Entries Tagged as 'Blogging'

Remember the People?

A big part of blogging for small businesses is linking up with the blogging community, plugging into that viral marketing that all of us Website managers love to bend your ear about. Everyone I talk to these days is tuned into the fact that blogging boosts your SEO (search engine optimization).

But in their all-out quest for SEO, some are forgetting the real audience for a Website — the customer, your reader, us (the people).

So, today I just want to plant this one tiny seed: small business blogging is only one piece of a larger Website content puzzle. And the entire puzzle must be pleasing to the eye and ear not just of spiders and robots, but of real people, too. Your readers. Us.

Then when you go viral and we visit your blog and your Website, we’re all yours.

Judith

Tags: Blogging, SEO, Small business blogging by Judith
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How to Blog on Wordpress

Every blog platform has its blogger fans. I happen to be partial to Wordpress. I like the look. I like the user-friendly dashboard, and I like the fact that so many developers out there are making new Wordpress widgets all the time. I have my favorite bloggers too, and today I want to share my favorite Wordpress guru / blogger. – Lorelle.  

Her site, Lorelle on Wordpress, is a virtual treasure trove on Wordpress how-to’s, fixes, and insights into setting up and using Wordpress. I plug into it whenever I’m not too blog-tired at the end of the day to absorb a bit of new stuff. I always learn something when I go there.

 (Set up a feed; her site’s worth it!) Yours, Judith

Tags: Blogging, How to blog, Wordpress by Judith
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Learn to Blog Workshop

If you’ve been yearning to start a blog but just can’t get off the dime, then join me for this workshop.  It is custom-made for you. We’ll be jumping into blogging – much like I did right here just last summer –and we’ll do it hand-in-hand. Together! We’ll have a few laughs along the way, and we’ll all end up blogging.  It’s a 2-night workshop presented through the Washoe County School District Community Education department. We’ll be using computers in a middle school classroom.

(FYI, if you’re brand new to this, then you need to know that the blog site you set up will live on the Internet not on the computer. Once you build it, you can access it from anywhere in the world. Cool, eh?)

CLICK HERE for a copy of an e-blast I sent out last week. It’s got all the details.

yours, Judith

Tags: Blogging, How to blog by Judith
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No blogging, just widgets and buttons

All right. I admit it. I’ve been getting intimate with Wordpress. But the darn software is so darn cute! I’m infatuated. I’ve been spending the last few weeks holed up with my crush.

And what have we done? Fiddled with some widgets, downloaded some, uploaded a few, found some stimulating new buttons, pushed this, moved that.

Most of this is simple stuff, made easy by the software. The addition of Linked In and Squidoo buttons on the sidebar, for example, was a simple copy-and-paste. (But if you like this stuff, you can spend a LOT of time popping one on, looking, taking it down, popping up another – Come back in a week and they’ll probably be different again.)

Some of the fiddling required a bit of HTML input, like adding the Amazon links for my books on my print portfolio page. (They hide there on the page: you’ll have to roll over to appreciate them.)

The software is  whole lot more fun behind the scenes, in fact, than out in front.

So, if it looks as if I disappeared for awhile, I did. But what a fun time I’ve had!

 

yours, Judith

Tags: Blogging, Functionality, Wordpress by Judith
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Make Money: Start a Shopping Blog

old treeold treeYou really can make money directly off a blog. Blogs sell hats, handbags, all kinds of products – Shopping blogs.

And who’s to say a blog on shopping can’t be interesting? Well, to be fair, most are not, unless you’re seeking that hat or handbag.

Great Green Goods blog, one that seeks out products from recycled materials — all in Old umbrella tree in Romethe name of living green. This is one that earns the title “interesting” and one I’ll go back to just to see how it’s shaping up.   Because, you see, it’s more than a shopping blog. It’s a great example of a blog set up to bring in ad revenue with google ads andold Roman tree has survived the agessponsored links, as well as links to the products they feature. And it has a focus and a mission: eco-friendly producold treets.   Pretty simply set up, with a theme straight out of Wordpress. Take a look; it might inspire you to set up a shopping blog related to your passion. Yours and still holiday shopping, Judith

Tags: Blogging, Retail blogs, Small business blogging by Judith
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Blogging Artists

Artists, with all the beauty in the world at their fingertips, ought to be creating wondrous blogs. So, I searched for some. I found this one, Belinda del Pesco. And I liked two things especially:

  • She blogs frequently
  • She uploads info on how she creates her art

 And she’s in business, so she’s got a quick link to buying her art. All-around good, I think. (Only beef I have with the site is its accompanying website. I suggest you do not click on that link. It’s a porno-built site, circular, so that once on you can never leave. (And how do I know about those? Unfortunate google searches, need I say more.) Yours, Judith  

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Retail blogs, Small business blogging by Judith
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Blog marketing done well

Some of the best blogs — so they say — are online coffee shops. So, leave it to coffee shops to come up with some excellent retail store blogs. Here’s one I came across, from Wisconsin, where I suspect they appreciate a good cup of steamin’ hot coffee when they come in out of the cold to get one.

What I like about the site is its use of blogging to both market its events and to create a cozy, family feeling. Exactly what we seek in our coffee shops. I’d stop in at one of these coffee spots; they sound like they know what they’re talking about, and besides, they’re a cheerful group. I like ‘em. Now, that’s a good blog!

Yours, Judith

Tags: Blogging, How to blog, Small business blogging by Judith
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3 Big Reasons and No More

Connecting, engaging, listening.

I think these are my three big reasons to blog. I’m not sure they’re everyone’s, but they seem to resonate with me. Here’s how:

  • Connecting with the community makes it easy for clients to find me, makes it easy for me, too, to find others in fields related to mine, to share knowledge and experiences. And by golly, I learn alot from these great blog colleagues!

  • Engaging with the community — blogosphere as well as local business clients — pushes me to think further, past the generic to what works for each individual, to see that what’s working for me is not what might work for you, to combine and create. (That’s the sort of thing that keeps a writer’s brain engaged, too! And that’s always a good thing.)

  • Listening helps me shape my business to meet your needs. That close listening led me to create a NON-blogging site for my client this month. Life lesson: Blogging’s not for everyone. Business lesson: Build for the client, not for yourself. And above all, listen. But back to blogging and listening: great place to tune in to you who email me and post here, as well as to lots of others blogging in the Web world. And who said, “listen and learn”? Probably mom, a wise wise woman.

Tags: Blogging, Small Business, Small business blogging by Judith
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Why, Why, Why Blog? Reason 2

Blogs are great tools to engage your customer. And an engaged customer builds a vested interest in your product.

A bookstore, for example, is an excellent candidate for a blog. Bookstores sell to customers’ passions — passions for literature, learning, politics. And we all love connecting over our passions. Give us a blog that tells us about the next book-signing, has a bit about the author, has a blog posting BY the author. Add in an RSS feed so we’re alerted to new events at the store. Have a section where we can comment on bestsellers. Have a section for the book club that meets there once a month.

Do all that, and you’re steps closer to engaging your customers, to creating that old-time feeling of the general store as a gathering place and of the storekeeper as a friend and confidante. And that goes for whether you are selling a product or a service.

Blogs can create that cozy, general store feeling. As we get to know you, the owner, manager, blogger, we become invested, engaged. We care.

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Online Content, Small business blogging by Judith
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Why, Why, Why Blog?

We’re circling  back to that one essential question for small businesses: Why bother to Blog?

Here’s the short answer: marketing.

And that’s what I mean when I say we’re circling back to the essential question for small business blogging. Blogging is marketing. That’s what intrigued me from the beginning and what lured me into the blogosphere. In my travels around town I’m still getting that same question from business consultants, entrepreneurs, and recently a bookstore owner. Why, why, why blog? So, I’m circling back to dig deeper. Beyond marketing.

I promised I’d be experimenting with blogging, seeing how it went for me and my Web content and editorial business and sharing business possibilities with you.

Well, here’s how it’s going: It’s changed my way of thinking; it’s put me in touch with great marketing minds (see “Blogs on Marketing” on my blogroll); it’s expanded my thinking about PR, social media, and the impact of sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube. It’s connected me into Web 2.0, niche marketing on the Web, the importance of content, thought leadership, transparency and open communication.

And I’m lovin’ it.

I love the relationship aspect; I love all the good stuff, the connections and sharing. And, ok. I am still entirely UNinterested in the rants, the diaries and celebrity chat. But I can live with all that, just as I live with the noisy neighbors who hang out by their cars and smoke — because I spend time instead with my fascinating Zen neighbor who grows the most beautiful garden in town.

I spend my time on the blogs that feed me, intrigue me and add to my life.

We live in a world of chaotic proportions. That’s reflected on the Web. It’s anarchic, enormous, and growing exponentially. Blogs help people find us and us find people.

Blogs help customers find us, connect with us, get to know us — and that relationship is essential to marketing in today’s world.

There’s more to the long answer to why blog? And why use it to market? But blogs are supposed to be short, so I’ll be back in a couple of days with a second great reason for small business blogging. And a third. And a fourth.

Yours, Judith

Tags: Blogging, Business blogs, Marketing Blogs, Small Business, Small business blogging by Judith
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