Small Business Blogging Tips

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© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential. Small Business Blogging Presented by: Adam Dince @adamdince Head of Organic Search & Social Media Optimization

description

Often times, small businesses have a difficult time with blogging and content. This presentation given to the St. Paul Area Chamber of Commerce #outoftheboxlunch event covers the basics of blogging from platform to writing to social media.

Transcript of Small Business Blogging Tips

Page 1: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Small Business Blogging

Presented by: Adam Dince @adamdince

Head of Organic Search & Social Media Optimization

Page 2: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

These days, everyone has a blog

Page 3: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

On average…

2,730,000 blog posts written every day

81,900,000 blog posts written every month

982,800,000 blog posts written every year

http://www.quora.com/Blogging/How-many-blog-posts-are-written-every-day

http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress/all/all

Page 4: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Blogs are powerful!

• 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs.

(Source: BlogHer)

• Small businesses that blog get 126% more lead growth than small

businesses that do not blog. (Source: ThinkCreative)

• Companies that blog have 97% more inbound links. (Source: Hubspot)

• 92% of companies who blog multiple times per day have acquired a

customer from their blog. (Source: HubSpot)

• Once you write 21-54 blog posts, blog traffic generation increases by up to

30%. (Source:TrafficGenerationCafe)

http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/top-blogging-statistics-45-reasons-blog-

180101993.html

Page 5: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Today, we’ll get you started

• Configure

• Ideate

• Write

• Socialize

Page 6: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Step #1 – Select and Install Blogging Platform

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Start with the right address and location

Recommended: www.yourwebsite.com/blog (best for SEO)

Secondary: blog.yourwebsite.com

Page 8: Small Business Blogging Tips

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60% of bloggers use WordPress and so should you! Check with your Web hosting company or visit

http://wordpress.org/hosting to find the easiest way to install

WordPress on your server

Page 9: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Why WordPress?

Easy to set-up

Easy to integrate social

Easy to embed video, images, etc…

Easy to integrate Google Analytics

No coding experience needed to maintain

Thousands of free site themes to use

Great for SEO

Page 11: Small Business Blogging Tips

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What a free theme can look like

Source: http://www.designrazzi.com/2013/free-wordpress-themes/

Page 12: Small Business Blogging Tips

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Download theme

Page 13: Small Business Blogging Tips

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Sign into WordPress admin panel

Page 14: Small Business Blogging Tips

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Click on appearance & themes

Page 15: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Click on Install Themes

Page 16: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Click on Upload

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Click on Choose File, Install Now & Activate

Page 18: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

This is what a Free theme did for me

Page 19: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Basic plug-in downloads A. Asynch Social Sharing: http://rachelbaker.me/download/

B. Captcha: http://bestwebsoft.com/plugin

C. Google Analytics: http://wordpress.org/plugins/googleanalytics/

D. Slick Social Share Buttons: http://wordpress.org/plugins/googleanalytics/

E. Yoast SEO Plug-In: http://yoast.com/wordpress/seo/

A

D

B

E

C

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Installing plug-ins

Page 21: Small Business Blogging Tips

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Configure Permalinks

Not Default!

Page 22: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Step #2 – Once you’ve set-up your blog, it’s time to get ideas!

Source: http://theweddingwardrobist.blogspot.com/2011/04/excuses-

excuses-miss-paige.html

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© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

It first starts with an idea

Content should be created based on:

The interests of your audience

Your business goals and objectives

“Crowdsourcing is the process by which the

power of the many can be leveraged to

accomplish feats that were once the province of

a specialized few”. – Jeff Howe, Wired Magazine

Source: http://www.ereleases.com/

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© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

A few tools to identify your audience’s interests

Crowdsource Search Queries Social Listening

VerticalResponse.com Soovle.com SocialMention.com

Freemium Free Free

Email and talk with customers and prospects and about

what types of information related to your products /

services they’re interested in learning more about

Type in a keyword and Soovle provides you the top suggested

keywords from the major search engines

Input keywords and themes to see what’s buzzing about

it on blogs, forums, and other social channels

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© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Let’s look at the process in action

Query: “garageband for ipad” “garageband for ipad tutorial” is a suggested

keyword across almost all engines

SocialMention questions related to query Now you’re ready to create your content

Page 26: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

One last tip for gathering ideas

Keep track of the questions your customers and

prospects ask. Write articles or helpful resource

content around common themes.

Source: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/head%20tilt?before=37

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Finally, put together a content calendar and stick to it

Source: MarketingLand.com

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Step #3 – It’s time to write!

Source: http://rickischultz.wordpress.com/

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© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

It’s got to be quality

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?

• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well,

or is it more shallow in nature?

• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting,

original research, or original analysis?

• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in

search results (competitors)?

• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is

beyond obvious?

• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or

recommend?

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-

guidance-on-building-high-quality.html

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© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

A great example: dirtyyogaco.com

Page 31: Small Business Blogging Tips

© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

And it’s so easy to write in WordPress

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More tag makes it easy to make the user-experience great

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“Fullscreen” allows you to write it freely

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Publish

Page 35: Small Business Blogging Tips

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Step #4 – Let’s get social

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Once you write a post, share it on your networks

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© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Customize your messages

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© 2013 Deluxe Enterprise Operations, Inc. All rights reserved. Proprietary and Confidential.

Market your content to your customers

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Questions and Answers

Source: http://www.centersquarejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Raise-Your-Hand-05.jpg