Just Do it!
Each blog title you write should be a slam dunk. It should be optimized, engaging, educational, easy to read, relevant, and it should encourage your audience to act in a manner that supports your business.
It’s easy, right? Like writing poetry, or sticking to a fitness plan, or getting your two-year-old to take a nap, or just saying no to drugs (thank you, Nancy Regan).
My favorite Internet marketing blog, HubSpot, would have you believe it’s easy. And maybe it is…This morning HubSpot gives us “Six Easy Ways to Get More Visitors to your Blog” here they are:
1. Make your blog interesting
2. Make your content easy to read
3. Make your content Search Engine Optimized (SEO)
4. Encourage Interaction
5. Include Social Sharing Buttons
6. Link to Other Relevant Blogs
It seems pretty straightforward. Just like wearing red shorts and flying to the hoop, right? Straightforward, yes. But easy? Not all the time. But it can be done, if you (pardon my predictability here) Just Do It. Take it one step at a time. Read some relevant blogs, notice what you like about them, and if you are inspired, sign up and make a comment. Commit two hours a week to the health and wellness of your online presence and it will definitely payoff in the end.
The stats are out there: Businesses that blog get 55% more visitors, have 434% more indexed pages, the benefits are numerous. Check out the social media stats on Fortune 100 Companies. There are some other stats that are a bit more difficult to classify. The biggest of them is trust. Sure brand recognition is essential, but there is something deeper: community.
If you are too busy doing what you need to do to keep your business going, please don’t neglect your blog. Your community will suffer for it. Hire someone to blog on your behalf. It’s that important. Engage your audience and keep them engaged. Start to build some trust.
Time for my yoga and situps…
“His Airness” image courtesy of Sports Business Digest
Hubspot came through again as I was wrapping up a great project with a wonderful client: The Aloha Foundation.
Hubspot is an online marketing company whose blog empowers readers to take online matters into their own hands. The Aloha Foundation is the parent organization of several Vermont summer camps. One of their camps is all about empowering teen-aged girls to become to women they want to be.
Here’s the quote from Hubspot that made the connection for me: Create content that stands for something: ‘Higher purpose content marketing.’ This was in a blog post entitled “60 Proven Ways to Increase Your Online Marketing Influence“. The project with Aloha allowed me to dive into two of my favorite causes: empowering clients and more importantly empowering young women…Well, I’m not empowering young women directly, but I did help Aloha’s Communications & Alumni Relations Manager make some changes that will bring more girls to the site and to the camp.
Aloha has made great use of Facebook. Like them and let them inspire you. Hubspot publishes the best daily marketing blog. Subscribe and let them inspire you.
I’ll leave you with a quote from Hubspot that seems to have been written for Aloha: Make people around you more successful than you are, and share stories from the heart.
Dontcha just love synchronicity?
Hubspot gives us the skinny on the pink and the blue on Facebook
Hubspot, my favorite internet marketing blog just published some great Infographics. On average, men and women have the same number of friends on Facebook: 130. But women have 55% more comments on their walls!
If women are an important part of your audience, you need to engage with them where they are already engaged: Facebook.
Facebook has evolved to address adults and businesses. It used to be the place I learned about my son’s ex-girlfriend’s guitar lessons. Now it’s the place I enjoy my colleagues marketing brainstorms and my yoga teacher’s new videos.
Is your blog posting to your Facebook business page?
