Blogging is an essential component of any inbound marketing / social media campaign. This presentation explains what a blog is and how it fits into your content creation strategy, how to read blogs and how to write and host blogs.

1. Introduction to Blogging What is blogging? How do you read blogs? How do you write blogs?

2. Content – The substance of any inbound marketing campaign Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Makes it easier for potential customers to find content Building sites Inbound Links (getting others to link to your site) Social Media – amplifies content “When your content is distributed across and discussed on networks of personal relationships, it becomes more authentic and nuanced, and is more likely to draw qualified customers to your site.” Three Key Components

3. From Hubspot: http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4416/Inbound-Marketing-the-Next-Phase-of-Marketing-on-the-Web.aspx

4. A blog (a contraction of the term "web log")is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaningto maintain or add content to a blog. (from Wikipedia) A corporate weblog is published and used by an organization to reach its organizational goals. The advantage of blogs is that posts and comments are easy to reach and follow due to centralized hosting and generally structured conversation threads. (from Wikipedia) A blog is a conversation – someone writes, others comment and comments are responded to More than 12% of Fortune 500 companies maintain corporate blogs What is a blog?

5. A few examples

6. More examples

7. RSS (most commonly expanded as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format (via Wikipedia) Can take the content from one site (such as a blog) and publish it / syndicate it elsewhere, such as: Feed Reader Twitter Status (but remember, 1 way communication) Facebook status update RSS: Really Simple Syndication

8. Go to the site itself Feed reader – enter the feed into a feed reader (aggregator) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_feed_aggregators Google Reader (http://reader.google.com) How to read blogs

9. Hosted on your own company’s website, using content management software such as WordPress (http://www.wordpress.org) - free Joomla (http://www.joomla.org) – free Drupal (http://www.drupal.org) – free This requires a domain name and hosting plan. Hosting plans are available from $7/month up to over $100/month from companies like Bluehostor MediaTemple or hundreds of others Hosted on a blog storage service, such as: WordPress (http://www.wordpress.com) – free for wordpress.com domain, extra to host on your own domain Blogger (http://blogger.com) – free for blogger.com domain, extra to host on your own domain (foundied in 1999, purchased by Google in 2003) Provides limited functionality, may have on-screen ads No hosting cost, but at whim of the service, not yourself and your own service How to write your own blog

10. Stay on Topic Be informative Old news is not news Adhere to a Schedule Clarity and simplicity Keyword-rich Include related keywords in title (<10-12 words in title) Quantity Matters (better a lot of small posts than one large post) Frequency Spell Checking and Proof Reading – yes, good writing matters RSS How to write for blogs: 10 Great Tips from Master New Media Additional resource: How to Write Great Blog Content http://www.problogger.net/how-to-write-great-blog-content/

11. Keyword rich text – not too much but include important keywords in post title, body Natural and organic – write for the reader, not the search engine Anchor text –link to the keyword, instead of saying “click here to learn about the latest widget that will make the world a better place” say “The latest widget will make the world a better place.” “Check this out” is considered spammy Write useful and well-written content that people love to read Content Writing & An Introduction to SEO

12. Content, Links, Structure http://www.seowizz.net/2009/07/seo-content-writing.html

13. Google Google Blogsearchhttp://blogsearch.google.com Links on other sites Content Aggregators – sites that list other blogs and update them in real time Technoratihttp://technorati.com/ How to Find Blogs