Once you know what niche or industry you will be blogging about, the next step in the process that you need to consider before you actually begin writing is some basic blog design tips. When designing and modeling your blog, you absolutely need to be able to keep your readers in mind. You need to create a design that has enough individuality and pizzazz that it will attract new visitors to your blog, but your design should also be comfortable and warm so that readers will return again and again, and striking this balance is not always simple. Here are five tips that will help you create a design for your corporate blog that is balanced between appealing and comfortable.

1 – Choose your blog theme wisely.

The blog theme that you choose should correspond with whatever industry or niche you have decided to blog about. Don’t go off target when it comes to pictures, symbols and other visual aids if they do not have relevancy or a relationship with the niche you are writing about. Your blog theme may be a subtle part of your blog but it is a vital one all the same, reinforcing the affiliation of your blog with the niche or industry that you are promoting.

2 – Introduce yourself so that your audience can get to know you.

Every blog should feature either an about me page, or an about me section where you can introduce yourself to those who are reading your blog. Tell your readers who you are and why you are blogging about the topic you are in, and even more importantly, what objectives you hope to fulfill by blogging. Your readers will appreciate getting to know you.

3 – Offer your readers methods for contacting you.

Do not keep your contact information obscure or hide it from your readers all together. Your readers should have easy access to you through a phone number or e-mail. This has a very powerful effect on building relationships with your readers and customers so do not underestimate its importance when styling your corporate blog.

4 – Make your best work easy to find.

If you write something that attracts more readers or more commenters than usual, make this post more readily available by categorizing it separately or linking it in a section on your sidebar, such as the “Most popular entries” section so that these posts can be regularly read and accessed by your readers and customers in the future.

5 – Make your blog visually appealing as well as easy on the eyes.

This one ought to be pretty straight forward – Don’t jazz your blog up too much with eye catching details because they can strain the eyes and cause difficulty reading. Good fonts to use include Times New Roman, Georgia and Arial. If you want to get a little fancy without sacrificing readability, consider Calibri. You can’t go wrong with dark fonts on light backgrounds, which are the easiest for readability.

Photo Credit: 1

Originally posted 2009-01-30 05:59:02. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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One of the biggest problems facing corporate bloggers is whether or not they can communicate effectively through their blog. There are a few steps that you can take to determine just how well you are reaching your audience, and it is not terribly difficult to come up with a plan on how to accomplish this. Let’s get started with the basics.

What do you hope to achieve through your corporate blog?

By focusing on the end result that you would like to have, you can better determine how to write your posts to reach that end. For example, let’s say that you want to increase consumer awareness of your company. This would mean that your posts would need to focus on community efforts that your company is hosting, more information about how your company operates as well as posts that give a more human side to your company.

If your goal is to sell products, you will need to work on a different approach. In order to effectively sell via a blog, you have to follow the basic tenets of copywriting, and find a way to incorporate them into a blog post. For example, you have to have a problem, discuss how that problem effects the consumer and then supply them with a resolution to that problem. This may sound difficult, but there is a way to work this into a blog post.

Let’s say that you sell auto parts and you are trying to increase your sales. One blog post that you could write could focus on the problems of dealing with salvage yards for parts. In this instance, it can be difficult to find parts that are in good condition. There is your problem. Now, you can elaborate on what bad auto parts can do to a vehicle, ie: discussing how this issue affects the consumer. Then, you can offer them a solution, ie: your auto parts that are in perfect working condition and come with a warranty.

This can easily be adapted to any industry, and as long as you are following the basic Problem/How it Affects Consumers/Solution formula, you should not have any problems writing effective blog posts that will sell product. But you can’t just stop there, you also need to focus on why a consumer should trust you. This can be accomplished through other means, such as testimonials, as well as by providing your readers with useful information, not too many sales pitches and a good rapport with you, the blogger.

If your goal is simply to get more visitors to your site and the blog will be used to feed them into your main site, you can take a different tactic. This will require finding interesting ways to induce people to visit your site, such as news that will integrate well with a specific division in your company. For example, let’s say that you run a sales training firm. You are trying to get new clients, and finding it difficult. Your blog could cover recent statistics about a drop in trained sales people, and that would feed into your training division. Again – problem and solution.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-11-05 05:54:47. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Many list owners have a formula that helps them figure out how valuable their subscribers are. This is usually done so that you figure out how much money each subscriber means to you. For example, this may be $1 a month, $5 or even more. To come to this figure, the list owner typically will add up the sales generated by a mailing and divide that figure by the total amount of subscribers. Most marketers prefer to get to the point where each person will earn them $5 a month.

This same formula can also be applied to your blog and many help you get a better idea of the payoff that you’ll be getting from spending the time and effort to establish your corporate blog. Once you have a better idea of how much each one of your visitors is worth, you may even be more motivated to keep adding new readers and to keep your promotional engine running.

Thanks to the power of corporate blogging, your visitors may eventually exceed the value of your list subscribers. If you are writing effectively and making sales, you can easily have your visitors worth more than $10 a month to you. Keep it up and see just how much it can grow over a short period of time.

But there are other ways to help you gauge how valuable your readers are – after all – money isn’t everything. A valuable reader is one that reaches out to you through the comments section, follows your work and tells their friends. The amount of people that do that is generally pretty small, unless you have a very popular site.

This is invaluable for many different reasons. First – you are getting free promotion and that is worth a bundle. Second, you’re getting better page views which can spell more revenue. Last but not least, you are building up a targeted audience – and that right there can be worth millions.

Think about the value that each one of your readers has before you post one more thing to your blog. Ask yourself whether or not that post is also valuable to them. After all, this is a two way street. Find ways to build up more valuable readers and learn how to monetize the ones that are not responding.

Managing a corporate blog is not a static position and there is a little bit of work involved, especially if you want to be successful. By learning how much your readers are actually worth, this can actually help you reach your goals in less time. Take the time today to see how much your readers are worth to you and figure out ways that you can increase their value.

At the same time, consider how you can increase the overall value of your blog, since these two are interconnected. Never stay stagnant, and keep moving forward. That is the key to building up a strong following – and one that is very valuable indeed.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-12-11 05:47:39. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Few people realize how powerful a blog can be when it comes to projecting an image to the public. Words have a power all their own and the wrong ones may sink your company’s reputation. Before you even start your own corporate blog it is very important to first come up with the image you would like the public to have of your company. Then, figure out how you want to get that image to come across. Here are some hints to help get you started.

1. Honesty is always the best policy.

While full disclosure of a company meltdown may not be the best idea, it is always important to be honest in your blogs. Never try to stretch the facts, pad your accomplishments or make your company look like something it is not. The blogosphere as it is called is an incredibly small little micro-universe and news, both good and bad, travels fast. It only takes one small slip up to tank your company’s image.

2. Be engaging and never dull.

Most people think of companies as being grey, lifeless and without any character. You can dramatically change that perception by having a blog that is engaging, fun to read and exciting. However, you have to walk that fine line between getting people interested in your company and becoming unprofessional. If necessary, try to take a few courses in creative and persuasive writing. It will definitely pay off.

3. Avoid the sales pitch.

There is a way to move products on your blog without having it sound like an informercial. Today’s blog readers don’t want to read a commercial – they want news and they want it now. Instead of blatant sales pitches, find a way to integrate your products with what you are talking about, or what is in the news right now. This way, you’re actually providing your readers with help instead of hawking your latest product in their face.

4. Be friendly and cultivate blogging relationships.

The whole point of blogging is that it is very social in nature. The whole point of corporate blogging is to bring that element into your business to help increase your customer base and build a stronger brand. By inviting popular guest bloggers in your niche, or just developing some great friendships with other bloggers, you can build a strong network between each other, and everyone wins.

It is also important to remember to be very friendly, but professional, when dealing with your readers. Never get dragged into a flame war on your blog or stoop to picking fights with readers that leave comments on your blog. In the end, you’re going to be the one that looks bad, and that is not the image you want to project for your company.

These are just a few hints to get you started on the path to presenting the right image of your company. Sometimes it helps to have a professional walk you through these initial phases and we highly recommend hiring a blog management service to do just that.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-08-14 05:00:10. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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(ie: should blog design match main site design?)

There are a lot of different considerations that need to be made when you are taking the initial steps to set up your corporate blog. For example, one of the first considerations that you should make is whether design integration is or is not important for your corporate blog. Should your blog design have the same design as your main site, or is there room for some creative license when setting up a site that is meant to be companion to your main site, but not necessarily part of the same website? The truth here is that either option is viable, as long as you are achieving what you intend to when designing the look and feel of your blog in its early stages on your website.

If your website has a distinct design that is classic and simple, then implementing it both on your main site and your blog site will add seamlessness for easy maneuverability, which is something that your readers will appreciate. As long as they can differentiate between the main website and the blog as they move from one to the other, there should be no underlying issues in creating a seamless design that remains the same from page to page. Because so many WordPress blog templates are designed to allow for extra pages, some corporate bloggers build the blog to spec and then add their main site around it, creating an entire blog and website combination from a single blog template. This is not the only option available to you however, so you should not feel locked into it.

On the other hand, as long as you keep a similar theme in place, there is no reason why you cannot create a website design and a blog site design that are unique to one another. If your website has a set of colors and a main graphical theme that is completely unique to your blog, you may be going for something a little too unique. However, design integration when it comes to hooking a blog and a website together does not mean using the exact same template twice – You can create an acceptable level of design integration simply by using the same images, the same basic color scheme or just a similar layout design. These small details will add up to show your readers that they are still on the same website while still making it easy for them to differentiate between your blog and your website, which can sometimes be beneficial to them.

The design details are ultimately up to you as you put your corporate blog together. What you should be aware of is the fact that both of these options have merit, and you can always add and change elements as you go to suit your style and to respond to comments from your readers. Your corporate blog and website do not have to have the same exact design implemented into both, but seamlessness can be nice when showing readers that the two sites have the same common goal.

Photo Credits: 1

Originally posted 2008-11-06 05:59:20. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Unless you went out and purchased an already established blogs, the chances are that you just recently launched your blog with only a single loyal reader, your own self. Maybe you received a few hits a couple of days later when you began to tell the people you knew about the blog, but that’s probably as far as readership has been able to go so far. All is not lost, however, as there are some pretty awesome techniques that you can employ when you are ready to increase loyalty and readership numbers. These tips are especially useful for brand new bloggers who do not have much readership to speak of. If you want to get the ball rolling, these tips can be especially useful.

As each of these tips builds on the last, it would be especially wise for you to begin at number one, and slowly move down the list accordingly. Each technique will build upon the last in some way, allowing for you to create some momentum in building your membership base. Eventually you will establish enough of a level of momentum that you will gain some sort of traction. You can easily build up a readership of 500 people or more per day, meaning that you will no longer be required to boost your readership as diligently as before. Instead, your loyal readers will do a lot of the work for you, getting the word out about your blog via word of mouth.

Without further ado, here are the techniques that will help you build readership for your blog in no time at all:

1 – First and foremost, you should begin by writing at least five major or “pillar” articles.

Pillar articles are most commonly tutorial style articles that are designed to teach something to your audience that they can use in their everyday lives. Generally these pillar articles are longer than the average 500-word article, and they are generally full of practical advice and other tips. Pillar articles are regarded as excellent, practical how-to lessons or articles. Articles like this stay current and over real insight and value to the reader. The more pillar articles you are able to produce for your blog, the better off you will be because these types of blog posts never go out of style, and provide value to every single new reader that visit your blog.

2 – At a bare minimum you should be writing one new blog post every single day.

Not every single one of your blog posts needs to be a pillar blog post, but you should still work on having at least five pillar posts at any time so you can continue to keep your blog fresh with new content. You should also implement news pieces and other short article style blog posts. The important thing to consider when it comes to posting in your blog is that you need to demonstrate to all first time visitors that you do take the time to post in your blog every single day.

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Originally posted 2009-02-02 05:28:23. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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One of the best ways to raise morale is through an internal newspaper that keeps employees appraised on what is going on with the company. They foster a sense of belonging, especially if you cover employee birthdays, events and special happenings within the office. However, if your resources are a bit strapped, you may not have the time to put together a special publication. Print costs are not cheap, and it can be quite time intensive to publish a newspaper each month.

In order to get the benefits that a company newspaper can bring, without the downsides, you can begin to use your corporate blog to fill this position. By including your employees in your blog’s news, they will feel more a part of the company and they will want to share the posts with their friends. Everyone likes feeling like a star, and a blog is a great way to share news, promote friendly competition among employees and keep everyone updated.

Before you jump in and start making your corporate blog into an internal newspaper, there are a few things that you should remember:

1. Ask before using last names.

A lot of people prefer not to have their full names splashed all over the internet. You may not realize it, but if other sites are including your RSS feed, your posts are appearing all over the internet. Always ask permission to use an employee’s last name, or err on the side of caution and use first names only, or their first name and last initial. They will know who you are talking about, but your readers won’t. In today’s environment of identity theft and cyber stalking, last names should be avoided.

2. Always remain professional.

Sure, it’s a fun company newspaper, but the general public will have access to it. Unless you are going to password protect the posts for your internal news, you will need to keep that veneer of professionalism up at all times. It’s one thing to be lighthearted and fun, it’s quite another to veer towards being unprofessional. If something has the potential to be spun in a way that is negative towards your company, don’t publish it.

3. Be wary of posting photographs.

A lot of companies like to use photographs on their blogs to let the public know that there are real people working for the company. This is terrific, but you should always remember point one above. Never use last names to identify people in a photo. The public doesn’t really need full disclosure, they’ll be able to see the real people – they don’t need their names. Again, with the threats to people’s safety, it is best to err on the side of caution.

These are just a few things to remember before adding this option to your corporate blog. Remember, if you don’t want the public to know something about your company – don’t write it! Always keep the fact that news can be twisted in front of you while you are writing your blog.

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Originally posted 2008-08-26 05:40:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

• 5 Tips on Corporate Blogging for Companies Right now, one of the best ways to reach out to your customer base and increase brand recognition is through the use of a corporate blog. However, many companies aren't sure where they should start and how they can take advantage of this trend. Here are some tips that make......
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If you are running a corporate blog and you feel that you do not have the customer base and the blog is not doing well, you may not be using the blog to its fullest potential. There are a few areas you need to examine to evaluate your blog to see how hard it is working for your company.

First and foremost, you should enable users to post comments, and your company should take the time to respond honestly and in full to user comments. While the blog is a podium for you to get your message out, it should also have a Q and A section to it, otherwise your blog will fail in the ether of corporate blogs. Answering the questions and comments that your users provide will ensure that your customers feel that you have a genuine interest in their opinions regarding your product.

Secondly, blogs should be in a conversational voice. Every post you make could be geared towards selling a product, but don’t make it sound like a commercial or copy for the product. Rather, you should make the piece have a real voice behind it. You can provide tips towards using a product, discuss upgrades to the product, give an insider perspective regarding the company, and many other posts which seem like natural conversation. Do not post blog entries as though you are a sales man; post entries which make you seem like an extreme fan for your company and its products.

Another aspect to watch for is whether your blog is providing a transparent look into your company, or whether it appears as though it is a filter piece of corporate propaganda. This is a very difficult aspect to gain control of, given that any large company will have a large legal department using black sharpies on every piece of copy. This ends up back at the same idea as before, you blog should be personal. It should be written from the customer’s perspective, as if they had open access to your company. Not only will you garner additional customers this way, but the ones you have will have much more trust in your company, and that means more customers.

Do not assume that if you post content on a site where users can comment, that you are blogging. That is a poor way to start and shows an indifference towards learning how to properly utilize the education available to you. Reading other blogs is the best way to truly understand how to setup your blog and how the posts should end up sounding. This also has a real benefit if you go to other blogs and comment and participate. This demonstrates that you have full interest in the consumer.

Finally, do not expect users to give you any real information on their own. Instead, gear posts towards asking your customers for their input. Making them a part of the creation process will not only give you valuable market research, but customers gain great confidence in a company when they feel that they are a part of the process.

All of these tips will ensure that you are utilizing your blog to the fullest potential. It is not a difficult prospect, but rather one that should should be approached from the consumers perspective, not the PR department’s.

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Originally posted 2008-12-18 05:21:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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In a special address to an audience comprised of chief executives, Bill Gates recently said that regularly updated blogs and journals could be a great way for firms to let customers, staff members and partners alike what they are doing or working on. He has said that blogs created advantages over other ways of communicating which are older or outdated in nature, such as e-mail and website communication. More than 700 employees working for Microsoft are already using blogs so that they can inform people about their projects and keep them up to date.

The blessing of blogs by Bill Gates came during a keynote speech that was given during the Microsoft annual CEO summit, which was held at the Microsoft campus which is in Redmond, Seattle. The speech served as a canter through many of the forthcoming technological developments that business bosses need to know about, according to Bill Gates and Microsoft. The speech covered new wireless technologies, mobile phones, RFID, digital cameras and broadband, and all of the uses that can be gleaned from each of these vital technologies that businesses need to stay at the top of their game.

Bill Gates also made a point to dwell on the concept of blogs. He said that although blogs began primarily in the technical community, and even though they have much broader social implications now, they can also be used and taken advantage of by businesses as well. Bill Gates believes that blogs hold great advantages over older forms of communication and means of communicating and staying in touch like websites and e-mail. E-mail messages tend to be imposing, and they can easily miss out on key people that need to be included. Gates also noted that websites can be a problem as well, because they demand that visitors return regularly in order to find out if any changes have been made to the site, and websites require regular updates to avoid allowing them to become stale.

However, according to Gates, these problems can be solved by using blogs and RSS feeds, allowing viewers and readers to know whenever a blog has been updated. What blogging and these notifications are about is making it easier for people to communicate with one another. The ultimate idea here is that you should be able to get the information that you want, when you want it. Many Microsoft employees have already embraced these concepts, as there are more than 700 Microsoft employees who are currently maintaining corporate style blogs in order to let people know what they are working on. Microsoft does not currently make any of its own blogging tools, though it is largely expected to move into this industry very soon, pitching it into even sharper competition with Google, AOL and other companies.

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Originally posted 2008-12-08 05:48:04. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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Business blogging is rife with benefits for those who utilize it properly, as it adds significant value to a company’s web presence, increasing search engine visibility and encouraging excellent and meaningful interaction from readers, driving an increase of traffic to your website in the process. But blogging for business is not always easy, because writer’s block does happen to everyone. The following list of business blogging ideas will help to keep you going, creating new and meaningful content for your business blog for a good long time.

1 -Email to Blog Post.

Take any email content that you have, and recycle it in order to create new blog content. If you are like most modern business owners, you probably do your fair share of emailing which can work to your advantage. Re-purpose some of your email content by turning it into blog entry material.

2 -Address reader questions.

Implement a method for your readers to type in their questions to you. Consider adding a small box or a small form to one of your sidebars. All a reader will have to do is ask their question and click submit, and you will receive the question by e-mail so that you can address it in your blog. When the questions relate to your business, your products or your services, not only will this facilitate communication between you and your readers but it also makes for excellent blog content when the questions are relevant.

3 -Keywords.

Use a tool for researching keywords like the one offered by Google so that you can identify the keywords and key phrases that best relate to your business. When you know what people are searching for, it can better help you formulate an idea for a blog post. These tools show you exactly what potential readers are looking for, saving time and effort in determining what you should be writing about.

4 – News.

Follow the media, because there is nothing that influences the behavior of internet searches the way the media does. What is currently being talked about within your niche or industry? Which topics are being regarded as hot topics? Why not talk about them in your own words by turning them into blog entries? For added effectiveness, create Google Alerts so that you can generate an endless stream of blog content ideas and other valuable writing material. Any time something is posted about one of your chosen keywords, Google will e-mail you to let you know. Can it get any easier?

5 – Look to yourself.

Look at your own company in search of blog entries and subject matter that you can write about. What kinds of products and services are you providing to the public? What are the most important components of those services or products. Break this up into various information entries and not only will you be posting search engine-valuable content, but you will also be informing your readers of the value behind your products and services.

In part 2 of this article we will touch on more exciting ideas for creating blog content for your corporate blog.

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Originally posted 2009-01-27 05:58:58. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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