For part B, nearly any content will do the trick. It’s certainly better if you can write something about your company or products, with a few relevant terms in it, but almost anything you write—as long as it contains actual words—will count as new content as far as search engines are concerned. 

However, while any new content essentially does the trick for search engines, the same cannot be said for the visitors to your site. Not only does your content need to be relevant and interesting to keep visitors coming back, it should be pleasing to the eye, as well.

Pleasing to the eye? Check!

Not necessarily visually appealing—it doesn’t need to “look pretty,” per se. But it does need to be appealing in a certain way for readers to want to read it. There are several considerations you can make while writing to entice your readers to, um, read.

 How to Make Your Blog Writing “Visually Appealing”

• Break up “walls of text.” Huge blocks of words, words, words can be quite intimidating, and make readers turn away. While what you’ve written may technically be correct in just two long paragraphs, try breaking them up into smaller paragraphs of three or four sentences. Smaller paragraphs = easier to read.
• Use bullet points or a numbered list. If people can see at a glance that you’ve got four points to make, for example, they’re much more likely to read all the way through and get all the info you’re trying to give them. If you’ve just got a pile of paragraphs, the “I’m in a hurry here” types will skim through or stop reading after the first few paragraphs.
• Add a picture. This is basically just another way to break up your wall of text, but it also plays into the old saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Rather than spend nine sentences describing your company’s new deluxe widget, use a picture with just a few supporting sentences. It’s fast, easy, and is literally visually appealing.
• Use headers to break up your post. Think of them as new chapters in a book—everyone likes getting to the next chapter, so readers will be more inclined to read on through your “next chapters.”

Keep these tips in mind when writing new blog posts for your company’s website. You probably won’t be able to use them all in every post—sometimes none of them may work. But remember, what you write doesn’t have to be Shakespeare. Just make it relevant, interesting, and if you can, visually appealing.

Our Trackable Social Share Icons plugin adds two important and incredibly useful features to your blog:

1)       It adds social media icons, for Facebook, Twitter, etc, to the bottom of your blog posts, pages, and excerpts. You can choose which icons you want to appear, what order they’re in, and what size they are. You can also pick from 12 different icon styles.
2)       Using your site’s Google Analytics, the Trackable Social Share Icons plugin tracks all clicks on those icons. None of the tracking information is shared with Ecreativeworks or any third party. Only those with access to your Google Analytics can see this information.

We created the Trackable Social Share Icons plugin for Ecreativeworks clients who are utilizing our custom WordPress blog services. There are a plethora of social media sharing plugins already available for WordPress, but none of them offered all three of the features that our new plugin does: Google Analytics tracking, customizable looks, and no third party information sharing.

Ecreativeworks’ new WordPress plugin works like a charm. Just install it on your WordPress blog, and that’s it. The default setting will add icons for Facebook, Twitter, and email to the bottom of your posts and pages. You can fiddle with the setup to include whichever icons you want, in any of the dozen available styles. There are additional icons for Digg, Reddit, and other popular social media outlets, as well.

The Google Analytics tracking is even easier to use. Once the Trackable Social Share Icons plugin is installed, it will sync with your site’s Google Analytics, and…Shazam! Instant, automatic click tracking for all your icons. It really is that simple.

We decided that our new WordPress plugin is just too good to keep only for ourselves and our clients, so we’ve made it available FOR FREE. Download the Trackable Social Share Icons plugin from WordPress.org today and see for yourself just how swell it is.

Kudos to Mike, the Ecreativeworks developer who built the plugin. Well done, good sir, well done.

I am thankful for youtube that they are able to bring B2B videos to the entire world, so that they can be educated by the products they have to offer.  I am also thankful that they are owned by Google, thus bringing these videos to the SERP’s  and helping the rankings and conversion for many of my clients.

I am thankful for the social networking sites like facebook and linkedin as they are making our world smaller and smaller and easier for businesses to engage their customers online.  They have really become a part of our culture and everyday life.

I am also very thankful to the online SEO community that is very open and helpful to those that have questions on how to make their businesses successful in a world that is changing and growing every minute.  You not only help your clients, you love to educate anyone who will listen and that type of  peer to peer network is priceless.

So with a short and obvious plug for myself and my company, from Ecreativeworks.  I give Thanks for all of my clients and colleagues.

First of all you need to take a step back from your internal workings of your company and try to think like your customers.  This is a good time to bring in your sales staff and brainstorm a little.  It is also not a bad idea to bring in a customer service rep or receptionist at this point also.    What you need to find out in this brainstorming session is what your customers search for when they want to find your product.  You may discover a term that you use is not even close to the terms your customers are using, this is a good thing to know for Search Engine Optimization of your website.

Second you need to discuss in depth which products or categories of your business are the most important to you, wouldn’t be a bad idea to write these down for other uses as well.  For example if product A is very important to you and you sell a lot of them we should definitely have some variation of that as a focus keyword phrase on your site.  Most of all be sure that you are listening to your customers, just because you call your product by the “brand” name your customer may be calling it by another name.

Third you need to demonstrate focus on your keyword phrases.  There should be a theme to where you are focusing on the site and as a business as a whole.    You don’t want to spread your focus across too many differing areas, as this will be harder to get rankings and conversions than if you are focused on a common goal.

Always remember that you are building and optimizing your website for your customers and not yourself.  Make sure that everything, including your focus keyword phrases are for your customers ease of use, this will always give you a better ROI both online and offline.

“On corporate blogs, summaries are usually superior to full articles because they let you expose users to a broad selection of topics. Offering more topics increases the likelihood that users will find something that really interests them and thus will click through to read more. (As opposed to leaving.)”

Interesting, because we were seeing similar trends lately and changed our blog’s home page to have summaries rather than full articles. (What do you think of the change?)

We had been seeing a large number of bounces, even though the average time on site was pretty good. It will be interesting to watch our analytics to see if page views or time on page increases or if bounces decline now that we’ve revised to show summaries.

Also, we have heard from our visitors that they really like it when we use images on our posts, commenting that the images really “get their attention.”

Nielsen commented about the eye tracking findings regarding photoblogs saying, “…it’s easier to scan a long list of photos than to read.”

Eye tracking studies that support our thinking are great, but we really want to see actual clicks through to our blog posts. You can bet we’ll be watching to see if our articles with images have a higher click-through rate and if we can increase page views.

Have any of you seen similar trends on your industrial blogs?

This is where the Search Engine Optimization plan comes in to play.  There are 2 ways that you can start this plan.  One is by reading up on the topic ( let me tell you there is a lot of information to cover) and then tackling the project yourself.  The Second is to hire an Internet Marketing professional that specializes in SEO for the industrial market.  Keep in mind if you go this way, it is imperative that you hire someone familiar with the “Industrial” market.  Not just any SEO will do, there are different strategies for B2B and B2C that don’t always carry over.

Next is to get your to do list ready:  The following is a list of things that will need to be done to have an SEO optimized site, please note that this may not be a complete or all-encompassing list as each project varies.  It is just some of the basics.  Not necessarily in order(depending on where your site is at now).

1. Remove any barriers to efficient Search Engine Crawling.
2. Make a list of Keywords that you want to focus on.
3. Add an analytics tracking program, so you can see your traffic.
4. Define your goals, customers, conversions for the online aspect of your business.
5. Write or re-write your Url’s,  Titles, Meta Titles, Meta descriptions and content for SEO purposes.
6. Find some great external linking opportunities.
7. Get listed on local directories including Google Places, etc.

This list is just the tip of the iceberg, so if you really value your website and don’t have the time to devote to  the Optimization of your site, please consider hiring a professional like the SEO team at Ecreativeworks.

As a company you can choose to pre-screen comments submitted to a blog before setting them live or take a chance on immediate posting. Consumers can participate in forums, asking questions related to your company and having them answered by employees creating a fast turnaround of information.

Another benefit of participating in blogging is being able to update information related to your products or services at all times of the day. You can promote your company the instant something new is developed and with an RSS feed, followers will be immediately aware of new postings.

Business blogs should be utilized alongside a sharp and presentable industrial website and personal social media profiles. For more information on the importance of blogging, contact the SEO team at Ecreativeworks.

How to manage your online brand reputation?
How do you deal with the new vulnerability to online feedback? Well, as I mentioned, you could simply search around the net for mentions of your name or your business. There is also a more sophisticated tool that can help you look in all the important places for your name. WhosTalkin.com is a search engine that aggregates many of the online platforms where consumers might be talking about your brand. Blogs, photostreams, forums and news. You can sift through all those sources and see if your brand is being talked about.

And what to do if someone’s posted about you? First of all, all press is good press. While this might not be a hard and fast rule, if you’re being mentioned online that means you have a reach and access to an audience, which is positive. Second, if you’ve had a positive comment, that’s great, and you should capitalize on this. Maybe reply to the blog or forum post. Maybe begin setting up social profiles where customers can talk directly to you.

If you’ve earned not-so-good online reviews, assess the damage. Was it a post or a string of posts made in multiple locations? Depending on the magnitude of the negativity, you can just take the feedback and use it to improve your services and products. If you believe that the comments bring up a valid point you could be proactive and send a message to your customers and tell them that their comments are heard, and that you will strive to improve.

A lesson from Obama 
In his inaugural address, President Obama made a great statement that can really apply to businesses who operate online and offline, “And those of us who manage the public’s knowledge will be held to account, to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.”

The online arena will certainly hold businesses accountable to work “in the light of day” because if you do not – a blogger, a forum poster and a whole online community will make it known. Social media is a great way for businesses to earn feedback on their work. True, social media leaves businesses vulnerable to negativity that can be shown out in the open. However, if you’re doing the best work possible and serving your customers with honesty and respect, the feedback online will reflect that. For most businesses social media will only boost your brand.

Additional References:

WhosTalkin a New Reputation Management Tool from SEOSmarty

President Obama: We Will Be Held To Account

Well, no one needs a blog, and for some industrial clients, it’s just not a viable idea. However, in the right hands and using the correct methods, a blog can boost your site’s web presence and traffic by leaps and bounds!

Let’s explore how an industrial business blog can help you and how you can do it well.

• Relationship Building

If your business has a story worth telling, a blog is a great place to do it.  You can utilize the latest web technology to inform and interact with your clients, colleagues and visitors in ways that just weren’t possible as little as ten years ago.  Through the implementation of streaming media, podcasts, pictures and more, you can bring your visitors right into your company, giving them a deeper level of personal contact. 

A blog is your invitation to your visitors to give their input, feedback and opinions, helping you better understand their needs.  Your visitors’ contributions and thoughts can provide valuable insight into how your products and processes are perceived and how you might be able to improve upon your existing corporate or business model.  Being able to respond to blog participants directly and in real-time brings back the ‘personal touch’ to doing business.

• Information and Problem Solving

Christine Halvorson states in her great article “Should Your Company Blog?”, “[your blog is your] editorial column, your radio and television station, your daily newspaper”.  What an amazing way to get your media message out there, and maintain control of the media in which it appears at the same time!  You can talk about your corporate challenges and successes, and explain complicated products or processes in a way that goes beyond a generic email or diagram booklet in a box.

What should a strong business blog look like?

The short answer is…anything you want!  But it’s easy to mess it up, so here are a few things to consider when thinking about implementing a blog.

• Your blog is NOT a platform to advertise your products and services.  That’s what your website and other marketing methods are for.  Posts written solely to make money on ads or sales pitches and not to provide anyone with useful or interesting information are bad, bad, bad!
• Be sure to provide relevant, interesting and useful content to your visitors.  Not only will they appreciate the latest news presented to them in a refreshing way, it will encourage them to come back often and to visit your website (the place where sales and RFQs happen!).
• Fresh content, posted often also keeps the search engines coming back again and again.  They LOVE new content to index-provide the search engines fresh, indexable material and you’ll see your placement in universal search results rise!
• Implement smart SEO practices into your blog! Pay attention to keyword placement in your titles and throughout the blog, writing naturally, but ensuring that keywords make well-placed appearances.  Include links back to your site, and not just the homepage–link deeply into your site to encourage traffic and enhance interest.
• Write well! And if you can’t, hire someone who can.  Spellcheck and good grammar go a long way in keeping folks interested and engaged and lends your company credibility.  People will assume that your products or services are as good as the attention to detail given to your site and blog!

Old school PR methods just aren’t relevant anymore.  With people fast-forwarding through commercials on TIVO, listening to podcasts and online radio, and getting their newsletters and articles delivered to their inbox, an immediate and personal form of contact must be employed to carry your message. 

You can do it, fast and often free, with a blog!

Social Marketing is a way to drive traffic to your website through online communities. Some of these communities may be the following:

1. StumbleUpon
2. MySpace
3. Facebook
4. Yahoo! Answers
5. LinkedIn
6. Reddit
7. Squidoo
8. Digg
9. Del.icio.us

I have worked with all of these social marketing websites. They are great for sharing your articles on various topics, links with your friends, blog posts & comments on current events and other areas of interest or answering questions.

To use these websites to your advantage, set up an account for you and your company and look for relevant content on the websites that will support your company’s product and services. Become an expert on these websites and drive more content to your website.

The users of the Internet can find the information they are looking for in all forms of content: videos, websites, blog posts and other users. The trend shows that they tend to trust the common user like them.

Build your network online, the same way you would in person. You do this slowly and interact with the “right” people or crowd. It is the same online. Find the area or niche that supports your website and build a presence on the website.

I am experimenting with all of the websites listed above and then some. I am seeing traffic from some of the websites, but not all yet. It is all about building an online social network.