We believe we will see our G2 Web Media clients using forms on their blogs for all kinds of things. Collecting information from their customers and clients like Billy Price is doing. Soliciting feedback from clients and customers on their business; which is a wonderful way to open that channel of communication between you and your customers and clients. And for some, even taking basic orders online.

Nothing gets me down more than to see a new blog and blogger come out of the gate all excited and posting great stuff; and than see them fade into the sunset. I know those that do just that, start out with the best of intentions. And there is the other ones. The ones who started a new blog because someone told them it was the greatest thing since sliced bread.

The simple fact these bloggers fail to follow through with their best intentions is due to several factors. Those being usually lack of time, a self-imposed problem at best. Lack of commitment, usually cause by not being completely sold on the concept of marketing their business or professional service firm with a blog. And a good strategy to keep the process going. These blogs fail and end up appearing as abandoned on the Web. Remember, what you put on the Web last forever. And an abandoned blog can leave a bad taste in a prospects mouth and set a negative impression of the company too.

Lets not let this happen to you. A new blog and your best intentions are something we should strive to not let go by the way side. You need to have a plan in place to make sure your new blog does not get stale. And a plan to help kick your stale blog in the butt.

Here are four (4) things you must do right now to make sure this does not happen to you.

Write at least 3 Post a Week.

I tell all the people I talk to about blogging they should write a minimum of 3 blog post a week when they first start their blog. Not 1, not 2, but 3. Why, because one of the huge benefits of blogging is the fact you are (or should be) putting up new relevant content. Google likes new relevant content and so do your readers.

Blog post don’t need to be written as if you are writing a college paper. They don’t have to be long. In fact, they can be varying in length and styles. Numbered lists are good. How-to and even reviews make great blog post.

And don’t overlook the importance of making sure your post titles have relevant keywords in them. And put some of those same relevant keywords in the body of the post.

Don’t expect your post to be perfect right off the start. And getting those right keywords takes some practice and research. Do you own searching with Google to see what the keywords are for your particular niche or target market.

Leave comments on other blogs.

Another element of blogging is the conversations you will be implementing with your blog post. But, don’t stop there. While you are looking for your readers to comment on your blog as part of your desire to keep the conversation going. You should be commenting on other blogs in your niche or target market.

You should be reading other blogs in your niche and you should leave a minimum of 3 comments a week on other blogs. I try to leave 3 comments a day. Why, communicating with other bloggers in your niche will get you noticed. And getting noticed is a key to having a successful blog. And getting noticed will help keep you motivated so you don’t have that stale blog that dies on the vine.

And all those comments you are leaving will also include a link back to your own blog. Most if not all blogs include a place to put your own domain when you leave a comment. Don’t overlook this great benefit of commenting. I get traffic daily from comments I leave on other blogs. Other commenters will click on that link to see what my site looks like. Why do I know this? Because I do the same thing when I comment on other blogs. I want to know what my fellow commenters’ blogs look like. I just might want to add them to my RSS reader.

Oh, and don’t forget to send an email to those who comment on your blog thanking them for commenting and for reading your blog. That just might keep them coming back.

Blog popular search terms and keywords.

You can find these popular search terms and keywords by visiting a blog search engine like Technorati. If you try to work a popular topic into a blog post, you just might get your blog noticed. However, if there is one warning I can make here it is to make sure your blog post is relevant to your target and/or niche. Don’t put up a post just to get that popular search term in the post in hopes of getting noticed. You will get noticed, but it won’t be the kind of notice you were hoping for. Your target audience just may see through your thin attempt at getting noticed, and see it as baiting them for traffic.

So don’t trade a quick fix for a long term relationship with your readers.

Don’t hide the opportunity for your readers to subscribe to your blog.

If II have to hunt for a way to subscribe to a blog, I usually quit reading the blog. Keep in mind that most browsers now have a RSS button in the address bar of the browser. But not everyone uses RSS to subscribe to blogs. Some use email. Give your readers the option of which they want to use and put the darn thing at the top or as close to the top as you can. And give them multiple places to find your subscription options.

I put it in every post, at the top of my blog and at the bottom of every post’s permalink. Don’t overlook the importance of giving your readers an easy to find option to subscribe. Subscribers become regular readers. Regular readers become either clients/customers or get you that click through income you are looking for.

Finally

Having a stale blog can have a negative impact on your business. A 3 time a week updated, focused blog with relevant content is a great way to get search engines, prospective clients and even reporters to notice you.

If you will take these four methods and kick your blog in the butt, you will see the return on your investment increase over time. And, you will see your business grow.

Drop me an EMAIL if you would like to discuss this further. Or, leave a comment with your questions and I will give you an answer in my comeback comment.

If your company does not engage your customers, you’ll not know that there exists the opportunity to make additional profit and satisfy a number of customers. Use a blog for customer feedback and discussion about products and services and you will help to build your brand online.

Which actually helps to support my position that blogging is more than just simply marketing. Blogging, done correctly is where you don’t just focus on your business. You allow and encourage your clients/customers and prospects to engage in a conversation. Rather that conversation be good or bad about your company and/or product.

If a company receives customer feedback and improves its product in response to that feedback, the company will also have improved its brand online. When the customer helps develop the product, customers are more likely to evangelize a product and brand.

Scoble has stated that blogging will change the way we communicate with our customers and/or clients. Again, that is why blogging is more than simply marketing. Blogging gives us the opportunity to provide a way for us, the home business owner, to communicate in a way most “downtown” or industrial park companies will not. Blogging and providing a way for our customers/clients, prospects and even our competitors to comment easily will expose us to both good and bad communications about our business, service, and/or product. However, by opening ourselves up to this possibility, those we are communicating with will appreciate the fact we are willing to do just that. Open ourselves up and open the channels of communication possible with blogging.

More than that, you are creating a name and a name recognition by blogging and participating in this conversation. And you are doing so in a fashion some bigger companies are using big marketing campaigns to do.

Recently the WSJ.com had an article titled, Attention, Bloggers where they stated:

Businesses of all types and sizes are focusing on the power of bloggers as opinion shapers. But harnessing that power is particularly important for small-business owners who don’t have the money to create name recognition with big marketing campaigns.

“Opinion shapers” or “thought leaders” are two phrases kicked around as descriptions of what bloggers can be if they blog and participate in this conversation created in the blogging world. As a blogger yourself, you want to search out these fellow “opinion shapers” or “thought leaders” and connect with them. Just as you want your clients/customers and prospects to participate in the conversations you are generating on your blog. You need to do four things that Kevin O’Keefe and I have discussed on the phone often. And four things Kevin has talked about many times with others, mainly using F.L.E.E. (By the way Kevin, we should visit sometime).

Like Kevin, I also have to give credit to Steve Rubel for the “four pillars of blog marketing success.”

The last one, Empower, giving others, mainly your customers/clients and prospects the opportunity to tell their stories is really what all of those words above are about. And F.L.E.E. sums it up in four simple letters.

This is the essence of blogging and why it’s a different and perhaps a more powerful means of marketing than traditional PR & communications.

Blogging is not for everyone. But, you owe it to yourself and to your customers/clients to take a hard look at it. Blogs are a tremendous way for you to connect with your target market. And they are a tremendous means for you to connect to the “opinion shapers” or “thought leaders” in your niche and/or target market.

We will discuss more about blogging as a communication tool and dig further into F.L.E.E in future post.

GETTING NOTICED

You have published your professional service firm’s blog and you want to know how to get it noticed. I actually get questions about that often. Blogging takes work and a time commitment. You can’t just throw up a blog and expect it to work. You have done that with your Yellow Page ads and you have done that with your static Web site. A blog takes effort. However the return on your investment (ROI) will be worth all your efforts.

What I am about to provide is of no secret to anyone. This is what we do as bloggers and you should try as many as you can.

If you will remember from my previous post, we discussed a little bit about F.L.E.E. and what it means to blogging and the conversation. Blogging is a conversation between you and your readers. And remember your readers can be your target market or niche. Your readers might just be others who are marketing to the same target or niche you are marketing. And your readers may already be customers or clients of yours.

The first and most important way to get your blog noticed is to provide your readers with good, no lets say great, relevant, up-to-date, well written content. If you don’t have good content, even if you get readers, you most likely will not keep them. Remember what I said in a previous POST? You should try to post at a minimum of three times a week. Especially in the beginning of your blogging efforts. (I will discuss in a future post on where to find content).

Next, you need to do what I call leverage that content. And this is where F.L.E.E. comes in as far as I am concerned. You can also use F.L.E.E. to find that good, relevant content for your blog. But that is for another post. You need to go out and find other discussions or conversations taking place in the blog world in your niche. Use Google for starters.

Find the conversations, read the other post. You are going to find them by looking for them. Use Google. Search out keywords in your niche. Use Google Blog Search to find blogs in your niche.

You next need to listen to the conversations going on out there. You have already started doing this by finding the conversations. But finding and listening go further. You have to listen to the conversations on a regular basis so you know what the hot topic is in your niche. And listening to the conversation will let you know what those “opinion shapers” and “thought leaders” in your niche or target are talking about. However, I want you to listen to these conversations in a big way. And that means you can’t just bookmark a few blogs and visit them when you have time. In my humble opinion, you have to use a good RSS reader. You can not listen to the number of good conversations going on out there in the blog world by simple bookmarking some of the blogs you like. And to handle the volume of content out there, a RSS reader is the best tool. I listen to conversations in different niches I am interested in. I get a huge number of feeds a day. Do I read each feed, god no. What I do do is scan the titles of the feeds that come in and if a title catches my eye, I read more. Does this cause you to think a bit about a couple of things. Well it should.

First, are your titles to your blog’s post important? You tell me. Most of those who listen to a large number of conversations going on, scan titles. If your title doesn’t catch my eye, I will miss that well written, relevant post you just spend an hour doing. Don’t overlook the importance of the post title. Spend some time on it and it will pay off. The title of your post will get you noticed. Good titles will cause you to notice other blogs and post. And your good titles will get you noticed.

Read the comments taking place on these other blogs. And comment on the blogs you are reading. Leaving a good, well thought out comment that actually adds to the conversation will get you noticed. And best of all, it will get you noticed not only by the blog you are commenting on, but the others who are commenting will notice you too. Engaging in the conversations by commenting on other blogs is an important element of blogging. Not only should you comment on other blog post, you need to take the conversation on your own blog even further. When people comment on your blog, send them an email thanking them for the comment. If they provide a URL to their own blog, visit it. And comment on their blog. If other bloggers engage you by commenting or linking to you, visit them. And if they do a post linking to you, make sure you leave a comment thanking them and carry on with the conversation.

Of course you are saying, “but wait, I need to get noticed before I will get links.” Yes, that is true. But if you are providing that good content we discussed above, you will get noticed. In the beginning it won’t be a lot perhaps. However, you need to take advantage of the attention you are getting. I have been blogging for over three years and I almost always visit a commenters blog and I certainly go visit a link coming back to me. You want others to do this to you, so you have to do that for them.

Engaging in the conversation, next to great content on your blog, will get you noticed more than anything. And one of the other ways to engage in the conversations going on is to take a post from another blog in your niche and “create a post to answer another post.”

You are going to read an article or blog post from someone else and you are going to feel you have something to add. This is a great way to keep the conversation going. Your blog post should link back to this other blogger because it will accomplish four things mentioned by Blogging Tips.

1. It creates new content for your blog.
2. It gives a fellow blogger a valuable link.
3. It gets the attention of the other blogger that you are writing a response.
4. It gives others the opportunity to join in and keep the conversation going.

This is just three parts of F.L.E.E. The last part is also for a future blog post. However, I hope you will take these points and ideas and run with them. Will it involve some work. Yes, it will. But, as I have mentioned, the ROI from this work will be great. Not only will you get noticed and see your readership increase. You will actually be better informed in your own target or niche.

I will have more on getting noticed for you soon. Other specific things you can do such as submitting your blog to directories. Until then…

If you have any questions please drop me an email at grant@g2webmedia.com. I am always available and willing to discuss blogging with you if you would like.