It will not come as a surprise to people who have read this blog that I love the marketing potential of blogs. Blogs not only promote your company, answer questions your clients may have, but blogs help create solid strength for your web site within search engines.

If you have a small business or organization and have yet to jump into the blogging universe I have a tip about plugging into this universe. It is a great idea to get different people within your business to blog about their expertise and ideas, however as the business owner you should plan that you will be the only regular blogger. What do I mean by that? It is good to have more then one person involved writing about things on your blog, just don’t depend on it, if others write that’s great but plan on your writing being on the blog 2, 3, or 4 times a week, this will ensure no holes in the blog.

Remember the number one rule of blogging is to have regular updated content added, no holes in the calendar please.

Once you are up and running you’ll find there are tons of plug-ins (speaking wordpress here) to make your blogging adventure richer and more efficient. I was out surfing around when I came upon a blog titled Enterprise Mastermind written by Anthony Harper, the blog has some first class information on it and I’m sure you will enjoy the plug-in lists and reviews he has put together, I especially like the new June list, check it out.

USNews had a short bite of a story the other day about how small business is both reading and writing within blogs

Micro-Blogging sites like twitter, posterous and tumblr not only continue to grow in popularity and usefulness but now it appears Google may be readying a new addition to their search features. Stories are starting to appear letting us know that Google may soon allow for focused micro-blogging searchs. That is great news.

If you have a business or organization on the web you probably know how important it is to update your website often. Micro-Blogging can become one of your primary tools to achieve regular and meaningful updates and in turn this will bolster your Search Engine Strategy. If you have a business or organization on the web you probably know how important it is to update your website often. Micro-Blogging can become one of your primary tools to achieve regular and meaningful updates and in turn this will bolster your Search Engine Strategy. Check out my Micro Blogging page for more thoughts.

Harnessing viral seems as real to most people as finding a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. How do you take a new product or idea and create a sustained Viral Marketing Campaign? Even before the Viral Campaign starts you have to decide if your product or service has the right cred to succeed in the Emotional waters of a Viral Marketing Campaign. It all very tricky but with thought it can be done. A good book on the background emotional aspect of a viral campaign is Chasing Cool.

Today there is a huge sustained marketing campaign going on called Earth Hour, billed as open source movement against global warming. What ever they call it, its a Viral Marketing Campaign already successful and poised to be hugely successful. Stay tuned for the results. And here is one of their videos, a call to action.

What is the first question your user asks when they get to your website? Users new and old ask “what useful information is this company offering me?”

1. Are you a Restaurant or Caterer establishment? Are you menus up to date? Are coupons and specials easy to access and utilize? Do you offer recipes people can use at home?
2. Are you a Professional Services company like a Lawyer or Accountant?  Is your FAQ section easy to navigate and up to date?  Do you have a PDF document outlining simple terms within your industry and is it easy to download?  Do you offer free consultations using an online form and is it easily accessible?
3. Are you a value added company like a Carpenter or Landscaper?  Are your portfolios and galleries crisp and nicely presented?  Do you offer easily to download tips sheets for the do it yourself  homeowner?
4. Are you a Tailor or Candlestick Maker?   Are your rates and hours presented boldly? Do you have an easy to read FAQ section? Can people send email with quick turn around to their questions? Do you encourage people to just drop in to chat and do they know that?

Get your fingers dirty, create content your users can use and use again. There is no secret to website promotion, it’s just roll up your sleves and get your marketing fingers dirty.

Avenues, streets, roads, paths, lanes, highways and byways all lead you in some direction or the other and the other thing they have in common is there are just way to many directions to go in. But maybe I can put  ” or are there”  after that last sentence.

The secret to getting out from under the avalanche of choices when it comes to promoting your business is simple. What’s the secret? Why it’s right in front of all of us, pick a couple of ways to promote and leave the rest on the side of the road. With hundreds of advertisers and social media mavens vying for your attention it is easy to think you need to do everything there is to do, you don’t.

Find one or two social networking sites to join, sign up with two bookmarking sites, grab a seat at the twitter fair, create content and get some links. Stir this for a while mix it with offline tactics and bake.

On an off topic note I found this list of Social Media 2009  Predictions over at Being Peter Kim and thought I would share it with you all. It is a bit hard to read in the viewer but can be made full screen with just a click on the box in the upper right corner of the viewer. It is not reolutionary but does offer a view to build on or tear apart as your needs in business dictate.

I came across a site this morning and wanted to share it with everyone. It is called Pound Privacy or #privacy and has a goal of allowing people to use all search engines without their searches being tracked and cataloged by the serach engines.Below is the into from their website, I encourage everyone to check it out.

Satellite Websites orbiting around your main website have been in vogue for quite sometime. Everywhere you look SEO practitioners recommend ways to build-out a series of satellite websites to strengthen your main (branded) website.

So what is a satellite website and do I need one? First, a satellite website or website are a series of websites each built around one topic. If your main website is about writing then you might build 5 or 6 satellite websites each with its own topic but all relating to your main website. An example: fiction, short stories, journal writing, writing exercises and science fiction would each have its own 5+ page website with all of them pointing to your main website. Other then pointing to your main website they would only point to one other of the satellite sites, so A would point to B, B would point to C, C would point to D and d would point to A with all other external links have a rel=”nofollow” attribute so not to leak away Google Juice.

Why on earth would you go to all this trouble? Back-links are the life blood of ranking in search engines but they can be very time consuming to acquire and that time adds up to lots of money. Building-out a number of great content websites can can you an ongoing set of strong links. The sites you build are under your control.

Don’t get me wrong, not for a second am I suggesting you don’t need a robust back-link strategy to go along with the satellite program, you do, this is just a highly effective way that gives you one more weapon in your arsenal to get to the top of the rankings.

Some think having a blog that helps shape the views and services offered at your website and helps in promotion both to the public and the search engines is old hat. I’m not in that camp. Blogs can have real impact in traffic, rankings and perception of authority.

If you have been neglecting your blog it’s time to once again dust it off and let the world know what you have to say. The main caveat is, blog at least 4 times every week and keep it going otherwise you are wasting real valuable time for no real benefit.

Once you get the old blog cleaned up and back on track make sure you have it listed in lots of good blog directories that are part of your link strategy. Here are a few I think offer value. Of course there are many more places to list your blog, some cost and some are free. The trick in to jump in and experience success.

1. Best Of The Web  BOTW
2. EatonWeb Directory
3. Powered by WordPress Directory
4. Wingee Directory
5. Delightful Blogs Directory

It seems the work we need to do to promote out business and our websites just goes up and up and up. When will it stop or when will it get easier is a question I’m asked all the time. Well there is good news, once your website has gone through the SEO (search engine optimization) part of your marketing things should get easier. And yes I said easier but not necessarily move into a time saving mode.

Once the SEO is complete you will have a strong set of keywords to use as your basis for things like article marketing, web page building and external linking. Having a direction is always easier then not having one.

Once you are ready to expand your pages and write expert articles you will need so help. The web is full of handy tools to help you organize your information and research your niche. Here is a list of sites you may find meet your needs in getting both organized and efficient in promoting your business.

1. Advertised as “A personal research assistant. Inside your browser” Zotero is full of tools to help in your research endeavors.
2. DecisionStreet bills itself as a website service that “helps you make smarter decisions through a set of simple yet powerful tools and access to the experiences of others.” Check it out.
3. LingoZ offers a user built dictionary in many languages.
4. Right off I loved this site, SuTree, it is a site of free instructional videos with hundreds of topics to choose from.
5. MindBites is built around the community model of everyone has things to share.

Many of these sites are still in beta but you just never know when you will find just the right tool to help in your work of finding and collecting information that will put your business in the lead and your website on top.

Promote your idea, your vision, your hobby, your product. That’s right get a blog and write about nothing, write about something. Why do I seem to be writing about nothing much and suggesting that you pay attention to what I’m saying? It’s because I want to emphasize how important content really is to the search engines and to your users.

If you create a blog for your organization or business and a couple of days go by without you creating any new entries don’t panic, just write about something relevant to the blogs purpose. You can rehash an old idea or you can review some blogs within your genre. If your stuck then give your readers an outline of your business, its history or why you started it.

I’m rambling along writing about something but this entry is not really focused and that is ok from time to time, your users will understand that you can’t always come up with an earth shaking subject to write about. The search engines will see you are sticking to regular relevant updates and will reward you for the creative work you are producing. Don’t misunderstand I’m not suggesting you scam the search engines with sub par content on a regular basis. What I am saying is that all the content on your website or blog does not have to be strictly perfect all the time. Of course if you are IBM or Microsoft and you can create a staff of workers that do research and blog everyday then your content better be very good all the time. If on the other hand you are a small business or nonprofit that is doing promotion on a part time basis then it’s ok to put something out rather then nothing.

And don’t forget the social sites like twitter and plurk after you have published your blog, let people know you have updated it. Also ask friends and colleague’s who have blogs to slip in a mention of your blog from time to time. Example:  I have a blog where I write flash fiction and poetry and I’m happy to put a link on this blog to that blog or to a friends blog from time to time.

Be creative in your promotional endeavors and never forget offline marketing to promote your website.