1. Get A Note Book: Ideas for blogs will come to you while you are reading the paper, talking to a customer, surfing the net or driving in the car. I recommend that you carry a little note book and get those ideas down while they are fresh.
2. Create A Routine: Writing takes a lot less effort if you let it become a habit. I’d suggest that you blog on the same day at the same time each week. The routine will really work for you.
3. Have A Writing Spot: Find a quiet place where you always write. Lock yourself in your room. Make sure you will not be interrupted. Make sure you can talk to yourself out loud. This helps develop the personal voice which is so important in blogging.
4. Let Others Inspire: Read some other blogs. Have a favourite few that you read to warm up.
5. What To Write About: There are a few things that you can reflect on when you are considering topics for blogs.
   • What problems can I solve for my customer is a good question to ask yourself.
   • Review your key words – any blog headings there?
   • Reread your online enquiries – any blog topics?
   • What questions do your customers ask when they are talking to you?
6. Get It Down: My routine is to open a new draft post for each idea I have in my note book. After that I have a read through the draft posts that are already in there. I then decide which one I’m in the mood to write more about.
7. Google The Topic: If I am going to write on a topic I sometimes Google it and spend some time reading up about what others have to say. It is good practice to acknowledge any quotes and link to an other blogs that have inspired you.
8. Get Personal: Once I’ve done some research I then get down my personal thoughts. Try to imagine the person you are speaking to and think about the problems you are helping to solve. People don’t want a dictionary entry – they value your real insights and opinions.
9. Proof Positive: I always get Glenn, James or Judy to have a look at my posts before I publish. This is a great way to get feedback on my content, sort out any spelling errors or tone problems. I find posts always benefit from this process and I feel more confident pushing the publish button.

Happy blogging.

How to Make Blogging a Habit

People have called Paul from the other side of the world to become his customers all on the strength of his business blog.

This morning I came across further evidence of the incredible impact blogging is having on changing the rules of commerce. Today’s edition of The Australian has an article by Tony Allen-Mills that was originally published in The Sunday Times.

Mills talks about how the critics attacked the musical The Adams Family when it first came out. They were scathing. Not so long ago this would have killed the show stone dead. Instead it went on to earn 4.3 million pounds in the first five weeks and generate 9.7 million pounds in advance sales.

Mills observes that the power of the newspaper critic is in serious decline because bloggers now have the power to communicate their own messages. As well as blogs individuals can now publish their own opinion through social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

It seems that people would much rather trust the opinion of friends and family than a stranger who writes for the paper.

I think this means two things for us as small business operators. Know that your blog can attract new customers and build trust. Know also that customer recommendations through social media can be even more powerful than an article in the newspaper.

For those of us with small marketing budgets this is great news.

The Rise And Rise of Blog Power

We have an anti-spam plugin that adds a simple maths question to comment forms and online enquiry forms. A lot of spambots find this a barrier, whereas a simple maths questions is easy for human visitors.

We’ve just updated the wording of the question to make it as easy to use as possible. Well, hope so anyway. And we’ve also added a small pop up link to explain why we have the question there.

So why do spammers try and leave comments on your blog posts?

Some spammers like getting comments published on blog posts in the hope it gets them a link. Even though we nofollow all comment links, it doesn’t stop spammers wanting to try.

And enquiry forms? Well, some spammers like using your online enquiry forms to send you junk mail.

There are a few lines of defence to try and reduce the number of spam comments/enquiries that get through.

Firstly we run the Bad Behavior plugin – this plugin recognises various patterns and signals that are present when spambots are trying to do their stuff.

Secondly we have our maths question. Personally I think the maths question is friendlier than the Captcha images that many websites use. Maybe a good captcha would stop even more spam, but I find that the combination of Bad Behavior and the maths question cuts spam right down.

Finding the ultimate anti-spam barrier

Visitor trend for GayRainbowConnection.com

Phil is currently touring the world with his GALTA hat on, and using his blog to keep everyone updated about his trip. The spike you can see in the number of visitors correlates almost exactly with Phil getting active with his blog.

Blogs are particularly effective in increasing the number of search engine visitors to your website. And as Phil is clearly such a natural when it comes to blogging, I think he’ll do particularly well.

Search engines seem to pay attention to how frequently a website is updated and send more love to those that are active. Each new blog post adds relevant content to your website, expanding the number of keywords you are indexed for and thereby increasing the number of searchers who might find you. And finally, blog posts are a great way of reaching out to other bloggers, and that gets you noticed and is a great way to earn you links.

And finally, a quick live example of trackbacks. Phil -because I am linking to your excellent post wrapping up your GALTA activities in London, you’ll see a Trackback appear in your dashboard. Approve the trackback – just like a comment – and an excerpt from my post will appear in the comments section of your blog post.

Blogging means more visitors to your website

Community

I think being part of a community is a real benefit. Blogging and building a site in isolation can get lonely at times. Blog schoolers are part of an interesting and enthusiastic group of forward thinking business folk.

Inspiration

Mixing with people from other industries can be stimulating and inspiring. How someone else tackles a problem can give you some fresh ideas about how to work on your own.

Focus on The Customer

Running a business involves juggling lots of different pressures and it is possible to lose sight of who your customer is and what problems you are solving for them. Blog school helps keep you in touch with who are you talking to and what you need to say.

Support

Blog schoolers are part of a group who want each other’s sites to prosper. They are prepared to give feedback and post comments on each others sites. This early support is so helpful in establishing a sustainable blogging practice.

Fun

Blog school is not all work. It is a chance to make friends with really great people. Laughter is part of learnng and it happens naturally when people relax and work together.

If you missed this term’s Blog School keep an eye out for next term’s dates. Be assured we will make you feel very welcome.

Five Secret Benefits of Blog School

There are a lot of misconceptions about blogs, and whether they are useful for marketing or not. But if you approach them from the perspective of sharing information to help readers solve a problem, then blogs are excellent marketing tools.

A recent post by Seth Godin expresses the concept concisely:

The most effective marketing use of blogs seems to be when the advertiser/marketer uses the blog as an opportunity not to sell a product, but to attract people who are in the right mindset. Joel Spolsky rarely writes about his product, but that’s fine. The people who read his writing are the very same people who need his product, and his proximity to the valuable ideas (and his reputation) makes it not such a leap to go ahead and buy what he has to sell.

Attract people in trouble–>Help solve their problems–>Build your reputation–>Sales happen.

You can read the full (short) post if you click here.

Using a blog for effective online marketing