Companies that blog greet 55% more visitors than companies that don’t
They generate more external web links, in some cases 97% more web links
This adds up to an insane amount of indexed pages (legal term, i.e. insane)
Which means the search engines like your company a whole lot more than those lame companies who aren’t blogging
These facts (from Hubspot, 2009) help me reiterate what I’ve been saying for at least two years – you need a company blog. Especially in light of our economic times, where marketing budgets are haulting or maintaining at best. Looking to resources that give you the big boom for your investment, and in a blog’s case that may potentially only be time (and trust me, I know the value of your time, and mine), you cannot ignore the potential, the facts, and ultimately the increase in traffic.
Another big push back I hear often is that you don’t have enough to say, or what would you say, or who would write it as your biggest concerns in accomplishing this task. Let’s take a step back here and look at the larger picture. Do you want your company to grow? Are you looking to establish, build or create loyal audiences to your brand? Has your web traffic hit a nice dull, low riding line on your analytics report? If you answered no, no, yes then by all means run far, far away from considering a blog. If you answered yes, yes and no, well then, let’s pretty much say the rubber is meeting the road.
In our blogging seminar, I use a video that has two of my most favorite business leaders. Seth Godin is a big marketing guru, and Tom Peters is a business thought leader. Both individuals can pretty much use any tactic they could dream up to reach out and communicate with their audiences. Tom Peters says, however, that blogging has had the biggest impact on his buisness and media presence than any other medium. Then they note together that… it’s free! So ignore me if you wish, but again, step back and see the global community we’re all playing in and take note to who is blogging and who is not. Which companies are thriving? Which are introducing new services and products? You will see a reoccuring ring to these successful companies. It’s humming a bit like a blog.
Remember how this time last year Twitter was barely a blip on the radar? Maybe you hadn’t even heard of it, yet. Seemingly overnight it exploded out from under a blanket of obscurity into the mainstream media. A tsunami of buzz is coming in the next few months about Google Wave, and it’s going to be picking up steam even faster than Twitter did. It has the backing of a major player like Google and the technology is more revolutionary.
So what is Google Wave? At the core it’s a replacement for email. It’s hard to imagine email will completely disappear, but the early evidence suggests that Wave does everything email can do… but better. Features include…
Real time typing. Imagine if every email you sent could operate like a chat room or instant messaging window
Someone getting added to the conversation 20 messages in, can watch a playback of each message as it was added in sequence
Drag-and-drop attachments (from your desktop) right into the conversation
Built-in translation so you can be communicating with people in different languages
Conversations can be embedded in a website (and you can keep reading and writing right on the page)
On top of all that, Google is making this an open source project. That means third-party developers can create extensions and addons to increase Wave’s functionality. (Third-party development played a huge role in Twitter’s explosive growth this year.)
Need to know more? If you have the time, the Wave developers will run you through an 80-minute demo.
You have less than 50 days to meet and learn at the Masters of Business Online, 2009. This year’s speaker round-up includes yours truly (The Business Case for Twitter), along with some of Indianapolis’ top online leaders like Jim Brown from EverEffect, who also plays host to this annual event.
We want to see you there! As a special reader of our blog, we’re giving you the opportunity to attend at a discount. Enter code silver109 for a discounted ticket; attend for just $99! Visit here to RSVP right now.
Last month we wrote about Google allowing you to create a personal profile. We mentioned then that the option was only available for individuals. Google keeps businesses and other organizations separate in their local business center. It was a little disappointing, but Google is showing businesses some love this month.
Did they upgrade the display that’s shown when someone finds you through local search? Well, no. Sadly the display is still tragic. What they have upgraded, though, is the information that you see as the owner of the business.
Look at how often you’re showing up in local search results and what kind of action people are taking once they find you (go to your website, click more info, or get driving directions).
Check what terms people are searching for when they find you in the local results.
By far the coolest feature for my money is the map showing how many people in various zip codes are asking for driving directions to your location. Granted it’s still a very soft metric, but it does give you a ball park idea of what kind of penetration you’re achieving in geographic markets.
Right now you can only see the top 10 search terms and zip codes. Hopefully Google will expand the reporting further in the near future. This is a great start, though.
In their neverending quest to catalog every piece of information on earth and make it searchable, Google has recently added profiles to their search results. By signing up for a Google account, you can create a profile of your self. The format of the profile is pretty vanilla, but the good news there is they don’t take much time to set up.
When someone does a search for your name, the normal search results that we’re all accustomed to still show up, but at the bottom of the page will be a link to your profile (including an image of your bright, smiling face).
The information collected is geared towards returning better search results when someone looks up your name. How does that work? Your profile can include links to websites that you’re involved in: company website, Facebook page, your blog, etc. You get to say to Google these are the sites I’m really involved with. Although Google doesn’t make public how they sort search results, it seems safe to assume that those sites will now rank just a little bit higher when someone searches for your name.
Presumably the same logic applies when you include in your profile places you have lived. If you once lived in San Diego, then an article that appeared in the San Diego Union-Tribune might just be about you. The web page with that article climbs a few steps higher in the search results.
As of right now, the profiles seemed to be geared towards individuals only (not organizations). If you need to increase your business or organizations visibility on Google, check out the local business center.
Profiles can also clear up some confusion when people search for you if you have a common name. Silver Square’s own Angela James is not the only Angela James that shows up on the first page of Google. So when you read Angela James is an executive editor of a publishing company, you may be wondering is that the same person you met at a networking event or went to hight school with? At the bottom of the page you can check out her profile. Put a face with the name, read a quick bio, and look at where she’s lived.
The information collected is geared towards returning better search results when someone looks up your name. How does that work? Your profile can include links to websites that you’re involved in: company website, Facebook page, your blog, etc. You get to say to Google these are the sites I’m really involved with. Although Google doesn’t make public how they sort search results, it seems safe to assume that those sites will now rank just a little bit higher when someone searches for your name.
