One of the most effective marketing and SEO strategies currently available is your blog. With the ability to quickly add content for both visitors and search engines, it has become the way to share your information in a way that subtly increases your visitor’s interest. It also allows for their input which creates involvement.

Our article today “Four Pillars of a Successful Business Blog” is on our StomperNet blog, our own business blog. The blog format is one that cannot be beaten for building your influence on the marketplace. With the appropriate design, it is also a format that can add SEO for your website, with meta tags, descriptions, and more.

A common resolution among entrepreneurs and small business CEOs is how to model or remodel their blog to bring more traffic and conversions. Regardless if you have a product or service, you may have been struggling to build your thought leadership, authority, and SEO with blogging. The key is adding the appropriate elements, like Search Engine Optimization to each post that will encourage both visitors and search engines to find and refer to your site.

Of course, the goal of any good business owner is to increase profits. But you may be frustrated by your blogging efforts lacking in conversions, results, and profits. Fortunately, Sherman Hu has easy to remember acronyms for B.L.O.G and P.R.O.F.I.T.S that help you create better posts.

Talk soon,

Lee Collins
Managing Director
StomperNet, LLC

 

“And it occurred to me that there is no such thing as blogging. There is no such thing as a blogger. Blogging is just writing — writing using a particularly efficient type of publishing technology.”

~ Simon Dumenco ~
“Media Guy” of Advertising Age

The Four Pillars of a Successful Business Blog

By Sherman Hu

The Four Pillars Of A Successful Business Blog is written as a checklist. The acrostic or acronym – B.L.O.G. (Build, Launch, Orchestrate and Generate) will guide you through this checklist.   There are three reasons why you can benefit from these four pillars.

1. CONTROL

The lessons within the checklist below will give you insights to control your blog’s success. For some, knowing what to do gives them the power to control their blog’s success. For others, seeing the lessons in a clearly laid-out “checklist” will offer a format to easily work through the list of actions.

2. OPPORTUNITY TO PAY IT FORWARD

Your life lessons or experience shared on your blog can be priceless to your readers – if they can find it or be engaged by it. It makes sense to discover how you can gain more exposure to your blog, and engage your readers when they get there. This way you can help others with your product, service or knowledge offerings. Otherwise, your blog will not ‘exist’ – either on Google’s top ranks or in the minds of your visitor.

3. TANGIBLE AND INTANGIBLE RESULTS

Not only will you feel proud of building a successful business blog, you’ll also receive many profitable results. When you achieve a position of authority or thought leadership via your business blog, you can expect a boost in speaking engagement invites, coaching clients, product sales, strong affiliate commissions, joint venture requests, a strong database of subscribers who value your opinions, or other results based on your business model and offerings.

Let’s begin, shall we?

1. BUILD: Get in the right M.O.D.E. for success

I’ve created another acrostic in this ‘Build’ phase titled “M.O.D.E.” (Markets, Objectives, Design and Engineer). You need to get in the right M.O.D.E. for success.

MARKETS

Have you researched and selected your market yet?

A market gives you an opportunity to offer multiple, related offers over a period of time to the same audience (eg. ‘People who are interested in time management’ vs. ‘Getting Things Done (GTD)’).  Choose a market accustomed to spending money, one that can be presented with related offers and a market you’re personally attracted or interested in.

Have you researched the trends of your market?

Gathering trends will give you “intel” on your competition, what Google indexes in its top 10, universal search patterns, related search keywords, keyword suggestions, search volumes, questions commonly asked by your market, influential bloggers in your space and hot news.

Resource: “20 Ways To Research Trends, Competition & Keywords”

Have you profiled your perfect customer?

Flesh out a ‘perfect customer’ from your target audience to make your audience “real” and believable. Give this person a name, a stock photo and write their short story, including their pains. Print and keep this profile sheet visible. Focus on this ‘John or Jane Doe’ whenever you write copy or create your marketing.

OBJECTIVES

There is power in knowing your destination before you begin. Without keeping your objectives in sight, you may fall victim to distractions that may take you astray. Set a S.M.A.R.T. objective that’s Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely.

DESIGN

You want to look professional and be taken seriously, right? So get your own domain name.

Keep it short, memorable and ‘radio-friendly’. If you were on radio and had to share it on the air, would it be easy to say and spell (without you spelling it out)? If you have an existing site, setup your blog in a sub-folder titled “blog”, so your blog URL will be www.YourDomain.com/blog.

Select a Blog Theme.   Showcase your business individuality and personality. Google for “free WordPress themes” if you’re using the WordPress blog software. For professional blog themes, I’ve used StudioPress.com and WooThemes.com with satisfaction.

Do you have creative (logo, icons, masthead graphic) ready for your blog? Showcase your business brand and personality! Either design it yourself or contract/outsource. Consider 99Designs.com or DesignOutpost.com.

Have you set up communication channels (i.e. ezine autoresponder service, contact email, telephone number, RSS feed etc) for your blog?

How are interested visitors going to contact you? For ezine autoresponder services, I recommend Aweber, Mailchimp or iContact. For blog rss feed management, I recommend Feedburner.

ENGINEER

Have you chosen which blog software you’re going to use? Choose a platform or software that’s easy to publish, search engine friendly, includes commenting features, pre- scheduling content, updates blog directories automatically when you publish new content. For free, scalable and self- hosted blog software, I recommend WordPress.org hosted on your own hosting account.

Have you registered for your hosting account? A hosting account will host your blog and media (i.e. video, audio, PDFs, images etc). For stable and good customer service, I recommend NameCheap.com and Hostmonster. com. Others claim great satisfaction with Hostgator.com, Dreamhost.com and Bluehost.com.

After registering for your host account, point your domain’s DNS to this new host so visitors to your domain will see your blog/site at this host. Your hosting service will provide you with tutorials or support on how to accomplish this.

Have you installed your WordPress blog on your hosting account? The first step to getting your blog-site up and running. The hosting services recommended above should offer simple, 1-click installation features to quickly install WordPress to your hosting account.

Have you customized your WordPress blog settings? Customize your blog to suit your business purpose. If you need instruction, consider WordPress.org support, WordPress. tv or WordPressTutorials.com for tutorials.

Now that you’ve built your “M.O.D.E.” for success, let’s “Launch”. Time to set up your launching P.A.D. to establish authority and visitor engagement.

2. LAUNCH: Your launch  P.A.D. to authority & engagement

The general public seeks the opinions of thought leaders and influencers for their perspective on trends, strategies, best practices and habits. In the same way, you can build your blog over time to gain credibility, authority and influence.

Here’s the acrostic P.A.D. and a checklist to help you build your authority and engagement with your visitors:

PUBLISH

Are you catering your writing to your target market (or perfect customer)?  What are your perfect customer’s biggest pains/ problems and are you blogging about it?

What are your perfect customer’s visions/goals/dreams and are you blogging ways they can accomplish it? Are you case-study-ing your customers’ success? Are you telling stories?

ASK

Are you seeking feedback and comments from your readers?  Are you asking specific questions in your posts? Are you leaving your posts open-ended to encourage your readers to comment? Are you making it easy for your readers to comment instead of adding registration “hoops” they have to jump?

DEPLOY

Are you deploying content that’s actionable, insightful and meaty?  Are you embedding images, audio, video and other cool media to engage your viewers?  Are you responding to industry information and topical news?

Are you drawing in your readers with sexy, irresistible headlines? (For instance, think of those magazines in supermarket lines) Check out Brian Clark’s “10 Sure-Fire Headline Formulas That Work”

Have you added elements to your blog to show credibility? - bio photo, bio, contact info, social media profile links, media room, magazine tear sheets, radio interview recordings, TV segment clips, certification logos, association badges etc.

Now that you’ve set up your Launching “P.A.D.” for success, let’s “Orchestrate” your S.Y.M.P.H.O.N.Y. of traffic.

3. ORCHESTRATE: Coordinate your  S.Y.M.P.H.O.N.Y. of traffic

Sharing all the strategies to get traffic to your business blog could occupy a full report. However, we’ll squeeze as much into the acrostic S.Y.M.P.H.O.N.Y. to coordinate your traffic efforts:

SYSTEMIZE

Have you systemized your blogging with pre-scheduled content?  You can modify the timestamp of each WordPress blog post to publish in the future. So take advantage of this feature.

Have you added additional search engine directories to be updated automatically when you publish your posts?  In your Dashboard, go to Settings > Writing. Scroll down to “Update Services” box. Click the link above the box to grab more search engine directories to add to your box. Now you’ve extended your reach whenever you publish blog posts.

Have you systemized your search engine optimization?  You can do this with plugins for basic SEO, or use StomperNet SEO Services if you want a team handling all your search engine optimization.

YANK

Are you ‘yanking’ as much exposure to your blog through the use of videos? Video styles include screencasts (see Camtasia Studio or Screenflow), newscaster (“talking head”) style, live video broadcasts (see Ustream.tv) or dynamic video slideshows (see Animoto.com)

Are you leveraging video syndication services?

MOBILIZE

Do you mobilize your readers to easily Word Of Mouth or share your posts with their tribes on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc? There are many plugins to help you with this task. On ShermanLive.com, I use “ShareThis”, “Damn Sexy Bookmarks” and the “TweetMeme” plug-in.

PROMOTE

Are you promoting your blog posts via Social Networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Squidoo etc? Are you promoting your blog posts via article directory sites like EzineArticles.com?

HEIGHTEN

Have you heightened your chances that your blog posts will receive more inbound links via Social Bookmarking sites like SocialMarker, OnlyWire, StumbleUpon etc?

OBTAIN

Have you obtained additional inbound links and exposure from Press Releases? See Marc Harty’s http://OnlinePRMadeEasy.com for an instructional course on this topic.

NAVIGATE

Have you navigated your opt-in list system for a web-form to add to your blog?  Have you navigated the system to add a series of drip marketing pieces?

YIELD

Are you yielding the power of viral reports, viral blog posts and viral videos?

4. GENERATE: Produce P.R.O.F.I.T.S. today

Now that you’ve Orchestrated your “S.Y.M.P.H.O.N.Y.” for success, let’s move on to “Generate” “P.R.O.F.I.T.S.” today.

And finally, the “G” in “B.L.O.G.” stands for “Generate”. How can you “Generate P.R.O.F.I.T.S. with this acrostic? Let’s unpack it now…

PUBLICIZE: Have you publicized your product or service offerings in a prominent location on your blog?

RECOMMEND: Have you offered recommendations to 3rd party merchants with an affiliate link (in full disclosure, obviously) within your posts or in the sidebar?

OBTAIN: Have you obtained likability and trust from your audience through value-add email broadcasts?

Have you obtained trust with (and knowledge of) your customers to make solid recommendations to them to solve their problems?

FACILITATE: Are you facilitating irresistible offers packed with so much value your customers can’t say no?

INTRODUCE: Are you introducing upsells, cross-sells, down-sells, one- time offers, and the like, when your customer shops in your store?

Are you introducing your offerings in different formats so interested customers will buy from you again?

TEST & TRACK: Are you testing and tracking your offers to increase your ROI?

SERVING: Are you serving your customers with seasonal offers and packages?

Remember, there’s practically a holiday each and every month of the year.

Now we’ve completed the how to Generate “P.R.O.F.I.T.S.” checklist in the acrostic “B.L.O.G.” If you work on this checklist, you will experience dramatic results.

STOMPER Speed Boost

 

Last month we hinted this was coming.

And you’ve been asking for it since we opened our doors 5 years ago.

What is it?

Click here to find out!

Secret Sauce Checklist

B.L.O.G.  for Success

• BUILD: Get in the right M.O.D.E. for success
• MARKET: Research
• OBJECTIVES: Set a S.M.A.R.T. objective that’s Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely
• DESIGN:  Look professional
• ENGINEER: WordPress.org self-hosted

• LAUNCH: Your launch  P.A.D. to authority & engagement
• PUBLISH your writing to your target market (or perfect customer)
• ASK your readers
• DEPLOY  Content that’s actionable

• ORCHESTRATE: Coordinate your  S.Y.M.P.H.O.N.Y. of traffic
• SYSTEMIZE with pre-scheduled content
• YANK as much exposure as possible to your blog
• MOBILIZE your readers with social media plugins
• PROMOTE your blog with social sites
• HEIGHTEN your chances with Social Bookmarking
• OBTAIN inbound links and exposure from Press Releases
• NAVIGATE  your opt-in list system
• YIELD the power of viral

• GENERATE: Produce P.R.O.F.I.T.S. today
• PUBLICIZE: your product or service
• RECOMMEND: 3rd party merchants with an affiliate link
• OBTAIN:  likability and trust
• FACILITATE:  irresistible offers
• INTRODUCE: different offers
• TEST & TRACK: to increase your ROI
• SERVING: seasonal offers and packages

Stomper Buzz

Next Week’s Focus: Focus on SEO