Fering Communications Blog: content marketing

Showing posts with label content marketing. Show all posts

Monday, 25 February 2013

What a Stale Blog Says About Your Company

I was reading a blog post recently—a guest post by the client of a web design company who was describing the business that he was losing because his website was outdated. Naturally, he was thrilled by his new website and had received all sorts of kudos because of the update. I wholeheartedly agree with him on the importance of a good looking and professional website—it’s what gives prospects their first impression of your company and you absolutely want that to be a positive and lasting impression.

But I’m not a web guy; I’m (among other things) a blog guy. So I’m going to continue the theme of the importance of having a good blog that is continually updated with fresh content. Company blogs are the centerpiece of successful inbound marketing campaigns as they can be stuffed full of SEO friendly keywords and keyphrases that help search engine rankings and they help engage prospects and build credibility.

We’ve come up with a few key pointers to keep in mind starting or managing your company blog.

Keep It Fresh

You have to keep fresh content flowing. When you pick up the newspaper in the morning do you want to know what happened in the world a month ago or yesterday? When you flip to your local TV news station do you want to know what’s going on right now in the world or this time yesterday? If a prospect visits your blog and your last post is from three months ago will they get the impression that your company is hurting and doesn’t have the resources to keep the blog current? Will they think that your company starts things but doesn’t follow through? I’m sure these aren’t the first impressions you want to make.

So what are you going to blog about? You definitely want to exhibit industry expertise and thought leadership. Take inspiration from the world around you: things that happen during your day both at home and at the office, current events and hot discussion topics, things that you’ve done right and wrong. Don’t be afraid to admit mistakes as long as you highlight the lesson learned: people love reading and learning about how not to do things.

Before you start a company blog make sure you understand the time it will take to maintain it. Some people don’t appreciate what’s involved and they end up with a stale company blog that sends all the wrong messages.

Make It Look Good

Your business blog has to look good because while it might be crammed full of knowledge, insight, expertise—and even if it had the winning lottery numbers—few are going to click through if it isn’t visually appetizing. Visitors are shallow like that so you’ve got nothing more than a few seconds to catch and keep their attention before they’re reaching for the ‘Back’ button.

Keep Changing It Up

Vary the lengths of your posts. Shorter posts (400 – 600 words) are more likely to get comments from your readers, while longer articles (800+ words) are more likely to be shared on social networking channels. Don’t force your posts to be any longer than they naturally are to meet some magical word count criteria—keep them crisp, concise and to the point. Even if you can only bang out four sentences before hitting the publish button you’ll still outperform at least one professional journalist on a nationwide sports website (don’t get me started on the ever diminishing standards of sports journalism!).

Conclusion

A business blog is a great tool for improving search engine ranking and engaging readers. To help your blog be everything it can be make sure it looks good and is updated frequently with fresh and relevant content. Some companies get overwhelmed when they try and set up a blog or find they can’t keep pace once they do have a blog up and running – if you find yourself in either of these situations then give us a call or shoot us a quick email, we’d love to see if we can help!

Got something to say? Leave a comment below, we’d love to hear from you! Got a question that we can address in our blog? Contact us through our website or email me directly and we’ll put our crack team to work and let you know when we post a reply.

Monday, 11 February 2013

How To Write a Blog Post That Doesn't Suck

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last ten years, you’ve probably heard about blogging and how it can be a great way to help your search engine rankings, build a connection with prospects and turn those prospects into leads. You probably also know that there’s lots of competition out there for readership. So what do you do? How do you build an audience and engage readers when there is so much background noise drowning out your message? This post describes simple steps that you can follow to write a post that will put you above the rest.

A Catchy Title

A strong title is the most important part of a good post. It’s like an invitation to a party—if the party sounds boring then no-one will want to come. Your title has to have a bit of sizzle to it – it’s what a reader will quickly eye and decide whether to click to see the rest of your post or not.

Good titles include “How To” guides, “Top X Reasons to …”, or something that’s a bit cheeky (double score on the title of this post!).

An Engaging First Paragraph

After your title has caught the reader’s eye, the first paragraph needs to continue the momentum.

You don’t want to dive too deep into the content because you’re still coaxing the reader, but at the same time you have to start giving them something to show that they’re not wasting your time. Good things to include in the first paragraph include an anecdote, reference to a current event or a personal story that might resonate with them. Set up a problem or ask a question that the rest of the post promises to answer.

Images

What’s that old saying about what a picture is worth? Well, you can probably get some free images from your friend Google (although be sure not to use any protected images) or if you use a professional image service you can expect to pay as much as $20 for a large high-resolution image. Either way, add one or more relevant images to your blog post whenever you can: images break up the text on the post and make it look more readable.

Headers

Like images, headers are a way to make your posts visually appealing—instead of having a large block of text you have a post that is divided into sections. Another way that headers make your post more readable is by allowing the user to see what the following section is about and allowing them to skip it if it’s not something that interests them.

Killer Content

Finally we get to the meat of your blog post: the content. Your content should inspire, educate, entertain and solve problems. You should have something relevant to say, voice an opinion, frame something like no-one else has or write with a twist of humor or sarcasm – anything that’ll help differentiate your blog from the rest of the blogs out there.

A Strong Finish

Your reader has made it to the end of your post … so now what? Every post should end with a call-to-action (CTA) – tell the reader what you want them to do next. If you don’t they might leave your blog and you lose the opportunity to engage them further.

Conclusion

Blogging is a great way to get exposure and generate interest for your business or brand and engage your prospects. However, blogging isn’t just a matter of putting words on your website and calling it a day. Follow the pointers outlined above and you’ll be well on your way, or (CTA spoiler alert!) if you find that you don’t have the time or resources to maintain a blog or you can’t manage to make the words on the screen say what you want them to, give us a shout, we’d be glad to help!

Sunday, 6 January 2013

10 Great Reasons Why Your Company SHOULD be Blogging (Part 2)

As promised, we’re back with reasons 6 – 10 of why your company should have a corporate blog. For those who didn’t see the first part of this post, please take a few minutes to check out the first part of this post to get up to speed.

Without further ado let’s get on with the rest of the reasons why your company should have a blog:

Share Timely Information – Your blog can serve as an announcement board for your company’s current events. If you’re going to be exhibiting at a tradeshow or attending a conference you can create a series of blog posts leading up to the event that discuss relevant topics and highlight your participation. If you’re going to release a new product or a major update on an existing product then your blog can play an important role in getting that message out there. If you’ve signed up a key account or established a strategic partnership, you can get that message out to your audience instantly by posting the information on your blog.
Damage Control – Your blog can be an archive of all things good about your company but can also play a key role in swiftly and deftly dealing with bad things that inevitably happen, helping to protect the reputation of your company, products and services. Say you just released a new version of your software without full testing Windows XP compatibility. Within hours of the release your help lines are overwhelmed by people who are finding out that your new software doesn’t play nice on XP. Within minutes of confirming the issue you could have a new blog entry posted recognizing the issue, accepting accountability for it and committing to a fix as quickly as possible. This might not correct the compatibility problem but will go a long way in assuring your user base that you’re dealing with the problem head on. And, if you use your blog as the foundation for social media channels, you might be able to get the message out to users before they install the new version and mess up their systems.
Humanize your company – As much as it may pain you, your website is probably a fine blend of corporate hyperbole, hand-wavy benefit statements and industry jargon. Your company blog is different: it gives you an opportunity to have a human voice—a chance to wish people the best of the season, to comment on current events, to drop the rhetoric and engage your readers in a human and personal way.
Understand Your Audience – By blogging about different products and services offered by your company and analyzing the number of pageviews, click throughs, shares and comments that each post gets you can understand what resonates with your audience. You could use this to boost products and services that might be underperforming or to eliminate products or services that your audience is showing that it’s not interested in.
Search Engine Optimization – Having a carefully planned, well written and informative blog that is updated regularly gives you a chance to lace your site with words and phrases that are key to your business and will help you rank better with the search engines. The search engine spiders adore fresh content that is rich with relevant material and will keep a close eye on your blog, helping your rankings and thereby increasing the traffic it directs to your website. While this is usually the number one reason on every other list of “top reasons why you should be blogging”, we have found it largely depends on your industry so we’ve put it at the bottom. Check back for a blog post in the near future where we’ll expand on this.

Conclusion

A company blog is a great way to engage prospects, establish your credibility, and keep your company in the forefront as prospects make their way towards a buying decision. You can use your company blog to share your experiences, keep your audience up-to-date and improve your search engine rankings, thereby increasing traffic to your website. But keep in mind that if you do decide to start a company blog it isn’t a trivial task—you should have a clear set of goals, define a strategy and identify your expectations before even posting your first blog. If the thought of all of this is overwhelming don’t let it stop you, just drop us a line because we’d love to help you navigate the waters of corporate blogging!

Monday, 26 November 2012

Why Your Company Needs a Style Guide

A few years ago when I was working as a salesman for a different company I sat across the desk from a customer while he was engrossed by a report. I was immediately curious about what he was looking at and after he put the document down and we began chatting I tried to discreetly steal glances to find out what he had been reading. After we chatted for a while we were interrupted by one of his colleagues and he stepped out of his office to discuss an issue that had just occurred. Alone in his office, I finally got the chance to freely look at the report and I was surprised to find that it was a production report generated by the computer system that I had sold him a few months earlier. I was shocked that it took me so long to identify something created by the company that I worked for. Instead of using the logos, fonts and colours consistent with our sales materials our technical team had used the default attributes chosen by their programming tools.

It is so important to build your brand into your business and everything that is associated with it. Every piece of sales & marketing material should have the same look and feel that is central to your company’s image. This includes your website and blog, whitepapers and case studies and product specifications. The same look and feel should extend through your training manuals, installation guides, specification documents and other technical documentation. On a whole, every piece of written or visual material your customers will see should look and feel the same and a style guide plays a key role in delivering that.

A style guide is a document describing the fonts, colours, style, voice, tone, layout and other attributes of your brand—everything that the various people and departments will need to adhere to so your branding is consistent and uniform. You want your prospects and customers to know that they are looking at something produced by your company without having to search for whom it was written by. Written and visual communications that are not consistent can look unprofessional and leave your customers confused.

Below is an infographic covering the basics of what a style guide is, why it is important, who should use it and how to go about creating one if you don’t already have one:

Establishing a style guide can be difficult in the early going—especially if multiple people or departments are involved. Start the process by appointing someone to champion the process and engage key individuals to invite their input and win their support.

You should also keep in mind how your style guide affects resources outside of your organization like bloggers and content curators—the standards described by the style guide will need to extend through their work, too.

Conclusion

A style guide is a document that defines the appearance, voice, formatting and other aspects of a company’s written and visual materials. Having a well-defined and consistent look and feel will make your company look professional and customers will feel comfortable doing business with you. If you need help creating or updating your style guide give us a call, we’d be more than happy to help!

Friday, 28 September 2012

A How-To Guide for Getting Your Online Content Found More Often

Do you want a fast and easy way to improve your search engine rankings so that your website and content marketing gets found more often? Having fresh content that is rich with keywords and phrases is a must, but you also need to make sure that the search engines know about your site and make regular visits to see what’s new.

While we’re all familiar with search engines thanks to our friends at Google and Microsoft, people are generally less familiar with web directories. Web directories are huge libraries of websites on the internet. Unlike search engines that use “spiders” to automatically crawl through the different pages on a website and catalog the results, most directories are manually compiled by volunteer editors. Search engines crawl through web directories so appearing in web directories will help your search engine performance.

While the reasons to be favoured by search engines and web directories are well documented, let’s quickly review why you want to let them know that you exist rather than waiting for them to happen upon you by chance:

Improved search engine ranking – If the search engines don’t know about your site, you’re not going to rank in search results. The search engine “spiders” will probably encounter your content sooner or later, but why wait?
More inbound links – Registering your site with web directories means increasing the inbound links to your site, and that’s good for directing more traffic to your site but also for increasing the credibility of your pages. Search engines keep a close eye on the web directories so showing up in the web directories will also help your search engine performance. Also, web directories are searchable and some people use them to find companies that they’re looking for.
Keywords and key phrase targeting – When you register with search engines and web directories you get to specify your keywords and phrases. By selecting the keywords and phrases that are in your sweet spot and are consistent with your content marketing platform you’re going to show up in the searches that you want to show up in.

Here are the top search engines and web directories and a brief note on how to sign up:

Google – With 85% of the search engine market share, this is a must. Go to www.google.com/submityourcontent and there are four options that you can choose from. You’ll want to start by clicking on the ‘Website Owner’ tab and then the ‘Add your URL’ link but you should look at the other three options on the page. You should also submit a sitemap so Google knows how to index your site – http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ is a great site that will build your sitemap.xml file, for free, that you can submit to Google.
Bing – While Yahoo has the second largest search engine market share, Bing provides the organic search results for Yahoo so by registering with Bing you’re also registering with Yahoo. Go to http://www.bing.com/toolbox/submit-site-url, enter your URL and you’re on your way. You can also submit your sitemap to Bing through their Webmaster Tools to make it easier for Bing to crawl your site.
DMOZ.org – This is the biggest directory on the web. To submit your site, go to www.dmoz.org and drill down to your business category. Drill down as deep as you can and when you’re in a deep as you can get click the ‘Suggest URL’ link near the top of the page. Enter your URL, title and site description and you’re on your way. Be careful in submitting: these entries are supposed to be objective and are reviewed before they are accepted so don’t use the site description part as a selling platform. Simply state what your business does and include your keywords and phrases.

If you submit your site to Google, Bing and Yahoo you’ll have more than 96% of the search engine market covered, but if you want to go for the full 100% you should also register with Baidu, Ask, AOL, Excite and Lycos. There are other directories that you can find through various search engines – see what other directories are available and appropriate for you particular business.

Conclusion

A strong content marketing platform is vital for many small businesses. Creating fresh and engaging content that will resonate with your target audience is great, but you can boost its effectiveness by submitting your site to the major search engines and web directories. By doing the minimum of submitting your website to two search engines and one directory you can significantly improve your online visibility and get more traffic to your marketing content.

Fering Communications Blog

Monday, 25 February 2013

What a Stale Blog Says About Your Company

Keep It Fresh

Make It Look Good

Keep Changing It Up

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Monday, 11 February 2013

How To Write a Blog Post That Doesn't Suck

A Catchy Title

An Engaging First Paragraph

Images

Headers

Killer Content

A Strong Finish

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Sunday, 6 January 2013

10 Great Reasons Why Your Company SHOULD be Blogging (Part 2)

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Monday, 26 November 2012

Why Your Company Needs a Style Guide

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts

Friday, 28 September 2012

A How-To Guide for Getting Your Online Content Found More Often

Conclusion

Other Blog Posts