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Introductions
Jonny Ross
• Former optician
• Ran chain of opticians and ecommerce site
• Website, SEO, ecommerce
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Search Engine Optimisation
• Create great content
• Ensure this content is accessible to search
engines.
• Make pages unique and relevant
• Make the content popular
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Editorial Calendar sounds so complex…
• People think it needs to
be fancy and detailed
• Two advantages;
planning and
accountability
• There are lots of ways to
create an editorial
calendar, but let’s keep
it simple
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Step 1: Make a list of key dates for the year
• Product launches
• Events / trade
shows
• Marketing
campaigns
• Promotions
• Holidays
• Sporting events
• Key milestones
• TV Programmes
• This day in history
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Step 3: A comprehensive list of all your
products and services
• Do any of the products and services fit nicely
with your roadmap so far?
• Split them evenly throughout the year
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Step 4: Open a Google Spreadsheet
• Sole Trader or maybe 4 staff..?
• Use Google so it’s easy to share and update
• Everyone with permission can have access
• It’s a live spreadsheet
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Challenge me?
Does anyone want to challenge me, does anyone
think this is all a load of nonsense?
It’s time to ask questions!
• For Tips, Tricks and more free advice Subscribe
to my blog at JonnyRoss.com
• Carry on the conversation with me on twitter
@jrconsultancy
Notes de l'éditeur
So we have seen some examples , but why should you blog?
It forces Creativity
It builds a community
Adds value to your site
It gives you content for your Social Media and Email Campaigns
Gets you to the top of Google
I believe blogs can increase your sales by helping to
Overcome barriers to purchase – Online buyers don’t have the opportunity to inspect products before purchase, so the more information you can offer to dispel any concerns or queries they may have, the better. Blogs can be used to explain product features and usage, and to show photos and videos of products from every angle.
For me the Blog is the core of any social media or SEO campaign
Blogs provide regular content to share through your other social media sites (which we will cover in detail in webinar 3). The sharable nature of product images is perfect for retail, with sites such as Pinterest seeing huge expansion as consumer demand for visual content has grown rapidly. User-generated content, ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ are now being ranked more highly by search engines, so it pays to invest in social media and blogging.
As I said I will cover this far more in webinar 3, but lets just think for a moment,
Blogs provide
Status updates for Facebook
Tweets for Twitter- take a blog with the title “top 5 tips”, well all of a sudden you have created 5 tweets, all with links to the blog, don’t tweet them alll in one go, spread them out over the week/month. Stuck for tweets, go back to blogs from 6 months ago!
Updates for Linkedin personal and company profiles
Statuss for Google Plus
Email campaigns – do you get to start of the month and think, what are we going to put into our email campaing this month? if you have fab blogs, there is your content already written!)
They give content for your keywords to be found in Google, search engine optimisatino, you will only be found if you mentino the keyword, and the more times you mentino it the more relevant you are (don’t mention for sake, it must be relevant)
A blog should be an integral part of your marketing and comms strategy, but you need to set goals. What are you marketing goals? Need to sell more teenage products, what could we write that would engage with teenagers? Lets give them some information, lets become a resource and during the process, lets build trust with them and let them know what products we have that we could offer them.
So this is all great but how do we come up with content?
We need to feed ourselves
Subscribe to competitors
Subscribe to industry related news and professional bodies
Keep notes of questions customers ask you
Create Google alerts on niche topics ( this is a great tool simply Google Google alerts and try it out!)
Thing about all the products/services you offer
Keep a journal/voice recorder
Invite Guest blogs from customers
Write about your passions?
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When blogging, it’s really important to keep in mind who you are talking to,,,, why,, and what both you,, and they,, want to get out of it.
Know your audience – Understand who your customer is and what they are interested in. Be clear – are you writing for B2B or B2C? A particular age group? A particular income bracket? What other things are they likely to be interested in? What problems do they have that you can solve? Really get into the mindset of your target customer, and write directly FOR and TO them.
Choose your products and themes – Create an Editorial Calendar to plan ahead (we’ll have a look at these next)
Tell a story – a good blog should have a clear beginning (introduce your topic, grab the reader’s attention), middle (the meat of the blog – a list of tips, a description of a problem, a funny story etc) and an end (how the problem is solved, what to do next).
Call to Action (CTA) – All blogs should have a ‘Call to Action’ – what should the reader do next? Find out more (link to another blog), fill in a form, subscribe to our blog, buy a product, follow us on twitter, like us on Facebook etc. Aim to engage your reader and get them to keep reading, make a purchase or give you some information about themselves to help you connect with them again in future.
An editorial calendar will help you to plan ahead, link blogs to seasons and events, and ensure you have a good variety of blog topics to appeal to all your customers and showcase your whole product range.
If you have more than one blogger, it also helps you to know who is writing what and to plan submission and posting dates.
Make the calendar work for you. Yours might include things like: season; theme; products featured; keywords; target reader segment; date etc.
I tend to mention these and people think it needs to be fancy and detailed.
There are two main advantages, planning and accountability
There are loads of ways of creating one, but lets keep it simple!
So make a list of key dates for the year, think of your
Product launches
Events / trade shows
Marketing campaigns & Promotions
Holidays & Major Sporting events
Any Key milestones
Then simply add these to your road map, this is nothing more than an excel sheet with jan – dec along the top and the categories down the side
So we can see valentines day in february for exmaple
Then think of all your products and services, do any of these fit nicely together,
Is there a product that goes well with world tennis tournement?
What about one that fits nicely with Easter?
Would talking about service x go well with Trade show Y in September?
Can you find ways to make your products and services seasonal at all?