Tonight I am going to be talking about the benefits of blogging for your business.  Here is my handout.

1. You can update your Blog/Website yourself
2. Your blog becomes your central repository for all articles, news items, announcements and events. It’s database driven, so it’s searchable.
3. “Search-friendliness” is built into the blog.
4. Blogs are easy ways to add depth to your web site; Each blog post is indexed as a page in search engines. (just Google NJAWBO Blogging Event)
5. Your blog post title can automatically be displayed as a tweet in your Twitter account.
6. It’s easy to integrate multi-media in posts – Slideshows from Flickr; YouTube Video.
7. Your blog can be linked from your Linkedin account.
8. Drive traffic to your website/blog by including the link on a Facebook update.
9. Your blog demonstrates your expertise- good for attracting press.
10. With a blog you’ll be cool, hip, and you can now call yourself a blogger.

Resources:

• Wordpress.org   Free open source software for integrating a blog into a web site or building a standalone blog. Self hosted (company.com/company_blog); you’ll need your webmaster to accomplish this.
• Wordpress.com  Free open source hosted blogging solution not on your domain (company.wordpress.com).
• Blogger.com  Free Google hosted blogging solution not on your domain.
• Montclair Adult School; www.adultschool.org Registration begins Feb 1, 2010;  Web Marketing Strategies for Entrepreneurs & Small Business March 23, 2010;  Planning an Effective Web Presence for Entrepreneurs & Small Business; 2 sessions March 2, 2010 and March 9, 2010

Want to add news, articles, tips, and events to your web site? The most cost-effective way to accomplish this is to integrate a blog into your web site. Blogs are a fast and easy way to publish, categorize and archive information in our web site. Best of all, you can publish content to your web site without any technical expertise. How does this work?

The most popular blogging platform is WordPress. WordPress is Open Source, meaning it’s FREE. Your webmaster will need to install WordPress on the web server that houses your web hosting account and customize it so it matches the look and feel of your web site. WordPress is actually a database application, which means Individual posts can be retrieved through search, Tags, and a Category index. Additional benefits include:

• Blogs are a great way to build quality keyword driven links that point to key pages on your website. Great for SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
• Blog content is almost instantly indexed in Google.
• Blogs are a quick way to integrate multimedia into your site; add a slide show, pictures, or Video (linked from YouTube)
• Think of using a blog for your Press Room or News section of your web site. News Articles are automatically archived by date and can be easily searched.
• Position yourself as an expert. You may not have written a book but you do author a blog.

One of the easy ways to promote your blog (articles and content) is through social media. So once you post an article, you’ll need to tweet about it through your Twitter account. Make sure you include the link to the blog article. 

Your Blog can be configured in such a way that every time you add a post, your home page automatically gets updated with the latest news headlines. Don’t be afraid of the word “Blog”. Just because you have a blog doesn’t mean you have to quit your job and become a blogger. You can update your blog as often as you like. Express yourself.

The New Year is no better time to prepare your site for the year ahead. Unfortunately, more often than not, organizations don’t update their site on a regular basis. Refreshing your content can contribute to improved ranking and exposure in Google.

Follow this list to make sure your site is in ship-shape condition for 2009:
1. Change the copyright date at the bottom of your site to 2009;
2. Edit your home page copy. Your message should be mindful of today’s economy. Speak to your visitors to demonstrate your understand of the current challenges your target marketing facing.
3. Update your news and blog articles. A 2009 date will demonstrate that you’re on the ball.
4. Take a look at your Page Titles and Meta Data. As your content changes, don’t forget to change your keywords and page titles.
5. Give your inquiry form or linked email addresses a quick test. Make sure they are going to the correct destination and you know who in your organization is getting the leads and queries.

Electronic handout: NJAWBO Essex Chapter meeting October 17, 2006

Down, down, down. Would the fall NEVER come to an end! `I wonder how many miles I’ve fallen by this time?‘ she said aloud. `I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think–‘ (for, you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) `–yes, that‘s about the right distance–but then I wonder what Latitude or Longitude I’ve got to?’ (Alice had no idea what Latitude was, or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to say.)
Excerpt from ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND by Lewis Carroll

Such is the world of search engines. As your site travels the mysterious road of site optimization, with the insight below, you‘ll be armed with a few ‘grand words’ so maybe YOU‘LL know where you are going.

We are going to discuss several factors search engines (SE‘s) use when ranking your site. These are URLs, text, links, popularity, submission and HTML code.

To begin to understand these factors one has to remember that the goal of a search engine is to display the most relevant sites first. SE‘s use a complex site of algorithms. These algorithms calculate the best matches. What makes this art and science even more challenging is that the algorithms are kept secret and often change when work arounds (methods that get through the algorithms) are discovered. For example, in the early days, webmasters would stuff keywords into their pages by add text that matched background color.

Below are the factors to consider:

URL
-If possible do use keywords as part of your domain name
-Purchase other extensions to protect your name and your brand
-Create page name that a relevant to page content; for example www.bza.com/web_design.html better than bza.com/wd.html

TEXT
-Content is king
-Your site should be filled with relevant and keyword content
-Organized content- with heads and subheads
-Write articles, white papers, commentary, news, blogs, write about your keyword subject
-Naturally expand content with good keywords
-Change content often; SE‘s will visitor when they see new content
-Avoid; doorway pages, write content just for SEO, machine generated pages; small text, text that matches the background, keyword stuffing
-Don‘t repeat content
-Don‘t put keywords in graphic images; SE‘s can‘t read graphics
-To find keywords and phrases relevant to web sites used Yahoo Search Suggestion Tool , Google‘s Keyword Tool , WorkTracker Microsoft Ad Center
-Add geocentric terms to target local areas.
-Blogs- with content related to the web site; link back to the web site

HYPERLINKS
-Linking to relavant content within your site. Takes advantage of crawling as well as keyword
-Every page must be linked… No dead ends
-Find out what pages are indexed in Google by searching site:http://www.yoursite.com

POPULARITY
-Measured in two ways; Most frequently clicked link for keyword search on the site and inbound links
-Related to your content- makes you an authority
-Purchased listing/links from reputable sites
-Do not participate in non related link exchanges or link farms
-Inbound links from popular sites, .edu, .gov adds value to your rank
-Press release links like PRWEB.com
-Who links to you now? Go to Google and search link:http://www.yoursite.com

SUBMISSION
-Do submit your site only once. Google, Yahoo Search,
-Don‘t used any automatic program, submit each page, or more than once,
-Submit to directory, DMOZ and Yahoo
-Organizations, listing plus industry directories

META CODE and HTML
-First 100 lines on code; have the most influence
-Meta Tags are not a magic bullet; Meta Tags are the page title, description (12 to 24 words) and keywords
-Your page title is the single most important factor… should be 6 to 12 words; each page -should have a descriptive and unique page title.

Not to be forgotten
-Don‘t use Flash for an entire web site
-Get rid of Frames; old technology, search engines can‘t index and follow frames