Corporate Blogging For Dummies E-Book

Douglas Karr

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 544

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Establish a successful corporate blog to reach yourcustomers Corporate blogs require careful planning and attention to legaland corporate policies in order for them to be productive andeffective. This fun, friendly, and practical guide walks youthrough using blogging as a first line of communication tocustomers and explains how to protect your company and employeesthrough privacy, disclosure, and moderation policies. Blogging guru Douglas Karr demonstrates how blogs are an idealway to offer a conversational and approachable relationship withcustomers. You'll discover how to prepare, execute,establish, and promote a corporate blogging strategy so that youcan reap the rewards that corporate blogging offers. * Shares best practices of corporate blogging, including tricksof the trade, what works, and traps to avoid * Walks you through preparing a corporate blog, establishing astrategy, promoting that blog, and measuring its success * Reviews the legalities involved with a corporate blog, such asdisclaimers, terms of service, comment policies, libel anddefamation, and more * Features examples of successful blogging programs throughoutthe book Corporate Blogging For Dummies shows you how to establisha corporate blog in a safe, friendly, and successful manner.

Leseprobe

Corporate Blogging For Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You Don’t Have to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How the Book is Organized

Part I: Getting Started with Corporate Blogging

Part II: Mapping Out and Implementing Your Corporate Blog

Part III: Engaging Your Search Engine Optimization Strategy

Part IV: Expanding Blog Posts and Promoting Content

Part V: Measuring Success

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Getting Started with Corporate Blogging

Chapter 1: Corporate Blogging from Soup to Nuts

Why Blogging Is Different than Your Web Site

Understanding blogging as a communication tool

Using blogging as a search engine marketing platform

Recognizing blogging as an inbound lead strategy

Differentiating Corporate Blogging from Personal Blogging

Putting a human voice on your marketing communications

Speaking to your audiences

Writing with a purpose to a blog that sells

Defining Key Features of a Blog

Basic user interface features of a blog

Basic back-end features of a blog

Expanding your blog’s functionality

Recognizing the Benefits of Corporate Blogging

Booking public speaking engagements

Publishing opportunities online and offline

Attracting leads through your blog

Driving conversions online through blogging

Blogging: From Concept to Content to Conversion

Establishing your strategy and goals

Picking and training the blogging team

Identifying platforms and resources

Compiling search-engine-optimized content

Monitoring, measuring, and analyzing

Adjusting strategy or messaging

Chapter 2: Laying the Foundation for Blogging

Understanding What a Blog Can Do for Your Company

Defining a Blogging Strategy

Assemble your blogging team (and have backups)

Create a publication schedule

Determining Your Blog’s Content

Putting your customers and employees first

Understanding industry expectations of corporate bloggers

Writing your company’s blogging manifesto

Determining Who Owns Blogging

Letting leadership define the voice of your blog

Letting marketing define the voice of your blog

Understanding What to Publish on Your Corporate Blog

Chapter 3: Deciding On Your Blogging Goals

Setting Goals for Your Blogging Strategy

Defining the target audience for your blog

Estimating Your Return on Blogging Investment

Measuring conversions to improve your content

Reviewing objectives and measuring results

Identifying Marketing and Promotion Goals

Building authority in your industry

Search engine goals for keyword ranking

Setting Goals for Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

Using blogs to communicate with customers

Leveraging blogs for your organization’s knowledge base

Sharing customer testimonials

Part II: Mapping Out and Implementing Your Corporate Blog

Chapter 4: Using a Domain That Matters for Your Corporate Blog

Integrating Your Corporate Identity into Your Blog

Bringing your brand and corporate identity to your blog theme

Ensuring that your customers recognize your blog as authentic

Personalizing your corporate blog with portraits and biographies

Using Your Existing Search Engine Authority with Your Company Domain

Controlling how a domain affects search engine authority

Using your existing authority to your advantage

Working to establish authority as fast as possible

Moving your blog and retaining authority

Selecting the Best Domain Structure for Your Organization

Understanding the pros and cons of subdomains

Understanding the pros and cons of putting your blog in a subfolder

Chapter 5: Choosing a Blogging Platform

Determining Your Blogging Platform

Budget Considerations When Selecting Your Platform

Building your blog on a solid infrastructure

Hiring a blog consultant to assist with your strategy

Choosing a Hosted, Self-Hosted, or SaaS Solution

Advantages and disadvantages of hosted solutions

Advantages and disadvantages of self-hosted solutions

Advantages and disadvantages of SaaS solutions

Flexibility in Blog Templating Engines

Balancing SEO and optimal design

Developing an attractive and readable blog theme

Enhancing Your Platform with Plug-Ins, Widgets, and Gadgets

Installing WordPress plug-ins and widgets on your Hosted WordPress Blog

Selecting components that drive traffic to you, not away from you

Testing components to measure performance

Expanding Blogging Platforms Capabilities through Integration

Using a blogging platform’s API

Automating and routing content through integration

Differentiating your feed from your blog with integration tools

Chapter 6: Regarding Time, Resources, and Content

Using External Content Resources

Winning back time with ghostbloggers and professional content writers

Purchasing topical content to enhance your blog content

Hiring industry bloggers to write for your blog

Owning Your Content

Exporting Content to Import It to Your Next Platform

Protecting Your Content

Securing your corporate blog from hackers

Backing up your content regularly

Monitoring your blog to ensure it’s up and running

Providing Legal Protection for Your Blog

What to do when your content is stolen

Including all the required legal components

Chapter 7: Working with Your Blogging Team

Deciding Who Should Blog in Your Organization

Choosing the best bloggers

Recruiting bloggers: You’ll be surprised at who gets the results

Marketing with your bloggers

Setting expectations with your blogging team

Planning Your Content Strategy

Planning topics, owners, and timelines

Developing backup content strategies

Planning content for weekends and vacations

Developing an Education Program for Your Bloggers

Informing your bloggers of their responsibilities

Setting the vision for your bloggers

Balancing autonomy, individualism, and expectations

Monitoring Your Bloggers’ Performance

Balancing content versus traffic and conversions

Using analytics to monitor specific bloggers

Dealing with poor blogging performance

Motivating and Rewarding Your Bloggers

Moving a blogger from behind the keyboard to in front of the podium

Developing a performance-based rewards program for your blog

Recognizing bloggers without breaking the bank

Part III: Engaging Your Search Engine Optimization Strategy

Chapter 8: Making the Most of Search Engines

Understanding How Search Engines Find Your Content

Building your robots file to allow search engines permission

Publishing a sitemap that directs search engines properly

Setting content priorities in your sitemap

Implementing canonical URLs in your post pages

Using Keywords Correctly

Using page components to emphasize important keywords

Evaluating keyword competitiveness

Finding long-tail keywords that drive relevant traffic

Researching keywords

Improving Your Blog’s Keyword Content

Adding keywords to meta descriptions

Modifying existing posts to increase their search engine ranking

Optimizing your content for local searches

Registering Your Blog with Search Engines

Verifying your blog is located and indexed by search engines

Identifying problems in Webmasters and how to correct them

Monitoring your ranking and how you are being found

Putting Your Business on Map Results for Regional Searches

Registering your business with local search on Google, Bing, and Yahoo!

Adjusting your location on the map to ensure customers can find you

Promoting your entry with customer reviews

Using your entry to publish and offers

Chapter 9: Writing Content That Drives Search Engine Traffic

Writing Post Titles That Make Searchers Click

Avoiding link baiting

Getting traffic from the search engine results page

Formatting page titles with post titles

Using keywords effectively in page and post titles

Repeating yourself and reusing material

Using Keywords in Content to Get Indexed Properly in Search Results

Using the correct balance of keywords and content

Finding synonymous keywords and phrases

Driving Home the Message with Images and Diagrams

Using alt tags effectively for image searches and keyword placement

Using representative images for improved comprehension

Effectively sizing and formatting images for your page

Formatting Your Posts for Better Comprehension

Considering the importance of whitespace

Using bulleted and ordered lists

Sizing paragraphs for easy scanning

Writing High Converting Content

Part IV: Expanding Blog Posts and Promoting Content

Chapter 10: How to Blog without Writing

Spotlighting Other Experts with a Guest Blogging Program

Finding industry bloggers to guest write on your blog

Trading posts with other blogs and requesting permission to guest blog

Soliciting industry experts to reach their audience

Promoting Your Customer’s Voice for Maximum Impact

Writing effective customer testimonial blog posts

Automating customer testimonials directly into blog posts

Promoting vendors and partners to build your authority

Keeping Your Content Alive with Comments

Using comments as a measure of engagement

Moderating comments to add value and avoid spam

Deciding whether a third-party comment service is right for your blog

Encouraging employees to comment

Incorporating a Multimedia Strategy to Add Personality

Leveraging audio technologies for audible learners

Incorporating video for increased engagement

Hosting options for audio and video

Chapter 11: Marketing and Promoting Your Blog

Using RSS to Syndicate Content

Syndicating content to your corporate home page

Keeping static pages fresh with syndicated excerpts

Aggregating RSS into server-side pages

Getting Engaged in the Blogosphere to Attract Attention

Using a feed reader to organize and follow industry blogs

Interacting with other blogs through guest posting and comments

Respectful dissent to attract and build readership

Responding effectively to negative criticism

Integrating Your Blog into Other Social Media to Expand Your Readership

Using URL shorteners

Syndicating your blog in Twitter

Syndicating your blog in LinkedIn and Plaxo

Integrating your blog into Facebook profiles and Fan Pages

Promoting Your Posts through Social Bookmarking

Understanding social bookmarking and its impact on search and traffic

Automated posting to social bookmarking

Guerilla marketing and social bookmarking

Combining E-Mail and Blogging for Better Marketing

Using advanced e-mail service features to automate content to e-mail

How to automate RSS to e-mail with MailChimp

How to automate RSS to e-mail with ExactTarget

Driving e-mail readers to your blog

Promoting e-mail subscriptions on your blog

How to automate RSS to e-mail with FeedBurner

Part V: Measuring Success

Chapter 12: Imagining Your Blog as a Sales Funnel

Using Your Blog as a Sales Funnel

Optimizing conversions from the search engine results page

Understanding rank and its effect on traffic

Using Google Webmasters to identify search engine placement for keywords

Measuring Engagement and Conversions on Your Blog

Understanding bounce rate and its effect on your blog

Measuring trends versus instances

Comparing your analytics to industry results

Differentiating traffic sources and business benefits

Chapter 13: Directing Your Readers through Calls-to-Action

Understanding Why You Need Calls-to-Action

Designing Calls-to-Action That Readers Will Click

Finding images that draw attention to your call-to-action

Keeping it simple; writing call-to-action content

Measuring Click-Through Rates on Calls-to-Action

Implementing onclick events and campaign codes for tracking

Building goals in analytics

Tracking and reporting calls-to-actions

Testing and Improving Your Calls-to-Action Click-Through Rate

Understanding A/B testing versus multivariate testing

Implementing simple A/B tests with your calls-to-action

Analyzing results and optimizing calls-to-action

Targeting calls-to-action

Dynamically Displaying Calls-to-Action to Increase Click-Through Rates

Increasing click-through rates with relevant calls-to-action

Integrating third-party ad serving systems for your e-commerce blog

Understanding Where Readers Click on a Web Page

Laying out your blog’s content to impact retention and conversion

Implementing heat-maps to monitor where readers click

Figuring out what elements are important

Chapter 14: Leading Your Readers through Landing Pages

Designing a Landing Page That Closes the Conversion

Designing the path from a call-to-action to a landing page

Checking out the elements of an effective landing page strategy

Knowing your landing page goals and tactics

Laying out your landing page

Narrowing the Focus with Your Landing Page’s Content

Understanding how much information is enough

Trading information for benefits to capture inbound marketing leads

Capturing the Right Amount of Info on Your Landing Page

Requesting the right amount of information

Integrating your landing pages with your CRM

Using third-party form solutions to capture information

Chapter 15: Measuring Success with Analytics

Implementing an Analytics Solution That Works

Translating Statistics to Improve Your Strategy

Tracking visits and visitors

Tracing site references and visitor traffic

Measuring pageviews and bounce rates

Evaluating overall performance

Assessing visitors’ language and platform needs

Translating Traffic Sources to Opportunities

Viewing traffic sources

Calculating social media as a referral source

Observing Trends and Opportunities in Reporting Data

Setting Goals in Analytics to Measure Conversions

Capturing click events in Google Analytics

Developing custom reports for conversion tracking

Determining the Value of a Blog Post for Your Company

Measuring lead-to-close ratios with sales

Measuring leads coming from your blog

Measuring conversions from blog to landing pages

Tying it all together — estimating the sales value of your blog and each post

Monitoring Shortened Links with Third-Party Applications

Setting up backtweets to alert your company of mentions

Monitoring shortened links more effectively with bit.ly

Measuring Your Feed’s Consumption and Number of RSS Subscribers

Setting up your blog and its feeds on FeedBurner

Modifying your blog’s theme to integrate FeedBurner

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 16: Ten Ways to Promote Your Blog

Publishing Posts on Your Home Page

Publishing Your Blog’s Link in E-Mail Signatures

Promoting Your Blog in Business Cards

Publishing Posts to Twitter

Publishing Your Blog in Facebook

Publishing Your Blog in LinkedIn

Publishing Posts in Company Publications

Promoting Your Blog in Other Blogs’ Comments

Publishing and Distributing Your Corporate Blog in Print

Submitting Your Blog for Awards and Recognition

Chapter 17: Ten Ways to Grow Your Audience

Buying Visitors with Pay-Per-Click

Paying for Blog Reviews

Commenting on Other Industry Blogs

Trading Posts and Guest-Blogging

Promoting Other Blogs

Driving Traffic from Social Media

Link Baiting Traffic to Your Blog

Holding Promotions and Giveaways

Offering E-books, Whitepapers, and Case Studies

Syndicating Your Blog Everywhere

Integrating Word-of-Mouth Widgets in Your Blog

Chapter 18: Ten Ways to Reignite Old Content

Promoting Old Content in New Blog Posts

Promoting Old Content in Other Blogs’ Comments

Reviving Old Content with New Comments

Modifying Post Titles

Modifying Meta Descriptions

Modifying Content with Keyword Enhancements

Removing Dates from Blog Posts

Submitting Excerpts to Social Networks

Tagging Content and Building Tag Clouds

Promoting Internal Search on Your Blog

Corporate Blogging For Dummies®

by Douglas Karr and Chantelle Flannery

Corporate Blogging For Dummies®

Published byWiley Publishing, Inc.111 River St.Hoboken, NJ 07030-5774www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted under Sections 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, [phone], fax [phone]. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, [phone], fax [phone], or online at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2010930964

ISBN: 978-0-470-60457-1

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Douglas Karr has been working in the online industry for over 20 years. Douglas started in the newspaper industry, converting systems for use online, designing, and developing data warehouses, and automating marketing systems. He’s worked with some of the largest media corporations in the world including Gannett, the Toronto Globe and Mail, and the New York Times.

Douglas relocated to Indianapolis seven years ago and has made a name for himself regionally with businesses looking to adopt technology and leverage it for marketing. Douglas worked with the Indianapolis Colts on the launch of Colts.net, the city of Indianapolis for their 2012 Super Bowl bid, and launched Smaller Indiana with co-founder Pat Coyle, the most successful socio-economic network in the state.

Douglas worked for ExactTarget for several years, growing their integration capabilities with clients and developing future visions of the application. ExactTarget has been named one of the top e-mail service providers on the planet. Douglas also developed the original concept for Compendium Blogware and as a shareholder remains active in the company’s growth, support of its clients, and its ongoing vision.

In late 2009, Douglas launched DK New Media to assist Compendium and its clients with social media consulting and marketing automation. With Webtrends, ChaCha, and Walker Information as key clients, the company has grown. Douglas is now one of the most in-demand speakers on corporate blogging, social media, and search engine optimization in the country.

DK New Media assists large companies in the development and execution of online, search and social media marketing strategies to acquire measurable business results.

Douglas blogs daily at The Marketing Technology Blog (www.marketingtechblog.com) that’s continuously recognized as one of the top 100 blogs on the Internet.

Douglas is a single father of two — his son, William, a math and physics honors major at Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI), and his talented and beautiful daughter, Katherine, who is still in high school. Douglas is also a United States Navy veteran of Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

For the past eight years, Chantelle Flannery has immersed herself in online marketing, working for small businesses, not-for-profits, and Fortune 500 companies. She currently works at a social media agency focusing on strategy, client relationships, and production management. Chantelle spent several years working at a SaaS organization managing blogging education, as well as gaining experience at a new media advertising agency developing and maintaining marketing plans.

Chantelle has focused on creating unique metrics for clients to measure and monitor ROI as it relates to corporate blogging. Her experience ranges from Web site creation to producing and directing short films. Chantelle has a passion for helping clients successfully execute their marketing initiatives and reach their target audience. To learn more about what Chantelle has to say, check out her blog at www.hertakeonmarketing.com.

Chantelle also helps to keep Douglas on track and out of trouble — for which he is eternally grateful.

The legal portions of Corporate Blogging For Dummies were written with the generous assistance of David Castor, partner and founder of Alerding Castor Hewitt. David provides counsel to entrepreneurs, venture capital firms, large businesses, and technology companies on licensing and computer law.

Authors’ Acknowledgments

To properly acknowledge everyone on one page is nearly impossible but we’re going to try.

For personal support, Douglas wishes to thank: William and Katherine Karr.

As a single father, finding quality time with my kids is already a challenge. During the duration of writing this book, family time was rare. Bill and Katie were not only forgiving, but cheered me on. I am truly blessed to have such incredible children. My parents, William and Carol Karr, and their parents, who inspired me to be an entrepreneur and find my own way in life. Brother (from another mother) Jason Carr and his wife, Chris, who would always take time to call or stop by to make sure I had my priorities in order. My best friend, Mike Moroz, and his wife, Wendy Russell, who called regularly from Vancouver and continued to cheer me on. My friends continue to amaze me with their selflessness and generosity.

Chantelle wishes to thank her husband, Nate Flannery.

For advice and friendship: Chris Baggott, Kyle Lacy, Lorraine Ball, Pat Coyle, David Castor, James Paden, Adam Small, Bill Dawson, Carla Ybarra-Dawson, Erik Deckers, Michael Reynolds, Jason Falls, Robby Slaughter, Jenni Edwards, Jeremy Dearringer, Kevin Bailey, Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, Justin Kristner, Matt Nettleton, Kristian Andersen, and Mark Ballard.

For the case studies, thanks to Webtrends, ChaCha, ExactTarget, Compendium, Tampa Bay and Company, Formstack, Roundpeg, Carhartt, Walker Information, Lifeline Data Centers, Alerding Castor Hewitt, Fairytale Brownies, Brandswag, Problogservice, Raidious Digital Content, MediaTile, Flexware Innovation, Tuitive, The Bean Cup Slingshot SEO, Lydia’s Uniforms, Good Grape Blog, HH Gregg, Kristian Andersen and Associates, Bitwise Solutions, Paper-Lite, The Trustpointe, and Social Media Explorer.

Thanks to our clients (both DK New Media and Firebelly Marketing) and to our friends at Wiley for their patience while we worked through this book project.

Publisher’s Acknowledgments

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

Senior Project Editor: Christopher Morris (Previous Edition: Jean Rogers)

Executive Editor: Amy Fandrei

Copy Editor: Brian Walls

Technical Editor: Bruce Castleman (www.blogbloke.com)

Editorial Manager: Kevin Kirschner

Editorial Assistant: Amanda Graham

Sr. Editorial Assistant: Cherie Case

Cartoons: Rich Tennant (www.the5thwave.com)

Composition Services

Project Coordinator: Sheree Montgomery

Layout and Graphics: Kelly Kijovsky

Proofreader: Jessica Kramer, Nancy L. Reinhardt

Indexer: Sherry Massey

Publishing and Editorial for Technology Dummies

Richard Swadley, Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Andy Cummings, Vice President and Publisher

Mary Bednarek, Executive Acquisitions Director

Mary C. Corder, Editorial Director

Publishing for Consumer Dummies

Diane Graves Steele, Vice President and Publisher

Composition Services

Debbie Stailey, Director of Composition Services

Introduction

Once a hobby for writers on the Internet, blogging has evolved over the years into a mature strategy with incredible platforms that now support enterprise corporations. Blogging has every element needed to develop a great online presence. Blogging is an exceptional strategy for search engine optimization as well as a solid social media strategy for businesses to safely engage in.

Corporate blogging, however, requires a much different strategy than personal blogs or publication blogs. The objective for a corporate blog is to build a company’s online authority by using search engines and by acquiring a positive reputation. Ultimately, this will lead to customer acquisition and improved retention.

Most corporate blogs fail. As Seth Godin states in his book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? (Portfolio, 2010), “most corporate blogs suck.” If you don’t want your corporate blog to fail, you’ll need to develop a strategy before you ever publish your first blog post. You’ll also need to stick by that strategy and build momentum over time. Your journey won’t be easy, but it will be fruitful in the end.

Corporate blogging not only transforms your company’s online presence, but it can also transform your company’s culture and vision by providing your employees with the spotlight they deserve.

About This Book

Douglas Karr and Chantelle Flannery have developed strategies for, educated, and consulted with more than 200 companies throughout the country on their corporate blogging programs. They’ve worked with companies with a single employee to companies with thousands of employees throughout North America.

This book lays the foundation for a great corporate blogging strategy by ensuring that your company invests in the right platform, optimizes your blog to ensure it’s found by search engines, educates you on keyword research, provides you with content strategies, and helps you to develop your sales funnel to turn visitors into customers.

In short, this book shows you how to leverage blogging in order to grow your business online and off.

In its entirety, this book can take you from the selection of a platform all the way to optimizing landing pages to increase conversions. You need not read every section. If you’re an experienced blogger and already have a corporate blogging strategy underway, you can skip directly to the topics that are important to you.

Conventions Used in This Book

If the value of an attribute is in normal type, you enter it exactly as shown. If it’s in italic, it’s only a placeholder value, and you need to replace it with a real value. In the following example, you replace myownimage with the name of the image file you intend to use:

<IMG src=”myownimage”>

Whenever you see the URL for one of the top sites we’ve tracked down, it appears in a special typeface within the paragraph, like this: www.dummies.com. Or it may appear on a separate line, like this:

www.dummies.com

What You Don’t Have to Read

The content of this book is written so that any section can be read without having to read the book all the way through. While we believe every ounce of this book will add value to your corporate blogging strategy, we recognize that you probably already have a pile of work to do and need to jump directly to the areas you need assistance with first.

Foolish Assumptions

You speak English; otherwise, you’ll need to talk to the Dummies folks about translated versions of the book.

You’re not a tech genius but you have basic computer skills, and you’ve operated a browser and experienced the Web before. You have a basic understanding of Web sites, marketing, and analytics, and an interest in blogging to drive leads from the Web into your company’s sales funnel.

If you’re the Chief Operating Officer of a large organization, this book helps you understand what an effective blogging strategy can provide your company. If you’re an entrepreneur and a “do-it-yourselfer,” this book gets down enough details enough for you to plan, select, deploy, measure, and improve your company blog all by yourself.

If you’ve already got a blog and are getting some lackluster results, this book will help you to optimize your blogging platform and develop a plan for improvement.

Other great Dummies books make great companions to Corporate Blogging For Dummies, including TypePad For Dummies, WordPress For Dummies, Search Engine Optimization All-in-One For Dummies, Twitter Marketing For Dummies, Facebook Marketing For Dummies, Web Marketing For Dummies, Blogging For Dummies, and Social Media Marketing For Dummies.

How the Book is Organized

Corporate Blogging For Dummies is organized so that you can quickly find, read, and understand the information you want. The book is also organized so that if you have some experience with blogging, or want to deepen your knowledge of a particular topic, you can skip around and focus on the chapters that interest you.

The chapters in this book are divided into parts to help you zero in, quickly and easily, on the information you’re looking for.

Part I: Getting Started with Corporate Blogging

Blogging has evolved from a hobby into a critical component that’s being leveraged by the best and brightest companies in the world. From the largest companies to one person shops, blogging has become the centerpiece of building and leveraging online marketing to improve communications and drive business. Part I of the book describes all of the advantages of blogging, from search engines to social media, and helps you visualize how an effective corporate blogging strategy can be leveraged to improve your business.

Part II: Mapping Out and Implementing Your Corporate Blog

Most corporate blogs fail and are abandoned because companies didn’t have the right platform, the appropriate resources, or set the right expectations on how their program would work. This part helps you to develop your strategy and implement a solid plan of attack to fully leverage blogging for business results.

Part III: Engaging Your Search Engine Optimization Strategy

As more and more businesses and consumers research online, the search engine has become the gateway to seeking information, finding solutions, and engaging with the businesses that are present. Blogging has all the elements of an effective search engine strategy — the ability to easily produce content.

An effective corporate blogging strategy produces recent, frequent, and rich content that can be easily found by search engines and presented to businesses and consumers when they are looking. In marketing, that’s the right message at the right time. If your business isn’t competing in search, you’re losing a huge acquisition opportunity. This part helps you understand how search engines work, why blogging helps, how to optimize your blog, and how to target the right keywords to capture the attention of the right audience.

Part IV: Expanding Blog Posts and Promoting Content

LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail marketing, online video, word-of-mouth marketing . . . the job of the online marketer has become extremely demanding and complex. This part of the book shows you how to deploy a blog and fully leverage syndication to expand the footprint of your blog beyond your own domain. Automation, integration, and providing a path of engagement back on your blog is the most effective means of maximizing results while reducing your workload.

Part V: Measuring Success

Too often, companies don’t have an effective strategy for measuring success. This part of the book provides you with all the information you need to fully leverage analytics as part of your corporate blogging strategy. Analytics not only provides you with the reporting necessary to measure an effective corporate blogging strategy, it also provides you all the behavioral data you need to improve your blogging and increase the return on investment over time. This part shows you how to measure and improve your strategy.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

A requirement for the For Dummies series is the Part of Tens — reference guides for you that break down some pretty complex stuff about corporate blogging in easy-to-digest sections.

This part of the book should be earmarked, written on, highlighted, and checked every week as you launch your corporate blogging strategy. These are simple and effective lists of ideas and techniques that will promote your blog, acquire new readers, and continue to improve overall business results. Your corporate blogging strategy doesn’t stop at publishing content, this part helps you take it up a few notches!

Icons Used in This Book

The icons in the margins of this book point out items of special interest. Keep an eye out for them — they’re important.

Psst! Listen, pal, we wouldn’t tell just anybody about this, but here’s a way to make things a bit easier or get a little bit more from the material.

Time to tiptoe on eggshells. Make one false step, and things can get pretty messy.

You don’t really need to know this stuff, but we just like to show off sometimes. Humor us.

Well, of course, it’s all memorable material. But these bits are ones you’ll especially want to keep in mind.

Where to Go from Here

Do you remember the first time you picked up the phone at work or the first message you sent out with your company e-mail? Publishing your first blog post will be just as exciting. Over time, just as sending e-mail or answering the phone became natural and second nature, so will managing and writing for your blog.

Remember that you’re not alone and that the online marketing landscape continues to change. During the writing of this book, the search engines continue to change their algorithms to find and present the best content on the Web, Twitter continues to enhance its offerings, Facebook has build out new widgets and integrations, and mobile devices continue to skyrocket in popularity.

This book helps you deploy and leverage a world-class blogging strategy. Your business will prosper, your clients will appreciate your transparency, and your employees will enjoy getting their voice and expertise out to the masses. Don’t stop there, though. Follow industry blogs, attend conferences, and continue to educate yourself on what’s coming next.

Douglas and Chantelle have set up a site, Corporate Blogging Tips (www.corporatebloggingtips.com), an e-mail newsletter, Twitter (@corpblogging), and Facebook pages to keep you up-to-date and answer any questions you might have.

Get started or improve your corporate blog. We expect big things from you and so does your organization — growing your business online and obtaining great search engine ranking is very important.

Let’s blog!

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Part I

Getting Started with Corporate Blogging

In this part . . .

This part introduces corporate blogging and the value it provides your organization — from customer service to customer acquisition and sales to an overall Web presence.

Chapter 1 discusses corporate blogging in general terms, laying the foundation for the rest of the book and your team’s blogging efforts. You discover the key factors that set corporate blogging apart from everyday corporate Web sites.

Chapter 2 shows you how to make sense of blogging for your organization — everything from who owns the program to what content to publish on your corporate blog. Most importantly, you find out about setting expectations with the blogging participants from the start to create accountability from the beginning.

Deciding your blogging goals is the focus of Chapter 3. All good marketing efforts start with goals for short and long term business results. After reading this chapter, you’ll be able to successfully set measureable goals for marketing and promotions, public relations, and customer relationship management.

Chapter 1

Corporate Blogging from Soup to Nuts

In This Chapter

Defining corporate blogging

Delineating a corporate blog from a Web site or a personal blog