It can always be daunting when you are faced with the task of constantly coming up with new blog topics for your website. This session gave suggestions and idea on how to keep the ideas for blog topics flowing.
Brainstorming
It's easy to brainstorm several ideas for a blog post but having enough information and knowledge to actual write a blog post isn't always easy. So taking a large list of ideas and then narrowing it down to which ones you can write about and then from that you can select which topics you actually blog about.
Spin Offs
There is the option to provide more detailed information on previous blog submissions. You can write another blog posting that relates to a current one that utilizes keyword phrases you wished you could use and link between the two blog postings. You can also create a new blog posting that responds to questions or comments that were made on previous postings.
Use Old Content
You can use older case studies or white papers and break them apart into a series of new blog postings to revitalize an interest in the topics. You also have the option to link back to the initial white paper for them to see all the information in one place. It is important to optimize the information for both SEO and for new visitors to make the most of your content.
Brian Halligan the CEO of HubSpot also had a few suggestions that have helped him over the years. He finds that he thinks of blog topics in his every day activities whether it's going to a ball game or reading the morning paper. Just make a note of ideas when you think of them and you can weed through the good and bad ideas later when you have more time to think about what you want to say.
He also had some suggestions on the best way to brainstorm. He's researched brain function and has found that if you're in a quiet room, not thinking about a specific topic, and let your mind day dream that you can come up with lots of ideas. Just write them down when you think of them and keep on day dreaming. There is bound to be a good idea in there somewhere.
Brian had a suggestion on how to entice people who don't want to blog into blogging. Bring out their competitive side. Give an incentive to the person each week who created the blog with the most pageviews or comments to an article in the last 10 or 30 days. People like to win and this just might work.
Blog topics are always going to be a struggle just try to sit back relax and see what comes to you or hit the books or archives and see what you can repurpose into useful information for your visitors. You won't be sorry.
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Small Business Customer Panel
This class focused on a panel of four Hubspot success stories:
Debbie Page - The New Born Baby - Lactation Consultant
Enjoys being able to look at what's happening on her website. Received a lot of help with getting her program up and running. Big increase in traffic 217% increase since February. Most of her referrals are doctor basis, not getting big results from online conversions yet. Now blogs and utilizes facebook religiously. Debbie page Tip: Bring a video camera to conferences that you go to and do short interviews with people in your industry.
Chris Higgins - President Data Guide
Promotional products to other companies to help with brand awareness. Found website grader, then found hubspot, hadn't been too focused on their website. Migrated over to the hubspot CMS. Started with on-page seo. 6 months into starting the first big lead came in... Chris Higgins Tip: Use long tail keywords to build pages on your website.
Scott Crampton - The Murder Mystery Company
Quit job a year ago selling furniture. Started doing murder mystery, got attention. opened small offices in Chicago and Michigan. In November of last year started with hubspot and business has exploded. Now has 217 actors. Only uses Hubspot, google adwords. Scott Crampton Tip: If you have anything fun or exciting that you do at your company, put it up on your website.
Marcus Sheridan - River Pools and Spas
Two years ago business sucked. All outbound marketing (radio, print...). Had no control, had to go through the webmaster to get anything done/changed on the website. Found website grader and got a 17 out of 100. today he's at 97 out of 100. Blog 's like animals, talk to consumers and does 0 outbound marketing. Spent 100k on oubound marketing and 60-70 on google adwords. Now 25-35k on advertising for a 4-5 million dollar business. Hubspot has given them control of their website and they can create / edit pages on their site. Marcus Sheridan Tip: Blog about the problems and complaints with the products and/or services you provide. Tip 2: Keep the sales pitch on your website and use your blog to teach people.
All of the speakers were very interesting to listen to, but if I had to hand out an enthusiasm award it would go to, "Marcus Sheridan"
Debbie Page - The New Born Baby - Lactation Consultant
Enjoys being able to look at what's happening on her website. Received a lot of help with getting her program up and running. Big increase in traffic 217% increase since February. Most of her referrals are doctor basis, not getting big results from online conversions yet. Now blogs and utilizes facebook religiously. Debbie page Tip: Bring a video camera to conferences that you go to and do short interviews with people in your industry.
Chris Higgins - President Data Guide
Promotional products to other companies to help with brand awareness. Found website grader, then found hubspot, hadn't been too focused on their website. Migrated over to the hubspot CMS. Started with on-page seo. 6 months into starting the first big lead came in... Chris Higgins Tip: Use long tail keywords to build pages on your website.
Scott Crampton - The Murder Mystery Company
Quit job a year ago selling furniture. Started doing murder mystery, got attention. opened small offices in Chicago and Michigan. In November of last year started with hubspot and business has exploded. Now has 217 actors. Only uses Hubspot, google adwords. Scott Crampton Tip: If you have anything fun or exciting that you do at your company, put it up on your website.
Marcus Sheridan - River Pools and Spas
Two years ago business sucked. All outbound marketing (radio, print...). Had no control, had to go through the webmaster to get anything done/changed on the website. Found website grader and got a 17 out of 100. today he's at 97 out of 100. Blog 's like animals, talk to consumers and does 0 outbound marketing. Spent 100k on oubound marketing and 60-70 on google adwords. Now 25-35k on advertising for a 4-5 million dollar business. Hubspot has given them control of their website and they can create / edit pages on their site. Marcus Sheridan Tip: Blog about the problems and complaints with the products and/or services you provide. Tip 2: Keep the sales pitch on your website and use your blog to teach people.
All of the speakers were very interesting to listen to, but if I had to hand out an enthusiasm award it would go to, "Marcus Sheridan"
Give Your Audience the Content They Crave
The speaker, Paul Roetzer, quickly went over several strategies to Content Marketing.
New information for me, was in order to understand your customers better, take a look at the editorial calendar in magazines, trade journals... in your clients industry to see what topics are most likely important to your customers. The editorial calendar is created by people that have a lot of insight into your clients needs.
Taking that same approach, when you are writing content for your website, create your own editorial calendar. And take it a step further and create abstracts for each of your writing topics.
The big decision when getting content on your site, is how to do it. Do you outsource it? Do you do it internally? Doing it internally will require time, but you can draw on all the resources of your company from marketing, sales, executives, and the people in the guts of your operations - the worker bees in the operations department.
When outsourcing your content, it can get expensive. Traditionally content writing was a dollar a word, so for an average 500 word blog post - it could cost $500.00 at that rate. Currently outsourced content writing is like the wild west. There are new companies that desperately want the content writing business and they slash their prices in an effort to grab clients. You also have something called the "Content Flood" which is a group of editors, copywriters..., that are hired at a penny a word to create content on specific topics. While this content can rank well, it is usually not well written, and is what you get at a penny a word.
Regardless of whether you have your content written internally or you outsource it, having an editor is absolutely necessary.
New information for me, was in order to understand your customers better, take a look at the editorial calendar in magazines, trade journals... in your clients industry to see what topics are most likely important to your customers. The editorial calendar is created by people that have a lot of insight into your clients needs.
Taking that same approach, when you are writing content for your website, create your own editorial calendar. And take it a step further and create abstracts for each of your writing topics.
The big decision when getting content on your site, is how to do it. Do you outsource it? Do you do it internally? Doing it internally will require time, but you can draw on all the resources of your company from marketing, sales, executives, and the people in the guts of your operations - the worker bees in the operations department.
When outsourcing your content, it can get expensive. Traditionally content writing was a dollar a word, so for an average 500 word blog post - it could cost $500.00 at that rate. Currently outsourced content writing is like the wild west. There are new companies that desperately want the content writing business and they slash their prices in an effort to grab clients. You also have something called the "Content Flood" which is a group of editors, copywriters..., that are hired at a penny a word to create content on specific topics. While this content can rank well, it is usually not well written, and is what you get at a penny a word.
Regardless of whether you have your content written internally or you outsource it, having an editor is absolutely necessary.
Where is Inbound Marketing Headed? Panel Session
We were lucky enough to have industry superstars available for an open question and answer session to discuss the future of inbound marketing. On the panel were David Meerman, Chris Brogan, Dharmesh Shah, and Ann Handley.
Question: What is the best way to measure ROI?
Dave's Response: When analytics just can't do it it's best to see your area of influence. How many followers do you have, who is talking about you, who is retweeting your posts?
Question: Is it best to keep content on your site or post it in other locations?
Ann's Response: Yes. It should be on both you need to give your content both wings and roots.
Question: What is more important volume or quality of content?
Brian's Response: Both. The more youdo the better you get kind of like running. You start off running 6 telephone polls one day, 8 telephone polls the next day, then you all of the sudden do 12 telephone polls one day when you really shouldn't but you saw a pretty girl and you didn't want her to see you stop running. He thinks the same way about blogging. He just wants a pretty girl to see his blog posts so he keeps posting.
Question: Should you sensor blog comments?
Panel Cumulative Responses: No don't sensor and don't moderate the comments. It can hinder good open conversations and discussions about the topics. If all comments are good people can lose trust in your site that it is being moderated. Brian jokingly recommended hiring people to hate you so you could build trust. If it is a good negative argument that gives another aspect of the topic consider promoting it on twitter or facebook because it can help build trust that you are open to other points of views other than your own.
Question: How should companies/people handle a username that was created while the person was at the company should the time come that they leave or are fired fromt he company?
Panel Cumulative Responses: Well they are followers not sales leads. It mainly depends on whether the username included a tie to the company and the nature in which it was used. The I vs. We decision. If the posts were primarily I oriented meaning "I think ...." then it should stay with the person. If they were primarily We oriented "We think...." then it should stay with the company. It would be much easier if a written agreement is written out prior to the departure or creation of the account to establish ownership of its influence.
Question: Should content be recycled or customized for use in different areas/websites?
Ann's Response: She thinks its good to have a presence everwhere but suggests tweeking the content.
Brian's Response: He hates autofeeding content to several places. He thinks that it disrepects your audience that follows you on several places. You definitely should change it or fluff it up a little before posting in new places.
Question: Should you block your competitors from following you on twitter or your blog?
Panel Cumulative Responses: Let them follow you. If you know it is them making a comment respond to their comment by thanking them for taking the time to follow your blog/twitter account. They shouldn't be able to get any type of trade secrets from your blog or twitter accounts anyway.
They ended up the Q & A session by letting the panel give some parting advice.
Brian: Be a leader not a follower.
Ann: With content, focus on quality to differentiate yourself not quantity.
David: Do what you love.
Dharmesh: Marketing is not just about leads it is about building and asset or a brand so it can be worth something someday.
Overall it was great to get all their different points of views and gave unique input to several industry quandaries.
Question: What is the best way to measure ROI?
Dave's Response: When analytics just can't do it it's best to see your area of influence. How many followers do you have, who is talking about you, who is retweeting your posts?
Question: Is it best to keep content on your site or post it in other locations?
Ann's Response: Yes. It should be on both you need to give your content both wings and roots.
Question: What is more important volume or quality of content?
Brian's Response: Both. The more youdo the better you get kind of like running. You start off running 6 telephone polls one day, 8 telephone polls the next day, then you all of the sudden do 12 telephone polls one day when you really shouldn't but you saw a pretty girl and you didn't want her to see you stop running. He thinks the same way about blogging. He just wants a pretty girl to see his blog posts so he keeps posting.
Question: Should you sensor blog comments?
Panel Cumulative Responses: No don't sensor and don't moderate the comments. It can hinder good open conversations and discussions about the topics. If all comments are good people can lose trust in your site that it is being moderated. Brian jokingly recommended hiring people to hate you so you could build trust. If it is a good negative argument that gives another aspect of the topic consider promoting it on twitter or facebook because it can help build trust that you are open to other points of views other than your own.
Question: How should companies/people handle a username that was created while the person was at the company should the time come that they leave or are fired fromt he company?
Panel Cumulative Responses: Well they are followers not sales leads. It mainly depends on whether the username included a tie to the company and the nature in which it was used. The I vs. We decision. If the posts were primarily I oriented meaning "I think ...." then it should stay with the person. If they were primarily We oriented "We think...." then it should stay with the company. It would be much easier if a written agreement is written out prior to the departure or creation of the account to establish ownership of its influence.
Question: Should content be recycled or customized for use in different areas/websites?
Ann's Response: She thinks its good to have a presence everwhere but suggests tweeking the content.
Brian's Response: He hates autofeeding content to several places. He thinks that it disrepects your audience that follows you on several places. You definitely should change it or fluff it up a little before posting in new places.
Question: Should you block your competitors from following you on twitter or your blog?
Panel Cumulative Responses: Let them follow you. If you know it is them making a comment respond to their comment by thanking them for taking the time to follow your blog/twitter account. They shouldn't be able to get any type of trade secrets from your blog or twitter accounts anyway.
They ended up the Q & A session by letting the panel give some parting advice.
Brian: Be a leader not a follower.
Ann: With content, focus on quality to differentiate yourself not quantity.
David: Do what you love.
Dharmesh: Marketing is not just about leads it is about building and asset or a brand so it can be worth something someday.
Overall it was great to get all their different points of views and gave unique input to several industry quandaries.
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