Website Copywriting

Why Blog Comments Matter

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Today's post from the Chamber of Commerce features advice on how blog comments can add value to your business and online community.

The value of a blog doesn’t stop at the “Publish” button. Reader comments may be just as valuable as the blog posts themselves, especially if those comments lead to more content ideas or relationship building, among other outcomes. And if you have a small business blog, you might just find that blog comments open the door to results-driven opportunities like sales and influencer outreach.

After all, your blog is an important part of your online community—and enabling (and encouraging) comments gives readers the ability to have a voice. It also provides an outlet for readers to make suggestions and recommendations that you can then implement.

That being said, not all blog posts immediately inspire a wave of comments—and for those who are new to the blogosphere, encouraging reader ...

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How to Use Analytics to Help Your Blog

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Today's post from the Chamber of Commerce features advice on how to use analytics to help your blog.

Many people and businesses have blogs. Everyone has a different degree of expected success when it comes to their blog. Some people may just be blogging for fun and for friends and family to see what’s going on in their lives. Others, often businesses, are using a blog to improve their business credibility or for sales and marketing purposes.

In order to make your blog work for you, it’s necessary to track your analytics. What exactly are analytics? Analytics are the statistics about your blog. This can include how many visitors you get on a daily/weekly/monthly basis, what keyword searches are helping people to find your site, and what pages people are coming to your site from.

Keyword searches – when you use an analytics tool, you are able to see ...

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Four Steps to a Successful Guest Blogger Program

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Today's post from the Chamber of Commerce features advice on how to establish a successful guest blogger program.

As the numbers on your blog begin to rise, this little piece of Internet real estate becomes a hot commodity. Companies that hope to improve their own online credibility in your industry want to be associated with you. At some point, you may have organizations and companies you have never even heard of emailing you and asking to guest post on your blog.

The reasons are simple: these companies want to improve their page rank by linking to your blog. It is not a one-way street, however. Opening up your blog to guest posts and linking opportunities is a great way to land quality content at little to no effort on your part. It also lends some variety and additional perspective to your blog, making it more attractive to the businesses that ...

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How a Blog Improves Business Credibility

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Today's post from the Chamber of Commerce features advice on how a blog improves business credibility.

The quality of what is written in Web copy is an important determiner of just how successful a site will be at ranking high in a search engine and bringing in repeat customers. Simply getting someone to a Web page is not enough to make a sale. The writing has to be informative, interesting and impeccable.

Whether you manage your own Internet writing, or hire a writer to do it for you, the final product must provide prospective clients with enough accurate information to choose you as a business partner. This is true of official company websites, and is also true of secondary sites and pages – like blogs. Viewing a company blog as an afterthought to other Web initiatives is a flawed approach; in reality, a well-written blog has the potential to ...

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SEO or Gaming the System?

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Wow. This week has been a crazy one for SEO news. By now, you’ve probably heard the news that JC Penney was outed by the NY Times for engaging in black hat SEO techniques to improve their rankings prior to the all-important Christmas buying season.

Marketing blogs picked up the news and have been discussing it all week. I’ve read several different articles and after mulling things over here’s my take.

First, shame on JC Penney.

I’ve heard all the “but we didn’t know” arguments and seen how the firm involved was promptly fired. But I’ve never been a fan of plausible deniability.

The fact is they turned over one of their most important assets to someone else and then either stopped paying attention or turned a blind eye. Anyone who has worked with search for more than five minutes should be surprised to achieve sustained number one ...

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K’s Top Five for the Week – November 19

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This week my top five picks feature three articles about how to improve your website. Whether its calls to action, landing pages, or making your site mobile-friendly, you'll find something to help your web marketing efforts.

The last couple of picks feature information that can help improve your B2B marketing processes. In both cases it can be small changes that make big differences in how well things are working.

Hope you find something you find helpful. Leave a comment if you’ve found an especially helpful tidbit this week. I’d love to hear about it.

Until next week!

Finding the Right Calls-to-Action for Your B2B Website via @sengineland

If MarketingSherpa research is any indication, most B2B marketers aren’t thrilled with the calls to action on their website. This article gives some good ideas on how to figure out if yours are working and how to improve them.

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K’s Top 5 for the Week — September 17

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This week’s roundup focuses on content and the way it impacts our businesses and marketing programs.

We start off with a little research and research analysis followed by tips to improve your website and the content it contains.

Have a great read and let me know what you think about this week’s choices. Did I miss anything that would fit well with these posts?

2010 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Trends and Budgets by @juntajoe via @junta42

If you’ve wondered about what tactics B2B marketers use in their content marketing efforts or which industry has the highest level of content marketing adoption, this is the study for you. This study was a collaborative effort between Junta42, Marketing Profs, the Business Marketing Association, and American Business Media. It’s full of great information and you can’t beat the price tag!

New Study Reveals 3 Things You can Learn ...

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The Power of Why

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I have two kids under the age of four, both of whom are now talking. I tell you this because lately my house has been awash with the word “why.”

At first it started with just my oldest answering any statement with the word “why.” Now that her brother is talking, let’s just say the power of imitation has taken over.

Here’s what a typical conversation in my house looks like:

“Please don’t touch the oven.”

“Why?”

“Because the oven is hot.”

“Why?”

“Because I was cooking dinner.”

“Why?”

“Because we need to cook our food before we eat it.”

“Why?”

The questioning goes on until I lose my patience and inform them we’re done discussing it to please just do as I ask. (This violates my oath to never tell my kids ...

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Is Blogging Worth the Effort for Companies?

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To blog or not to blog? It’s a valid question.

eMarketer reports blogging is gaining popularity with companies, but fewer than half will be blogging by 2012.

According to Parker Trewin at Genius.com, “Whether it’s the time commitment, lack of resources or lack of demonstrable ROI…surveys show that blogging…still is not a ‘must have’ in the marketing toolkit.”

Why not?

I have to agree with Mr. Trewin that lack of time and resources is a big culprit. With the widespread layoffs of the last few years, marketing departments are strapped for both time and people. The need to do “one more thing” that takes considerable time and planning to show results falls to the bottom of the list. Especially if the fear is the results won’t be positive and jobs will be at risk.

There is also evidence traditional content marketing trumps social media activity, such ...

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The Problem with B2B Blogs

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I’ve gotten out of the blogging habit for a few months now. It started out innocently enough. I went on vacation for a couple of weeks. Then when I got back, guess what? I was swamped with client work that had been waiting for me. In a blink, a month had passed. Then two. Then…well…you get the picture.

As I’ve been struggling to get back on track, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I had a great start. Things were going well. Momentum was beginning to build. And then things fell apart. What went wrong? I’ve come to a single conclusion. And it affects not just me, but anyone with a B2B blog.

The problem with B2B blogs is they’re free.

I know what you’re saying. It’s great they’re free. That’s part of the magic. Free can’t be the problem. But I’m here to tell you ...

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