Blogging to Build a Brand is Necessary in Today’s Competitive Market

These days you must have a blog if you want to remain competitive in your industry. In this webinar, I talk about the benefits of blogging, the steps you need to take to set up a blog, and provides tips and tools that will help you make the most of your blogging experience.

About Blogging

• Blogging has been around in various forms for almost as long as the internet
• The word “blog” is short for Weblog. It was first coined by John Barger in 1997
• Blogging as we now it today was started by Brian Redman. Members of his usenet group, mod.ber, would share interesting things they found online.
• At last count, there were over 126 million blogs online
• People are blogging for all sorts of reasons; online diary, news gathering, or marketing

Why Blog for Business

• Blogging is the best way to create a community around your business
• Unlike other social networking sites, you have more room to get into details
• Your blog can serve as a sales funnel that directs people to your products and services
• Blogging can help you build a reputation as an expert
• Blogs are easily branded
• Blogging can lead to opportunities to crossover into other media such as television and radio
• Social networking tools can be integrated into the blog that allow you to create a conversation hub about your business.
• Search engines loves blogs which make it easy to gain traffic when you optimize your blog correctly.

Setting Up Your Blog

• You have two options when setting up a blog; self-hosted and third party hosting.
• Third party hosting is free. Think WordPress.com and Blogger.com. However, some third party hosts limit the type of content that can be put on their servers. Also, if the service goes away so does your blog.
• Self hosted blogs require more effort to set up. However, the pay off is greater. You have control over the branding, content, and marketing of your blog.
• For branding purposes, it is recommended that you self host your blog on your own domain. You will look more professional.
• Purchase a domain name from a reputable registrar such as Namecheap. Use your name or a brandable business name.
• Purchase web hosting from a high quality provider such as Hostgator, WireNine, or Namecheap.
• Use WordPress for blogging. It is popular, easy to set up, and simple to use.
• To install manually, you will need to download a FTP tool such as Filezilla or CuteFTP to upload files to your web hosting account.
• Download WordPress from the WordPress.org site. The site also has step by step instructions for installing the blog software on your site. Be sure to follow directions perfectly or you may end up with problems.
• WordPress has a repository of free themes on their site at WordPress.org. However, it is best to either purchase a professionally designed theme or have one custom made.
• The criteria for a good blogging theme is that it must fit in with your business brand. It should be professional and give you enough space to advertise your business, integrate social tools, and be enticing to visitors.
• For a professional look, light colors are best such as white, cream, and grey. Good contrasting colors are blue, green, and black.
• Customize your header to your business name. You can do this yourself using a program such as Photoshop or hire a professional.
• Fill out your “About Me” page
• Once your blog is set up, install plugins that will assist you in building your brand and creating a community around your business.
• Sign up for Feedburner and integrate it into your blog so you can track RSS subscribers.

Your About Me Page

• Create a short biography of yourself for your “About Me” page.
• The bio should detail your expertise.
• Include a professional photo of yourself
• Most importantly, your bio should focus on how your knowledge and experience can help your blog visitors.
• If need be, include contact information for you. Do not put your email address or you will receive spam galore. Instead, point to a contact form on your blog.
• Only relevant information should be included here.
• The bio should not be longer than 400 words.

Good WordPress Plugins

• Facebook Likes – Allows visitors to like your content which will show up on their Facebook wall.
• Twitter Tools – Will automatically tweet your new posts to your Twitter accounts.
• Akismet – Helps manage spam
• All in One SEO Pack – Assists in optimizing your blog for search engines
• Dashbar – Allows you to move between the front of your blog and the back office with ease
• Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form – Contact form that prevents spam from getting through
• TweetMeme Retweet Button – Allows visitors to tweet your content
• Subscribe To Comments – Helps visitors stay on top of the conversation by emailing them whenever there are new comments on a post.
• SexyBookmarks – Allows visitors to share your content on up to 50 other sites such as Digg and StumbleUpon
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – Puts a section on your post that shows similar posts to the one the visitor is reading. Helps increase the time visitors stay on your site.
• Google XML Sitemaps – Makes it easy for search engines to index your content.
• Math Comment Spam Protection – Increases spam protection
• Pretty Link (Lite Version) – Great for hiding affiliate long affiliate links and encourage people to click the link.

Branding Your Blog

• Your blog’s brand begins with its physical presence. Take time picking a theme and color scheme that is attractive to your target market. Study other blogs in the industry for ideas and inspiration.
• Use an icon that is recognizable and sums up your brand. You can even use your own image especially as you are the face of your business.
• Integrate your social networks into the blog. Place a Twitter and Facebook widget into the sidebar so people now where else to find you online.
• The content should be of interest to your target market. You will want to try and stick with one or two main topics that interrelate. For example, marketing and business development.
• The tone of your writing should be yours. If you are a funny person then incorporate humor. When people come to your blog they should be getting to know you.

Blogging Tips

• Blogging more often is better. However, pick a blogging schedule that you can stick to. Consistency is better than quantity.
• Take an afternoon and draw up a blogging schedule for the month. A content schedule will prevent you from drawing a blank when it comes time to provide content for the blog.
• You can even write posts in advance and schedule them to post on the blog on certain days.
• Some of your content should be ever green. Meaning, it should be high quality and apply for years after the day you post it. An everlasting quality.
• Sign up for a email service and begin building your list. Put the code for people to sign up in your sidebar.
• If you are stuck for content, you can post articles from directories such as Ezinearticles on your site. However, people come to your site for your thoughts so post as much original content as possible.
• Always reply to comments left on your blog. This will help build up a community. In fact, you should leave comments on the person’s blog to build good will in the industry as well as develop traffic to your site.
• Make your posts more interesting by incorporating videos. Either make your own or pull relevant videos from YouTube.
• Create content around controversial topics to attract attention and links. Study what is happening in your industry and comment on burgeoning trends.
• To save time and money, take advantage of the services of a professional company who can set your blog up for you. This will leave you free to generate content and market your blog.

Marketing Your Blog

• Use Tweetmeme or Twitter tools to tweet your posts when they go live on your blog.
• Another service you can use is Pluggio which will post links to your content on a rolling basis.
• Integrate your blog with your Facebook account using their blog app. Links to your posts will automatically be posted to your wall.
• Comment on other blogs in your industry to get the attention of their readers. Leave quality comments, not spam.
• Collaborate with other bloggers to guest post on their websites and have them guest post on yours.
• Include a link to your blog in all of your marketing materials.
• Study SEO and use good keywords in your content to capture search engine traffic.
• Participate in Blog Carnivals and Blog Memes like Thursday Thirteen.
• When doing article marketing, make sure there is a link back to your blog in the author bio section.
• If you are on YouTube put a link to your blog in the appropriate place in the bio section.
• In fact, post your link on all of your social networks and any place that you can.
• Make sure your blog is pinging search engines and other blog tracking sites, like Technorati, whenever you post an article. Use Pingoat or search for information on automatic pinging on WordPress.org knowledgebase
• Bookmark your own posts on social bookmarking sites like Digg, Reddit, Delicious, and Stumbleupon
• Create a Feedburner email widget which allows people to be emailed whenever you post something new.

Visit the Social Media Video Library for more blogging and social media training. Contact me for a free 1 hour consultation on how to use blogging and other social media tools to your advantage.