As an SEO focused company, we always encourage clients not only to have a corporate blog but to have a very specific strategy and purpose for that blog. It is common for companies to have a blog but never use them effectively, because let’s face it…who has the time to blog these days?! With a properly planned strategy behind a corporate blog, any company would want to MAKE the time and invest the resources.

The key highlights are as follows:

* A great corporate blog will enhance your brand voice
* Well written SEO focused blogs will drastically improve online visibility and website traffic
* A good blogging strategy will provide unique content for your website and to distribute across the web

10 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR GREAT BLOGGING PRACTICES

1. Choose good topics that are in line with your core industry: You blog will play a key role in “marketing” so you want to use it as a vehicle for showing clients and potential clients that you are an expert in your field. Use enticing titles the encourage the reader to not skip over this “valuable information”. Some good tips are to use “how to’s” or lists such as 9 Things That SEO Clients Must Know. A blog can be the best way to consistently add great new content to your company website so don’t just write for the sake of writing…have a plan.

2. That plan can come in the form of an editorial calendar: An editorial calendar will simply give you a way to organize what your are going to write about and when. Develop a list of topics you want to address and put them in an order that makes sense. Consider making some topics a two or three part series to keep people coming back. If you are going to have multiple people contributing to the blog, assign people dates that they should post articles so you can have a steady stream of great content which you can also distribute across the web (more on this later).

3. Provide value for your readers: The more valuable the information the greater the opportunity you will have for it to become viral, for people to link to you, and for readers to share it with others. Remember, this is one of your best opportunities to prove that you are en expert in your field which builds brand integrity and trust.

4. Have a diverse group of contributors: While it is important to maintain a concise “voice” it is still a good practice to leverage many different people from within your organization. You will have people with different levels of knowledge on varying topics to make good use of your team!

5. Use blog writing best practices: (1) use enticing titles; (2) provide the conclusion or highlights at the beginning so readers don’t have to wait for the punch line; (3) use bullet points, bolding, and sub-headers in areas that you want to stand out so readers can quickly scan for content; (4) avoid having a long wall of content without breaking it up, using images or videos, or a “Continue Reading” link (as shown in the image example below); (5) keep your SEO keyword strategy in mind when writing your titles and content.

BLOGS

6. Incorporate your blog strategy with your SEO strategy: As mentioned above, the blog is the best way to continually add unique keyword focused content to your website. Each new article is a new page of content that can be indexed and ranked by Google.

7. Provide links when it is appropriate: When referencing content from others be sure to give credit and provide a link to their web pages or content. The more you follow good practices like this and people notice, the more likely it will be that others return the favor.

8. Invite interaction and be conversational: A blog is not a newspaper article and still plays a social media type of role so you want to use it as a vehicle for interaction. Ask questions and encourage others to respond with their thoughts and ideas…or even disagreements.

9. Use images and video: Images will of course enhance the visual appeal of the blog and give uses something that stands out. Video is a great addition to any blog. You can even create a separate blog just for your videos such as our Internet marketing video blog.

10. Provide the tools for your blog to become viral: Use social bookmarking links, social bookmarking status badges, embed codes, RSS feeds, or even a “retweet” function. All of these can easily be plugged into most blog platforms. We always recommend WordPress.

Stay tuned for more articles on marketing strategies to build your brand for 2011. As always, if you have any questions or feel that we can help you attain your goals – please contact us at 860-882-7268 or info@imagineteknologies.com.

Published On: November 28th, 2010 / Categories: Blogging, Content Marketing, Creative, PR, Social Media / Tags: , , , /

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