Business Blogging - How to Build A Better Blog

Survey: What Are Your Internet Marketing Traps?

We are doing research to discover where professionals and business owners get stuck with their Internet marketing. We are preparing an article and teleseminar to address these issues. To deliver the BEST content on how to overcome Internet Marketing traps, we need some information about your current Internet Marketing experience.

Will you help us out? We're doing a quick 3 question survey to find out where you get stuck with marketing your business on the Internet.

The survey has 3 questions and only takes a couple of minutes.

Thanks!

TypePad creates Known Issues Blog

Last month TypePad released an update to their Compose function. Since then there has been a flurry of posting from happy and very unhappy users. Because I've been a customer about 4 years, my account has not been upgraded so I cannot speak from experience about the upgrade.

However, I did see today that TypePad has created a blog to address the known issues in order to keep their customers apprised of bugs and fixes. 

If you're having problems with the new Compose function, be sure to check out the new blog to track the developments.

I appreciate that TypePad is doing its best to fix bugs as fast as they can and keep us all informed. Maybe by the time my account is upgraded all the bugs will be fixed! :-)

Blogging for Business: Write with the End in Mind

(Start time 4:49 a.m.... for Speed Blogging experiment)

What's the best way to come up with a post on your business blog that works for marketing purposes, that actually leads to getting sales, registrations, and new business?

Many bloggers struggle with getting results from blogging. In my opinion, after working with many professionals who are also good writers, it's not what they write but the way they begin a post.

Write with the end in mind. What would you like readers to do after reading your post? Having a clear goal in mind will help you write better. It will also help you find ideas to write about and will direct your writing so that it's laser-like in clarity.

I can only explain this by giving my own example. Here's what I went through this morning in order to come up with this post. I woke up a bit bleary-eyed without having any direction or ideas. I knew that I had to post something here on this blog. Here are the steps I took.

Photoblogging on TypePad with iPhone

Got an iPhone? Blog on TypePad? Soon you'll be able to do photoblogging from your iPhone and post directly to your TypePad blog.  Demo Video on CNET News.

TypePad's announcement about the iPhone app and their demo at Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.

Speed Blogging: Post in Under 20 Minutes

Since one of the most common complaints among our clients is "I don't have enough time to blog!" I'm experimenting with speed blogging this week. Everything I post will be done in under 30 minutes, to prove it can be done. (This post will be done in under 20 minutes because I want to get out the door and onto the tennis courts...!)

How to do this:

1. Keep a notepad open and when you have an idea for post, write down the main points
2. Keep a list of links that are relevant to the post, any other sites, places you visited where the topic was discussed, books you read, etc.
3. Post directly into your blogging software, link, and save as a draft.
4. Keep lots of royalty free images in picture folders for the topics you usually write about.
5. Insert an appropriate photo, edit the post, save, and publish now.

Time elapsed since starting this post: 8 minutes.

Who says they don't have time to write on their business blog? For me, it's the fastest marketing tool I've every used. Heck, I even had time to start a load of wash so I'll have clean socks on the courts...

A Blog Post a Day Keeps the Doctor Away - Really!

Blogging is good for you. A few months after a New York Times article reported a few deaths and overweight health hazards from excessive blogging, now comes an article published in Scientific American to say blogging has significant health benefits!

I'd rather buy into this report over the one done by a few sensationalist journalists looking for attention. This report is based on some research studies done through Universities:

Scientific American, May, 2008. Blogging--It's Good for You: The therapeutic value of blogging becomes a focus of study. by Jessica Wapner

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings.

But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits.

Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery.

Business Blogging as Crystal Ball: Can you see the future?

You can use your business blog to see the future: It's a great way to stay in touch with what readers want, and to know what customers struggle with and desire the most.

You can't read any book today that doesn't talk about how rapidly things are changing in our business world, globally and technologically.

Logic says that it is far easier for smaller businesses to be more nimble and respond more quickly to market demands than behemoth corporations. But that's only if you know what your customers want.

Will you lead your business to greater success because you stay nimble, learn quickly, and switch to better tools and tactics? Or are you operating much in the same way as five or ten years ago?

How can a business blog improve your chances of staying on top of things?

Top Blog Lists: Surefire traffic and reputation builder

Here's a tip for getting new readers, new links, and a solid reputation in your field: Make your own list of top blogs in your field.

Denise and I often suggest to our blog clients to make a list of their favorite blogs in their niche and publish it. This is a surefire way to promote your own blog as an authority in your field, create back links, get known, and drive traffic to your own blog. Yet it doesn't seem to be used as much as it could be.

Marketers have been using it for a long time. In fact, Rohit Bhargava just posted about this tactic on his Influential Marketing blog, and cites five great blog lists done skillfully by online marketers.

In a post titled 5 Great Marketing Blog Lists And What You Can Learn From Each One, he links to five of the best marketing blogs and their top blog lists. He includes lessons learned from each different blog list, that can be applied to any field or niche: