by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Sep 27, 2017 | Blogging & Content Creation |
Before I start, can you answer the following three questions:
1: Are you unsure why you should be blogging?
2: Unsure what to write about when it comes to blogging?
3: Do you want more traffic to your website?
If you have answered yes to one or all of these questions, then blogging is the next marketing activity you should get into, if you haven’t done so already.
What is blogging?
Blog is short for weblog, which is essentially an article or a diary entry on your website about your company or you. Blogging is also a way of expressing yourself, your opinion about the products, services and the world if you wanted too. There is no limit to the type of content you can talk about.
Some people find writing a relief and perfect expression of themselves.
Some people don’t think they can write (and many can’t) however, this is about adding your own personality, stamp and brand behind your opinions.
People buy from people and they do care about what YOU think.
But WHY should you blog?
Blogging is essentially a form of search engine optimisation for your website and content marketing. When done well, blogging will give your website a more organic rank in the search engine.
If you think about how you use the internet yourself, when you are searching for a product or service on Google or Bing, the keywords you are typing in should bring up the most relevant websites for you there and then.
This is also based on your geographic location.
Therefore, you should be blogging and how you will naturally get more traffic to your website.
You actually have A LOT to say!
In fact, we all do!
Being unsure about WHAT to say comes when you think the information you want to share is potentially boring or no one would want to read it. The reason you think this is because YOU know the information already.
When it comes to ANY form of marketing, we should be thinking WHY we are doing it and what is the call to action for the reader because of it.
If a person reads your blog, what outcome do you want from that?
For Koogar, its about being seen as the expert in our field and then for the reader to eventually turn into a customer based on what we have to say. We want them to come back time and time again to read our information, which not only gives us more hits to the website but also shows us what type of content is relevant to our readers.
To know what to say, you need to understand your reader/perfect client first.
Here are 6 questions to ask yourself:
- What do they search for?
- What do they want to know about the products or services you have?
- How and when do they make the decision to buy?
- Why have they bought from you and not someone else?
- What is in fashion/trending/on the news now?
- What questions/f.a.q’s are your customers currently asking you or your team?
You may find this information boring but I’m sure you would ask several questions if you were going to buy something for yourself or someone else.
Questions lead to answers, answers lead to customer rapport and customer rapport leads to profit – Jay Conrad-Levinson
Ask you customers what challenges they face when buying something for someone and answer that question on your website.
What next?
Just because you have written a blog doesn’t mean that everyone will see it or that it should just stay on your website.
People consume content in many different ways and if your customer needs to see your “message” between 7 – 15 times BEFORE they buy then you need to keep sharing.
Sharing doesn’t mean just in that day or week you could re-share content over the year IF its relevant. This is called “evergreen” content. T can be shared in your email marketing, on Instagram using an image and some text to point people to where you want them to go.
Blogs could be turned into Vlogs. A vlog is a video log which is a video article or diary entry. It maybe that you want to show someone HOW to wear a certain product and what kind of clothes you would wear it with.
This can be done with collaboration with other types of businesses that have the same kind of customer that you do but don’t sell what you sell.
Blogging along with all other marketing activities should be brought into your marketing mix and used alongside all other marketing activities within your business. This is called Integrated Marketing…
Integrate to influence – Integrate your marketing to influence your customers by taking them on a journey…
by | Nov 30, 2016 | Blogging & Content Creation, Marketing Strategy |
The key for all blogging is writing blogs that the target market that your businesses is aiming to attract are interested in and therefore will engage with. While this seems very simple it is often a very complex process, especially for businesses who do not fully understand their customers base and target market.
The meaning of Content: something that is to be expressed through some medium, as speech, writing, or any of various arts.
One of the biggest debates within this area of blogging is based on the importance of blogging content vs context.
Content is the physical words and ideas which make up a blog, while context is the setting and motive behind the actual blog.
The best bloggers combine both elements to produce attractive, relevant and engaging blogs, but which is the most important and how do they interact?
Context over Content
Many people argue that content is king, and therefore it is important for businesses to constantly add new engaging content to their website. While this is true, to an extent, as adding content to your website is extremely important. Context should actually shape all content that is added to your website, and therefore context is far more important than content, as it enables companys to produce engaging and targeted content.
Contextual understanding
I feel that if businesses fully understand the context not only of their business, but their customers and their entire industry, then their content will be far more effective. As understanding your business and industry’s context will enable you to produce content that is focused on the current issues within the industry and therefore is likely to engage with others members of that industry.
Furthermore, if you understand the context of your customers, then you will understand their concerns, stresses, interests and beliefs much better, making producing content that they are interested in and are likely to engage with much easier.
Therefore, context can be seen as an essential way of businesses connecting with their customers in a more intimate and personal way. Especially if the contextual understanding of the industry and customers interests, needs and demands can be effectively intertwined into the businesses range of communication mediums.
Dynamics
One key issue with context is that it is constantly changing, it a highly dynamic phenomenon and therefore to reap the rewards of highly contextual content, businesses must invest in ways of consistently assessing the context and reacting to it with new content which is contextually relevant.
Overall, context is so much more important than content for blogging because it enables businesses to deliver targeted, customer specific and medium relevant messages to their audience, with content which is highly engaging due to it being shaped by the current context.
The companies and brands with the highest contextual awareness are likely to produce the best and most engaging content, which will truly talk to their target market in the way it was intended.
If you wish to discuss an action plan for your content marketing strategy, book in for a 30 minute FREE consultation today!
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Jul 30, 2014 | Blogging & Content Creation, Tools & Software |
If you have a CMS (Content Managed System) website or blog, or comment on blogs and news articles that belong to other people, then this article is for you.
As you may or may not know, commenting on others blogs actually helps our ranking and status online in four ways:
#1: giving our opinion to others and showing off our expertise
#2: starting or joining in the conversation
#3: leaving a link back to our website on their website or blog, which means at the very least they will click onto see who you are and what you do if they haven’t come across you before which leads me onto the final benefit…
#4: more hits/traffic to your website with potential sharing and further investigation
Getting people to comment on our blogs and articles is difficult. Most of us have a concern that our audience won’t agree or like what we have written (but this is what makes us all different), so we don’t promote it as much as we should.
You also have to be aware that it takes time to leave our thoughts with other people. As you know, time is precious so we need to use it as best we can. I know 2-5 minutes to leave a comment isn’t a lot of time but sometimes we can think that doing something is going to take us a lot longer then it actually would, which means the majority of people just won’t bother. Its the thinking time that takes the time, not the typing.
You should be commenting on someone else’s blog at least once a week to join in the conversation, gain new followers, make friends and new peers by being interested in what others have to say.
We also know that people buy from people, which means we like to do business with people we like and are relevant to us. This is what I call the 3-5 second rule. As soon as we look at someone we know instantly (within 3-5 seconds) if we like them or not.
So once you have left your comment on someone else’s website why not also show them WHO you are by creating a free account over at Gravatar! All you need to do is upload a photograph/image that you are happy with and once you have done that, your face or your logo will start showing up on websites and blogs you comment on (like in the image below);
So what is Gravatar?
Taken from their website – An “avatar” is an image that represents you online—a little picture that appears next to your name when you interact with websites.
A Gravatar is a Globally Recognized Avatar.
Gravatar uses your email address and assigns one photograph/image to that email address, which means you can have a number of different Gravatars for different emails addresses within your Gravatar profile. Using an avatar will help you build your brand online and you will get noticed a little more.
Now that we are using a variety of platforms online that uses an image of some sort, we can recognise those people and accounts a lot quicker by seeing their avatar or profile picture. LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all have their own versions but essentially they still display an image.
So for brand recognition… sign up to Gravatar, it’s FREE!
You can use either a photograph of yourself or logo. In my opinion, adding a professional photograph of yourself would be the best option for the majority. As humans we look for similarities and symmetry in others’ faces. The faces we relate to more are the ones we are drawn to, which naturally makes a face online more interesting to look at and investigate further.
Just to say; I’m not saying that you shouldn’t use your logo. On the contrary, a logo should be used in certain circumstances. For example; some of us don’t like our photo taken and wouldn’t dream of adding it to our profiles, larger brands don’t yet have a face for its company, so this is where a logo is more appropriate.
Bloggers of the world are happy to display photographs of themselves so you can put a name to a face, but do make sure you do put YOUR name to YOUR face. Online we can be whoever we want to be but as business owners, bloggers, team members, marketing managers and the like we NEED to “walk our talk” for the company we are promoting. #beauthentic
WordPress isn’t the only online platform that uses Gravatar, there are a number of other platforms online that use this functionality like Hootsuite amongst others, but it is mainly used for blogging including publishers and commenter’s.
Finally, having a Gravatar ensures that the person who is commenting or publishing has a REAL email address, so more often than not they are a real person leaving you a comment.
I hear clients and peers constantly talk about the amount of spam comments they are receiving through their inbox and on their dashboards. To make sure your comments do not hit the spam filter, create your Gravatar today and stand out from the crowd!
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Jul 23, 2014 | Blogging & Content Creation |
Every now and again I can’t think of things to blog about even if I have a list of subjects people have asked me about. I suppose I’m waiting for a flash of inspiration to grab me and enable me to write frantically at my computer for 20 minutes about something that has just come to me and something I feel you, as the reader, would be interested in and not just skim read.
Watch the video below for a few tips on what to blog about.
We have a full blog article on our website to cover a little more about blogging: https://www.koogar.co.uk/what-to-blog-…
Subscribe to our YoutTube Channel and instantly receive the new videos we post every few weeks!
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Apr 30, 2014 | Blogging & Content Creation, Interviews |
Every now and again I can’t think of things to blog about even if I have a list of subjects people have asked me about. I suppose I’m waiting for a flash of inspiration to grab me and enable me to write frantically at my computer for 20 minutes about something that has just come to me and something I feel you, as the reader, would be interested in and not just skim read.
So, I’ve been thinking “What to blog about?” is one of the top questions I get asked when it comes to blogging. Here are a few tips and tricks on helping you work out what to write, on a side note, you don’t HAVE to write anything. You could Vlog (Video Blog) – speak straight into a video camera and upload it to YouTube or you could Podcast where you record your own voice or an interview with someone for people to listen to at a later date, like when they are driving in the car.
You see everyone has their own learning styles. Some like to read, some like to watch and see something, some like to listen and some like to be practical; get their hands dirty.
Which one of these people are you writing your blog for? Now if you are scrambling around for an answer there isn’t a right or wrong answer because everyone you come into contact with have what I call “their preferred method”.
You know the saying; Treat people how you like to be treated? Well it’s wrong; you should treat people how THEY like to be treated as we are all different!
Now I like to be practical, get my hands dirty while I’m in a class room, but at the same time I like to watch something and read about it in my own time. By doing one or all of these activities you will be displaying the right method for the right people.
So when it comes to what to write, things can become a little tricky only because you assume everything! You assume that everyone who knows about your product or service knows everything about that product or service. But they don’t. They may know what it is you do but they may not understand how you do it compared to others.
One of the things we as humans forget are the basics. We ALWAYS have to go back to the basics, so why not start there? What is it that you take for granted because you know it like the back of your hand? I can hear you say that’s not too helpful Amanda, I’m still a little stuck.
So my next question to you is what question(s) have you been asked recently that you could turn into a blog? In fact you could turn these questions into a FAQ, where people will come and find out some useful information about you and your company and how you differ to the competition.
I did mention right at the beginning that this should only take you 20 minutes. If you give yourself a focused time to write about a particular subject you will be amazed at what you can achieve. I’m confident, you already know plenty about your product or service to write or even speak about a certain aspect of it. Once you have written the first draft, revisit it after a few hours to see what you need to tweak and then post it!
So you see, what to blog about is really simple when you take the time to step back and listen to people, I’m mean really listen to them.
- What are they asking you?
- How can you expand it into something the is useful and valuable for them to use?
Let me know if this has been useful for you and how you know what to blog about. All ideas and suggestions are welcomed!
by Amanda Daniels-Allen | Nov 5, 2012 | Blogging & Content Creation, Guest Blogs, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) |
Bio – Written by James Crowe of Summit Online Marketing
His SEO Liverpool blog provides advice for SEO’s, small business owners and those who wish to get higher rankings in the search engines.
Content Is King
Let me be clear, I’m not talking about the content you’ve already written for your website. The ‘about us’ or ‘our aims’ pages. I’m not even talking about the descriptive text about your services on every page. I’m talking about regular, weekly, new content.
The fresh content aspect of the Google Algorithm (mathematics behind the code that decides where a website is places among billions of pages) is the biggest win as far as small businesses are concerned.
I’m almost positive your web-designer/developer has encouraged you to set up a blog section on your website. They want you to have little snippets (about a paragraph long) from those posts and placed at the bottom of your webpages.
As far as you’re are concerned, they’re trying to add to your workload and you don’t like it.
Even worse, if you wanted to blog, you feel you’ve not enough to talk about. You feel you’re part of an industry that any outsider would find pretty dull.
Classic examples of this are accountancy, insurance and most B2B sales. You don’t feel the man/women on the street would really care to read about such things.
Well Google really, really, really cares
Let me briefly explain why…
Google was initially created as an academic tool. Its purpose is to deliver the best result to the searcher, because the best delivered results will mean lots of people use it! Remember it’s only a website, but more importantly it’s a business. The more people using it, the more traffic, the more traffic, the more they can sell sponsored links to advertisers. The more people who pay, the more money they make. They’re growing and protecting a 4 billion dollar a quarter business, with more than 80% of that revenue generated from search.
To give it some perspective. This company owns YouTube, Gmail, Google Maps and WordPress… and it doesn’t charge 99% of users for any of them. That’s how important it’s search engine business is!
The reasons why I should Write A Blog?
Firstly, the search engine isn’t as complex as you believe! It has no possible way of knowing if your business is still trading without you spelling it out.
e.g. You buy a domain name – www.Imstillhere.com – you’ve bought it for 1 year from January 1st. Unfortunately after 3 months you cease trading. Nobody ever contacts the hosting provider and says lets take this down, i’m not trading anymore.
Google knows this. So the best indicator to Google that you’re still alive and kicking is to add new content.
The worst possible result for a searcher would be to click a Top Google listing to a business that is no longer trading, or take advice that’s no longer relevant.
What Should You Do
If you add a blog post every year, you’re simply telling the system you’re alive. You’re not great, but you’re still trading. The search engine spies or spiders as they’re called, will visit your website around every 3 months, and report back to Google.
If you write a post every month, it will learn to pop back every month, and this can be scaled to every day or even every hour.
Think about it like this…
If you’re a HR company, that only posts every year, regardless of how professional you are as a bricks and mortar business, all Google can possibly know is how current your information is.
If you’re competing with another company for that all important number one listing. It will on some level favour the site, with the most new content.
Secondly Blogs lead to the next biggest thing is SEO… Links.
I’ll cover this in my next post.
