Getting More from your Blog and Blogging | The Small Business United Blog
Getting More from your Blog and Blogging
by John Jantsch - February 2, 2010
There are two things most business owners must reconcile when it comes to the subject of blogging: every business needs a blog, but nobody wants to read your blog.
Now here’s what I mean by that. People, your prospects, are probably not sitting around waiting for the next bit of wisdom shared in your blog posts, but, they are going online by the millions and using search engines in the hopes of finding suppliers, solutions and answers to questions.
Every business needs to have a blog, because the software used to run blogs is the easiest way to produce frequently updated, education-based content – just the kind search engines can’t get enough of. Try it yourself. Go to a search engine and type in a common question in your industry. Chances are that blog posts are heavily mixed into the top results.
On January 27th I presented a webinar called Getting More from your Blog and Blogging and during that presentation I shared blogging basics, best practices and my favorite resources for amplifying and elevating how you use a blog.
Make sure to visit the link above and catch the entire program.
I focused heavily on the use of the WordPress.org platform. Below are some of my top suggestions for extending a WordPress.org driven blog.
• Wishlist Member – This powerful WordPress plugin allows you to add a membership component to your site. You can offer premium content, members’ only access and even sell courses with full integration into some shopping carts.
• Apture – The Apture plugin sits in your admin panel and allows you to create embedded or popup links that include reference sites, video, audio and images. By simply highlighting some text in your post, Apture will find videos, for example, that explain a concept or feature you are talking about. This is a great way to add more content and interactivity without sending readers away from your site.
• Author Exposed – Adding authors to your blog is a great way to share the workload. You can have internal staff writers or include blog posts from guests and industry partners. The Author Exposed plugin makes it easy to share bio information and photos for each author.
• WPTouch – Increasingly, blogs are being read on mobile devices, such as iPhones. The WPTouch plugin automatically creates a very mobile browser friendly theme for your blog, making the posts searchable and much easier to read on the small mobile screen.
• Facebook Integration – Adding your activity on your Facebook Fan Page is a great way to integrate this growing network. This post tells you how to do it.Image credit: KPWerker
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John Jantsch is a marketing and digital technology coach, award-winning social media publisher and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine (May 2010). More information about his social media coaching program can be found at www.ducttapeu.com.Comments (1)
Carol Roy says:
This is very important, and very foundational, information for anyone writing a blog.
To my eyes, the most important information you’ve shared is that search engines love new content and, by default, blogs are constantly evolving. If optimized correctly, your blog can become *the* answer to the questions asked online by all your new potential clients.
Thank you John, great article.
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