

One way to overcome shyness is to somehow gather the courage to call a spade a spade. If you don’t like religion, say so. Be critical. Don’t be afraid of challenging what you think is wrong. People won’t laugh at you, they won’t sneer at you. And if they do, why’d you care as long as you know you are right? Perhaps it would be a good chance to laugh at those goof balls laughing at you. There is no reason to be shy about expressing your real beliefs and opinions. You have as much right to have your own beliefs as anybody else.

Don’t be too appearance conscious

One problem with shy people is that they care too much about their personality and their appearance. Don’t ever write a post and then look at it from different angles with intention to modify it to make you look as good as possible (according to your own twisted standards) The thing is that there is no set standard of goodness. How people judge you varies from person to person. So, it’s time to start being yourself rather than someone else.

OK, above points are not radically different from one another, but they highlight different aspects of one point: Its no good caring too much about how others might perceive you, and it’s counterproductive to be shy.

AND while we are at it, did I tell you that I don’t have a girlfriend?

You probably have something new to say every day –
blogging is a great help to your website and Facebook –
and you can interact with your prospects, customers and clientsThink and Grow Rich Action Step #12)
Inspire Teamwork

There is no record of any great contribution to civilization
without the cooperation of others.

Most website hosting accounts come with a Free Blog – and you can get a free one from Blogger.com or the arguably better WordPress.com – Blogs are hip and they are cool – also easy to set up and maintain – again – knowing the “hidden secrets of Skilled Trades Marketing

Social Networking or Web 2.0 is a general term and it really means that prospects customers and clients interact with you.

Have you seen the popular news sites – like FoxNews or CNN or your local online newspaper? When they have an article – they allow comments – sometimes you get hundreds of comments in response to a story.

The “blog” or new source gets “free reporters” and commentators to add content to their site – for free – in the age of dying newspapers this is a big plus.

The comments can be brilliant or profane and stupid – and you can filter them out or delete them or have them “flagged” for inappropriate content

On your site, you can have readers post comments – they get involved and it adds to your content – others read comments – there is a community that develops around blogs

When you have something to say to a target market, your niche – there are people who want to read about it every day – maybe several times a day – and some will comment on what you write or even other commenters

A Free blog is usually included with website hosting, or you can get a free Blogger.com blog, or the favoured, arguably hipper WordPress – the most popular blogging platform

WordPress also has it’s own site and it is free also – they will set it up for you and all you need to do is add content

The appearance of Blogs is a big business and a free business – with “themes” – the way blog looks – most themes are free – bit premium ones like Thesis or Revolution among the popular “Premium: blogs – the ones that cost money, usually in the $85 – $170 range

Blogs have largely replaced many websites – since they are easy to set up, you don’t need a technical “webmaster” to do most of the work for you and you – the average user – can usually maintain everything yourself.

Blogs can have photos, audio MP3 and streaming audio and video – anything you can have on a website you can have on a blog

Articles are another source of “traffic” – getting people to come to your site

There is a multibillion – with a B – dollar industry that specializes in traffic – getting “eyeballs” to look at your site and stay longer

You want people to see you as an expert – in a world of many competitors – don’t you want to deal with the expert – the specialist – rather than just “anybody?”

Social media helps establish you as an expert and starts your journey to becoming slightly famous – the goal of all marketers – including you

You can also make money from blogging – with advertisements – just like a TV show – when people are coming to your site to read or look at your content – you are popular – and someone might be willing to pay you to advertise to people they want to market to.

Think of blogging – it is very inexpensive, very simple to start and very effective – plus you get to be hip – you can tell people e- :Have you checked out my blog today – I posted a really interesting article – that will benefit you and your family or friends – please take a look and add a comment if you like”

Article Marketing

Demonstrate that you are an Expert
An Authority Site’
Slightly famous in your niche market

Do you have articles indicating you are an expert? How about a few paragraphs that tell the world what you do? These can be taken from your interview – that extracts this information and presents it in an interesting way.

Do you have a free article – that demonstrates your expertise – that you can send – JTMM JanTheMarketingMan has a database of articles for all of the poplar skills – Electrical, Plumbing, Home Remodeling – you can use these to send to customers on a regular basis

100 Articles 100 Days

“How I went from Scared and Broke
to Self-Confident, Slightly Famous
and $12,999 in the bank in less than 30 Days”

I started by asking my 16 Master Mind Friends – what they would do…