Entries Tagged 'advertisment' ↓
November 12th, 2008 — Buildify, advertisment, bloggers, marketing, product awareness, promotion
In a semi-recent post on his blog Matt Cutts discussed some very powerful information about corporate blogging. We got a lot out of this post and decided to expand a little more on the subject. Whether you are already a corporate blogger, or thinking about getting started, this information could drastically effect the way you run your blog and how the public perceives it.
The first point that Matt covered was about leaving yourself enough wiggle room when it comes to product launches, updates or other big events. Whenever you set a date that is hard and fast, you are opening yourself up to a lot of potential problems. Let’s look at a common scenario and how this type of issue could have a negative effect on your business.
Let’s say that you use your blog to announce that on Date X you will be releasing Product Y. You start the buzz, everyone gets excited and your readers can’t wait. The countdown to Date X begins and as the big day gets closer, you realize that you’re not going to be able to make that deadline.
So, you post that Date X is now Date Z and explain that there is a good reason for the delay. Your audience is disappointed, and they may start to wonder about how professional your company is. While everyone understands that product launches are a delicate matter, setting a hard and fast date does raise expectations. If you can’t meet them, your audience may start to wonder what’s going wrong.
Date Z rolls by and you’re still not ready. You have another post about the new Date A, and once again, your audience is disappointed. By now, things look pretty bad, and you’ve already delayed the launch of Product Y twice. More problems occur, and before you know it your actual launch date is now Date D.
By this point, the majority of people that were really interested in Product Y will have moved on. You’ve failed to deliver, you’ve shown that you can’t keep a project on schedule and your launch will fizzle out. While some delays can be strategic and may increase demand, waiting too long and having too many delays will spell disaster for any product launch.
What can you learn from this scenario? First and foremost, while you do need to give your audience a date for a launch, it does not need to be hard and fast. Give yourself more than enough wiggle room so that if something does go wrong, your company is not going to be cast in a bad light.
This same principle can also apply to other promises you make on your blog. Bottom line, if you are not 150% sure you can keep a promise - don’t make it. It’s just that simple. If you don’t put yourself in a corner, you won’t have to worry about getting out of one. By leaving yourself that wiggle room, you’ll be able to present a strong front to the public and keep them interested in your launch or event.
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November 10th, 2008 — RSS Feed, advertisment, content, keywords, links, ping, search engine, web traffic
In many people’s opinion, organic traffic is the best. It’s free, it’s targeted and nine times out of ten, you’ll get a much better response, whether it’s for a company promotion, getting readers to your blog and building up solid relationships. Let’s take a look at just a few easy ways that you can start taking advantage of organic traffic and visitors, right now.
The first step is to make sure that your blog is fully optimized. One of the best platforms for quick indexing is WordPress, but depending on your content, it may not work quite well enough for you. Once you have your SEO portion of your campaign completed, you will need to keep going, making small changes, testing conversion rates and seeing just how much traffic your efforts are bringing in.
This optimization should extend not only to your content, but also to your post titles, headers, image alt-links, and literally everything else on your site. If you want a lot of organic traffic and you are in a competitive niche, you’ll need to go all out to make sure that you are getting the results you want.
Now, once you have your corporate blog fully optimized, it’s time to think about what you are actually going to be writing and whether or not it will help you increase the amount of organic visitors to your site. While placing keywords in your post is important, it should never outweigh good content that people can actually use, learn from and connect with.
Good content gets around, and that means more organic visitors for you. Word of mouth is still one of the most popular and profitable forms of advertising and there is no reason that your corporate blog cannot benefit. Since you’re not paying for these visitors through PPC ads or other means, you’re getting a chance to actually develop a relationship with your visitors and that all important motivation to keep going.
Promote your RSS feed. One of the easiest ways to get backlinks to your site, and to increase awareness about your products is through an RSS feed. Whenever you post on your corporate blog, take the time to ping your feed using a service like Pingomatic, or Pingoat. These will submit your RSS feed to numerous places and you can easily start to see results right away. As a bonus, indexed RSS content can be picked up by search engine spiders very quickly.
So, now you have your corporate blog optimized, you’re starting to develop relationships with your readers and you are getting your feet wet with RSS promotion. It may take a few tries to get results, but if you can stick with it, chances are you’ll start to notice a big increase in the amount of your daily traffic.
Try a few methods today to help you get more organic visitors and see how well the techniques work for you. With a little hard work, and smart promotional tips, you can get noticed by your audience.
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October 31st, 2008 — advertisment, blog design, links
A corporate blog can be an incredibly powerful sales tool and many people begin this practice simply to sell more products. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but before you start, it is vital to learn the art of product placement. Blogging is similar in many ways to television and other media, but when it comes to product placement, there a few very big differences.
Have you ever stayed up late and watched an annoying infomercial? Most have, and even if you are vaguely interested in the product, it’s still pretty tough to get past the hype. Now, let’s put this in terms of a blog. If your blog is one long infomercial with no actual content of any value, chances are your efforts will be in vain. No one likes to read an infomercial – especially one that stretches on ad infinitum.
So, how do you still sell products on your blog, but avoid this trap? The answer is actually pretty simple. You need to develop a ratio of informative posts versus posts that contain product placement. You also need to work on inventive ways to integrate product placement into informative posts. Let’s cover the first one and then move to the second.
A good ratio to have to avoid sounding like the world’s longest infomercial is three informative posts for every post that contains a product placement. Yes, this only gives you about one chance a week to sell a specific product if you only blog once a day. However, the chances of that one post being effective are much higher than if you post nothing but product spam all week.
The key is to give your readers what they want. That would be informative content that they can use, enjoy, or relate to. No one can really relate to a commercial. Most blog readers are savvy enough to know that companies need to promote their products, and they are okay with the fact that occasionally there may be a post about a specific product. They are not okay with endless promotional posts that offer no value to them as a reader.
Now, let’s cover inventive ways to handle product placement. These are not overt sales pitches, but they can be even more powerful than a direct product placement post. The key here is to find a way to incorporate your product into your informative post that:
1. The flow of the post is not disturbed.
2. The product provides an answer to a problem.
3. The reader is interested in learning more about the product.
This is not as hard as it sounds. A simple well placed link to one of your products and a brief sentence about how the reader will benefit from it can be incredibly powerful. Test out a few techniques to see how well your audience responds to different variants of this technique until you find the one that is right for your blog.
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October 20th, 2008 — advertisment, audience, marketing, statistics, web traffic
Listen to corporate blogging evangelists long enough and it’s easy to start thinking that success is going to fall out of the sky and bonk you on the head. However, spend a few weeks implementing all of their techniques and you may end up wondering whether or not all of this hard work is worth the effort. Before you fall into this trap, and give up, it is important to decide whether or not corporate blogging is worth the effort.
As with any good marketing plan, corporate blogging takes time to implement. It is vital to develop smart expectations, and realize that in order to achieve them, you will have to put in a measure of work. While there are a few success stories of corporate bloggers that were instantly successful, it takes the average blogger more than six months to start to see results. If you are not willing to wait that long, you may want to rethink your position.
Let’s look at this problem logically. First, you have a problem – you need to promote your company or products and you have heard that corporate blogging is a great way to do that. The solution is setting up that blog, working hard and being patient. The results can vary widely, based largely on your niche and how much effort you put into implementing the solution.
Corporate blogging is not for everyone and there are some businesses that are not well served by this type of marketing. Realizing that your results may not be nearly what you hoped for is a bitter pill to swallow, especially if you have just spent the last six months of your life slaving away at your blog.
So, is corporate blogging really worth it?
The answer varies on many factors, namely: How much time are you willing to put into the effort, How well you plan to promote your efforts and whether or not you can effectively reach your audience. If you understand this going into your corporate blog, it is easier to develop a solution that will ensure that all of the effort you are putting into this is worth it.
You can work for months on a blog, but if you are not promoting it, if you are not writing posts that readers care about, you are wasting your time. You can wait months to see results from heavy promotion, constant writing and tweaking of your efforts, but if it results in increased sales, it is definitely worth it.
Check the hype at the door and look at corporate blogging logically. It is a powerful tool – but only when implemented, used and promoted properly. Fail in any one of these three categories and you may just be wasting your time.
The best solution for many budding corporate bloggers is to read through case studies of other companies and their blogging efforts. You can learn from their mistakes, develop a more reasonable expectation of results and work to implement the necessary ingredients for your success.
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October 12th, 2008 — Buildify, advertisment, audience, blog design, bloggers, blogosphere, engaging ideas, marketing, money, networking, promotion, seo
Good morning Sunday readers! Are you looking for some blogging tips to help out your blog or thinking of starting one? Check out our quick guide below to some great places for ideas and resources.
General:
Blogging Tips:
Promotion and Advertising:
SEO | Optimization:
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October 6th, 2008 — advertisment, content, public relations, web traffic
One of the most common mistakes that corporate blog owners make is turning their blog into a glorified sales letter. While there is a place for sales copy on a blog, it should only be used when absolutely necessary, and never as the main form of communication. No one really likes being “sold to,” and if you are noticing that there has been a drop off in your readership, you may be overselling your blog a bit. Here are some signs to watch out for to keep your blog from turning into a sales letter.
1. Product placement ratios go up.
There is nothing wrong with promoting your products in your corporate blog. In fact, that’s why many bloggers decide to get into this form of communication. However, if you are writing more about your products and worrying less about creating a relationship with your readers, you may end up in a bad spot. Try to keep your product placement ratio to one for every three to four posts. It’s best to use soft selling techniques, rather than blanket attempts to promote your products.
2. Your blog posts become impersonal.
Even the best copywriters have issues with overselling, and it’s all too easy for a corporate blog owner to fall into this trap. The harder you sell your products, the more removed you become from your audience. Again, try to find that balance between actual communication and selling your merchandise. In order to keep that relationship strong, consider posting more about how a product will benefit your readers, rather than throwing it in their face.
3. You start to get complaints.
If you have gotten one or two complaints that your blog is simply selling too much, this is an indication that you may need to think hard about your posting procedures. Those one or two people are only the ones that took the time to write and you have to consider just how many people walked away, instead of contacting you. You are writing your corporate blog for your audience first and foremost, to set up that relationship of trust – not to endlessly pitch your products at them.
4. You notice your page views declining.
This is a common sign that something is wrong with your blog. It could be a natural turn of events, or it could be a sign that you are drifting from your initial purpose. Once you start to develop that relationship with your readers, it’s tempting to try to monetize them by selling your products. However, it’s a fine line to cross over and it’s all too easy to end up losing readers as a result. Monitor your stats and see if you are noticing any drop-offs when you post promotional material.
While corporate blogs are a powerful medium for product placement, they should not be abused. Always keep your main focus in front of you and remember that the relationship with your customer and reader has to come first.
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October 2nd, 2008 — advertisment, money, reputation, social bookmarking sites, web traffic
If you are not familiar with the site called StumbleUpon, it is a service that allows users to discover new sites. With the use of a toolbar (spyware free), users of StumbleUpon can find new sites that are related to their interests, or they can choose a random option. Millions of people are using StumbleUpon and it has caught the eye of many corporate bloggers as being a great new way to pick up readers.
This is a veritable minefield however in the blogging community. Many people swear by the service, others can’t stand it. While there are some flaw that are inherent with StumbleUpon, there are a few cases where it can actually be useful for your corporate blog. Let’s take a hard look at the pros and cons of StumbleUpon and whether or not it can help you.
First off, although advertising on StumbleUpon is incredibly cheap, and very targeted, few have found it to be effective. Basically, when you purchase a StumbleUpon ad, your blog will be automatically loaded for viewers that are interested in your niche. It sounds ideal, but this rarely works. In our testing we found that we did get the number of visitors promised, but none stayed for more than a few seconds.
Paying for targeted visitors that barely see your site is just not a good investment. There is a lot of controversy over StumbleUpon’s ads, and although they are economical, we have not found that they are effective for the majority of corporate blogs. If you are running a very special contest or offer you may have better results, but you really cannot rely on these ads to help build up a solid readership.
So, what about their organic services? These are the visitors that just happen upon your site and you don’t have to pay for them. This is a little hit or miss and again, it is really only effective for contests, special deals and controversial content that grabs a visitor immediately. While it is still important to get listed as a StumbleUpon site, you should not expect hordes of people to descend on your site as a result.
Overall, StumbleUpon is a great premise that should work, but it just doesn’t seem to for most corporate blogs. The review feature is also worrisome for many corporate blog owners. Get a bad review and that will stay up, in connection with your site, for any StumbleUpon user that happens to visit your site. If the reviews are good, this is great. If they are not, it is a whole other story.
While using StumbleUpon has some benefits, it is certainly not the most reliable means of attracting new readers to your corporate blog. With the right niche and targeting this can change, but for the average corporate blog owner, it is just not worth the trouble. This may change as StumbleUpon grows and evolves, but for now, your efforts are probably best spent elsewhere.
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September 16th, 2008 — advertisment, goals, marketing, money, networking, planning, platform, promotion, public relations, social bookmarking sites, web traffic
If you are completely new to blogging, you may find that you have a lot of questions and at times, it can be hard to find the answers. We’ve compiled the most common issues facing new corporate bloggers and supplied the answers to these problems below.
1. Is this going to make my company more profitable?
Yes and no. It is important that you go into corporate blogging with the right mindset. Yes, it can be a very powerful means of promotion, but it’s going to take a lot of time and success will not happen overnight. The main reason that most companies get into corporate blogging is not to increase sales directly, but to improve their search engine rankings. Often, the result of a better ranking is more sales, but you should not view your corporate blog as a mythical tool that will rake in millions of dollars in sales.
2. What blogging platform should I use?
This is a tougher question because the answer is a bit nebulous. Everyone is going to have their preference, but overall, the most powerful and customizable platform has to be Wordpress. You’ll have two main options with Wordpress. First, you can set up an account on Wordpress.com, where they will host and install your blog for you, or you can download a free copy at Wordpress.org and install it on your own server.
For those that don’t have a lot of experience, the hosted version works quite well, despite its limitations. For those that need more options with plugins and configuration, installing it at the server level is the best option.
3. How do I promote my blog?
Once again, there is no set answer to this question, but there are several techniques that can be used successfully. First, you’ve got to make your blog easy to find on your own corporate site. Next, you’ll need to start promoting it in two different ways, directly and indirectly.
Direct promotion involves submitting your blog posts to social bookmarking and networking sites. Indirect promotion involves leaving comments on other blogs and leaving a link to your own blog inside. This should be used in moderation and your comments should always be related to the post and not blatant promotional attempts.
4. Is corporate blogging worth the effort?
Absolutely, but only if you are willing to spend extra time promoting your blog. If not, then it is a waste of your time. A good corporate blog will take a few months to catch on and you’ve got to be willing to take the time to really work on creating great posts and promoting them. Success is not going to happen instantly, and it will take work. However, you can see a big difference in your main site’s traffic and in public opinion when you really work on your blog.
Corporate blogging is not for everyone. If you’re interested in getting started, it is best to remember that it will take a lot of time and effort. For those willing to make that sacrifice, success is just around the corner.
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August 21st, 2008 — advertisment, blog design, money, planning, revenue
Many companies don’t consider the fact that they could actually make money from their blogs. The popularity of online advertising has made it easy to include ads from all over the world, and Google Ads in particular make it very easy to target your readers with advertisements that they will be interested in. While it can be very fruitful to include ads on your corporate blog, there are a few considerations you should be aware of before you take that step.
1. Always make sure that you can filter the ads.
The main problem with banner networks is that some of the ads are highly inappropriate for certain audiences. You may not want your company associated with the latest ads for male enhancement – and this happens a lot. It is vital to choose an ad service that will allow you to filter out the type of advertising that you do not want. Be advised however that these filters do not always work. You may need to add actual sites to a list to make sure that their ads do not appear on your site. It is best to monitor the ads that appear on your site as much as possible to avoid getting stuck with reader complaints and a bad public image.
2. Beware your competitors.
The popularity of online advertising means that it is highly likely that your competitors are using it. You don’t want to promote their sites, but if you are using PPC ads that are keyword based, the chances of this happening are very high. Make sure that you collect the URL’s for all of your competitors and then choose a PPC service that will allow you to block ads from that domain. You don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot by promoting another company. This is a frequent problem that affects companies in many different sectors.
3. Do the ads enhance your site or take away from the content?
The whole point of having a corporate blog is to get people to read it. Are the ads going to make them leave your site? While extra revenue is nice, is it worth the risk that your readers are going to click on the ads and as such, leave your blog? This is a consideration that should be weighed heavily before moving forward. Secondly, it is important to make sure that your ads do not diminish your content or make it look badly. Work on ad placement that integrates well with your blog design, and is not terribly prominent.
Having ads on your corporate blog is a bit of a double edged sword. When used properly they can create extra revenue. However, you should always weigh the premise of a two cent click versus a potential sale. If your ads are harming your business, there is just no point in having them. If you do go with advertising, make sure that it is professional and that you do not rely too heavily on it.
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August 20th, 2008 — advertisment, content, marketing, public relations, reputation
Corporate blogging became so popular so quickly that many companies made the mistake of thinking that they could get away with thinly veiled advertorial blogs that served no real purpose for their readers. Some companies out and out lied about their blogs and the results permanently harmed their reputation. If you are thinking about using a corporate blog to increase your sales, there is a way to go about it and keep your blog real.
1. Always publish content that your readers can use.
Blogs that read like an informercial are not interesting and chances are, you will lose readership in a very short time. There is a way to sell a product with your blog without making it sound like an advertorial. For example:
The Wrong Way: Buy our sports shoes, they are on sale today!
The Right Way: Recent studies have shown that a lack of proper foot support can contribute to sport’s injuries. Experts recommend using a (insert link here) certain type of shoe that can limit the amount of stress put on your joints.
The first one is a blatant attempt at advertising that serves no real purpose, other than to attempt to sell shoes.
The second is an interesting post that focuses on news and subtly brings in a product mention without being blatant. You’re leaving it up to the reader to discover what type of shoe they need to have to prevent injury, increasing the likelihood that their curiosity will induce them to click the link, and you are providing them with something that they actually need, ie: something that will prevent injury.
That is the perfect way to sell something on a blog.
2. Never attempt to fool the public.
There have been classic cases of “personal” blogs that were in fact thinly veiled sales pitches from a corporate entity. You may think that you’ve done such a good job that no one will figure it out, but the internet is a very small place. It is full of people who love to bring down companies and gain the prestige of being the person that “outed them.”
Deception is a very bad business practice no matter what industry you’re in, and it can only backfire. If you need to sell products with your blog, be honest about it. Never attempt to pass of a blog as something that it is not. The blogs that provide useful information, such as the one detailed above, are far more interesting than a fake blog that can only serve to harm your company’s reputation. Bottom line, if you are lying, someone will find out and the results will not be pretty.
Corporate blogs are powerful tools, but like anything that is powerful, they must be managed correctly. Honesty is always the best policy and although it is tempting to try to cash in on a blog, you’ve got to do it the right way. They can and will increase your sales, but only if you do it properly.
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