I am not a patient person. Perhaps you’ve picked that up by now? I’m particularly impatient first thing in the morning, which is when I do most of my blogging.
My mornings used to go something like this:
Wake up with great entry idea that will revolutionize blogging and make us all millionaires.
Hurry to my desk, […]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Blog From Your Desktop”, url: “http://bloggingforthemoney.com/2008/01/31/blog-from-your-desktop/” });
Countries across the Middle East are sans Internet connections due to a cable break on Wednesday. Two lessons: The Internet in some areas lack redundancy and telecommunications infrastructure is weak. And companies that outsource customer service operations offshore need to plan ahead.
Egypt’s Minister of Communications and Information Technology on Wednesday formed an emergency task force […]
The majority of Internet and international telephone traffic travels goes under the sea. When two submarine cables in the Mediterranean Sea were cut (most likely by ship anchors) on Wednesday, Internet connectivity in the Middle East and in parts of Asia cratered.
According to reports, as much as 70 percent of Egypt’s Internet connectivity was […]
Symantec issued its second annual report on IT risk management. Key findings from “IT Risk Management Report” that surveyed 405 IT professionals include:
IT professionals are adopting a more balanced, less security-centric view of IT risk—more of them now see availability risk as critical or serious than any other element.
Compliance risk is more than […]
There was a time, way back when, that I had no idea what PageRank meant. Much like my days of chastity, effortlessly slim thighs and an all-night bladder, I can barely recall that time.
Fact is, if you’re Blogging For The Money, PageRank matters. Yes, in theory PR represents Google’s opinion of your site — as […]SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Blog Maintenance And Pursuit of PageRank”, url: “http://bloggingforthemoney.com/2008/01/31/blog-maintenance-and-pursuit-of-pagerank/” });
When a business starts blogging, there is usually a huge temptation to
use this newly-minted blog as a tool to directly promotion the business
and its products and services. Unfortunately, this is the quickest way
to guarantee that your blog will be totally useless and irrelevant to
visitors. So what should your blog focus on? Providing value to your
readers, of course!
Let’s use a hypothetical example. Let’s say that Bob’s Lawncare wants to start blogging. Bob offers lawncare services, but has also developed his own line of lawncare products that he sells locally, but would also like to sell over the internet. Bob knows that Spring and Summer is right around the corner, which is when people turn their thoughts to caring for their yards.
Bob’s first thought is that he needs to promote his products and services. That if he can show that his weed-killer works the best, or that his line of pesticides does a better job of ridding your yard of insects than the competition, that he will be set.
But let’s switch gears for a minute and look at Bob’s blogging plan through the eyes of his readers. How are Bob’s readers likely to reach his new blog?
There are three main ways that people would arrive at Bob’s Lawncare blog:
1 - By doing a Google search for a term/phrase that Bob blogs about
2 - By clicking on a link to Bob’s Lawncare blog from another blog
3 - By subscribing to Bob’s feed, or bookmarking his blog.
Now since Bob wants to use his blog as a tool to directly promote his lawncare business, let’s say that a typical post from Bob might be ‘How Bob’s Weedkiller Can Give You the Perfect Lawn!” Bob would then explain why his particular weedkiller works better than the brand names that you are familiar with.
But is this the type of content that would build Bob’s blog? Would this type of self-promotion draw visitors from Google searches? Probably not, since most people won’t be searching for ‘Bob’s Weedkiller’. Would this type of content be what other blogs would want to link to? Probably not, since it’s a promotional piece that doesn’t really offer any value. Finally, would this type of content be likely to grow Bob’s subscriber base? Probably not, since it’s basically an advertisement for Bob’s products and services. Bob’s friends and family might be ok with that, but everyone else could probably care less.
Now let’s look at what might happen if Bob switched the focus of his content. Instead of a post about ‘How Bob’s Weedkiller Can Give You the Perfect Lawn!’, what if Bob blogged about ‘10 Steps to a Weed-Free Lawn By May 1st”.
Notice that the tone of Bob’s posts has completely shifted. Bob has gone from directly promoting himself, to now he is telling his blog’s visitors how to solve a problem. How many people want to learn more about Bob’s Weedkiller? Probably not too many. But how many people want to learn more about having a weed-free lawn? A whole lotta people!
By shifting to focusing on how he can solve problems and provide value to others, Bob has suddenly greatly increased his blog’s relevance with readers. Now people that search for terms like ‘getting a weed-free lawn’, or ‘how to remove weeds from your lawn’, might end up at Bob’s blog post about ‘10 Steps to a Weed-Free Lawn By May 1st’ (And search traffic suddenly helps Bob sell his lawncare products over the internet). Other bloggers might see the value in this post, and link to it on their own blogs. And finally, visitors that are interested in caring for their lawn will probably see the value in this post, and are much more likely to subscriber to Bob’s Lawncare blog.
The key mistake that many businesses make when they blog is that they attempt to put themselves first. They want to use their blog as a tool for self-promotion, which provides almost no incentive for visitors to become readers. When a blog instead focuses on providing value for its readers, then it begins to grow. People that will come to Bob’s blog don’t care about hearing about Bob’s products, they care about hearing how they can solve a lawncare problem they are having, or how they can improve their current lawncare efforts.
View your business blog as a tool to provide value DIRECTLY to your readers, and you will INDIRECTLY see your business grow as a result.
Sites that require users to log in to access certain information and/or purchase products add an additional layer of potential complication to the usability process. To avoid potential visitor confusion and
the possibility for errors, it is important that any login process requires little or no thought on the part of the site visitor.
Once logged in, you must be sure that visitors are able to find the information they want and expect to find. My Account pages need to provide visitors with access and ability to view and change personal information, as necessary.
Login Access
Access to any login page (or the login form itself) should be available consistently across all pages of the site. Be sure the form or link is obvious and easily differentiated from other areas of the web page.
Security
If the information behind your login contains sensitive data, you need to use the appropriate security protocols, assuring visitors that that you take their information’s security seriously.
Registration
If visitors are not already registered a link to a new user registration form should be present. It’s also smart to have a global link to “register” for any new visitors to the site.
Account benefits
Non registered visitors should be treated to benefits of account registration. This information should be located on the same page as the new user registration form.
Lost password
All login forms should contain an option to reclaim passwords and/or username should they have been forgotten. This information must also be passed securely.
Remember me
You can provide additional convenience (though less security) by giving visitors the option of checking a “remember me” box which will allow them to stay logged in indefinitely.
Privacy
Provide a link to your sites privacy information/policy near the login form submit button or email field. This gives your visitors confidence that you will treat their information with respect.
Status
The visitor’s “logged in” status should be displayed at all times with a ready access to logout at their convenience. When additional security is necessary it’s a good idea to automatically log them out after a set period of inactivity.
Change info
Once logged in, visitors should have access to change their user information, including usernames, passwords, contact info, payment details, etc.
Change confirmation
Once the visitor has submitted their information to be changed, provide a confirmation screen that shows the old and new info. This prevents errors and helps insure information remains accurate.
Financial details
Provide links to relevant financial information such as transaction history, invoices, balances, payment methods, etc. Provide printable version of this information.
Up-sell opportunities
Visitors that are logged in provide you an interested, captive audience. Consider discreetly utilizing up-sell opportunities - without being overbearing.
Subscribed services
Provide visitors access to the information/services to which they are subscribed. Also provide additional subscription options, if applicable.
Information management
Allow users to change the way they receive information, providing alternate methods such as snail mail, HTML or text based emails or to turning off communication entirely.
When visitors create an account with you they are making a commitment to you to enjoy the services or information that you provide. It’s important not to let the usability process break down after visitors are committed. In fact, it’s even more important to treat registered visitors respectfully and appropriately, ensuring they have access to the information they need. This develops long-term relationships and keeps them coming back.
Coming from both a programming and public relations back ground (odd mix I know),
I tend to get really annoyed with PR Firms that think they can just
jump right into online marketing by adding it as a “piece of our
services”, when they really have no idea what goes into an online
marketing strategy. The see blogs as another place to send their press
release, they see Facebook and MySpace as just another place to get an
ad or message slapped on a web page. They think that because that new
hire right out of college has over 100 friends, they know how to work a
social networking campaign. They think its something “so easy” and
“fast”. That’s where they go wrong.
So what do you look for
when a public relations company who claims that blogging, social media
and online marketing is their specialty?
Doe their own site
work properly? You may think this is a really silly question, but walk
through their site. Is it easy to navigate, do they have unique title
tags, are their broken links? Do things look “right”? If their own
house isn’t in order, how can you expect them to make sure yours is?
I’ve got many friends are in
public relations that truly know they aren’t equipped to handle online
PR strategies, they know that the offline world of PR and the
strategies they use handling crisis or promoting clients just doesn’t
translate to the online world well. It’s why these PR strategists work
with online marketers to do what’s best for their clients. If the PR
company does truly know online marketing, you might be waiting in line
for their services, as undoubtedly, everyone will want their
expertise.
Is there a solution to the predicament? When it comes to looking at
online marketers for PR related issues, be just as careful - do you
research. Not all online marketers understand and know Public
Relations. Just as with any company you deal with - do your homework
before you sign on that dotted line.
This is a post from SuperBloggingTips.com, a make money online blog.
Photo credits: chefranden.
Every blogger wants to be productive. If you have a blog, I’m sure you want to get things done without wasting time and have plenty of profits and benefits from the effort you put in. But sometimes we can find it hard to […]
So, here it is almost the end of January. How are y’all doing with your New Year’s Resolutions? Still going strong? Or have you found yourself starting to “backslide” just a little bit?
You know, it’s hard to create new (good) habits or to break old (bad) ones. It’s tempting to sink back into the same old way of doing things.
You may be asking yourself: what has this got to do with search marketing?
Well, I don’t know about y’all, but at least some of my resolutions this year involve small business marketing. I’ve got big plans for 2008!
But I know from experience — it’s easy to start out with plenty of enthusiasm and great intentions. And it’s equally easy to lose momentum, get sidetracked and find yourself at the end of the year not much better off than you were at the beginning, with no real idea of how it all happened. (Just for the record, that would describe many of the years of my life from 2007 on back.)
So here’s my Three-Step Program for 2008, and the tools I’m trying this year to try to help me stay on pace. Maybe some of these will be helpful for you, too.
The first tool is Backpack. I used to get frustrated because I’d continually come up with great ideas for products, services, articles, blog posts, even whole websites, only to have them disappear from my brain before I got the chance to work on them. I started last year using a voice recorder to try to capture more of these ideas before they fade away, but I still need somewhere to organize them for easy retrieval.
With Backpack, I’ve created a page for each website, business idea or project. On those pages, I can set up lists, write notes and attach picture galleries and “writeboards,” (free-standing documents that can be exported to text or HTML format). I can see in one handy place all the random thoughts and “in progress” ideas I have going at any given time.
A basic account at Backpack is free (can’t beat that price!) and includes five pages. For myself, I opted for a paid account, so I get 25 pages, enough to keep track of every project I’ve got going at the moment, plus up to 500 MB of file storage and a Backpack Calendar. Other paid options are available with up to 1,000 pages and 3 GB of file storage, for the overachievers among us.
Okay, so the plans are taken care of. But, as the saying goes, nothing happens until something moves. Plans without actions aren’t going to get me very far.
However, one big problem for me is getting sidetracked. With all the things going on in my life personally and professionally, it’s way too easy for me to go off on tangents. It’s not so much a lack of action as it is a lack of focused action.
I start off with intentions of exercising every day or posting to my personal blog at least three times a week or sending off a certain number of link requests each week. Next thing I know, even though I’ve been busy every day, I haven’t even looked at my site’s link profile in weeks, it’s been six months since my last blog post and my exercise videos are buried under an inch-thick layer of dust. (I had intended to dust once a week, too… oh, well!)
With Joe’s Goals, though, I can see at a glance just how well I’ve done in keeping up with the activities I’ve identified as “core” to my plans.
I set up tracking for each major recurring task I want to keep up with this year. I can’t “accidentally” let a blog slide for weeks without posting. Every time I check my Goals page, I can see at a glance how long it’s been since my last post or since the last time I got my flabby self in gear and hauled out that exercise video.
Like Backpack, the basic version of Joe’s Goals is free. If you want a version without ads, you can subscribe. Also like Backpack, the price seems very reasonable.
Things like Backpack and Joe’s Goals only work if you log in to the sites, though. For the third step in my Three-Step Program I wanted something more proactive. Enter MemoToMe.
MemoToMe will e-mail me at regular intervals (which I specify) to remind me about things I need to do. It reminds me periodically to write articles, work on websites, post to blogs, ask for links… whatever I have it set up to do.
Like the other services, it has a basic service available free, and it’s just about as simple as you can get. You select a username and password, enter your contact information, and set up your reminders.
Then, however often you specify, you’ll get an email reminder. The easy way — set one up to remind you to check Joe’s Goals and review your progress.
Did you set yourself any business goals for 2008? How’s your progress so far? Do you think any of these tools could be helpful? Any other tools, techniques or tips you’ve found helpful for keeping up motivation and momentum? (Hey, I can use all the help I can get!)