Blog Marketing

Why is this important? ▪ ▪ It gives constantly updated and fresh content on your site thus bringing in greater organic search traffic. ▪ ▪ Blogs are sharable content that can be integrated with social media, creating social signals for your site. ▪ ▪ You become an authority in your industry and earn the trust of your site visitors. ▪ ▪ Content marketing is the fastest way of building your brand via organic search. ▪ ▪ You can share useful information about your products/services via your blog, instead of crowding that information on your website’s sales page.

Step #1: Host Your Blog on Your Main Website Ask your web developer to set up your blog in a subdirectory of your business website, for example, www.yourdomain.com/blog. TIP: Add a Recent Blog Post section on the home page of your website which shows snippets of the recent blog posts.

Step #2: Produce Quality Content Produce quality content for your blog in the following ways: ▪ ▪ Hire authors with widespread industry knowledge. ▪ ▪ Invite guest bloggers to write on your blog. We will discuss more about this in our next email. ▪ ▪ Create content that shares valuable information. Blog ideas that attract readers are things like How-to’s, Pro Tips, Free Tools, Myths and Facts, Did You Know, Lists, Steps (like this one), Top 10, DIY and so on. ▪ ▪ Post blogs written on case studies, as this builds credibility for your company. ▪ ▪ Proof read the blog several times for spelling and grammar mistakes. TIP: Blog consistently. An active blog page ensures quick indexing of new blogs.

Step #3: Use rel=author Markup Build an authorship by associating your articles with your Google+ profile. Google can collect social signals from its own social media product (Google+) and this can bring about a hypothetical 'author rank' that in all possibility can build authority to authored content in future. Google used to show the author's photograph in its search snippets, as shown below. It is not the case anymore ever since Google removed author credentials from its search snippets.

Sample Search Result with the Rel=author Markup

But you can always add the rel=author tag to your blog posts by following the steps below: ▪ ▪ The author of your blog (which may be you) must have a personal account on Google+. ▪ ▪ Next go to the Google+ Profile page. ▪ ▪ Click Edit Profile. ▪ ▪ Scroll down on the page and Click Contributor to. ▪ ▪ Click Add Custom Link. ▪ ▪ Enter the name of the blog page and the blog URL. ▪ ▪ Click Save. ▪ ▪ Click Done Editing on the top blue bar of the page. ▪ ▪ Copy the page URL at the top, as shown in the example below:

Sample Google+ Page URL

Alternatively, you can also link to the author's Google+ profile in the author byline, if in case your blog has multiple authors. ▪ ▪ At the bottom of the blog in the author’s bio, create a hyperlink to the author’s Google+ profile, for example, Greg Sterling on Google+. ▪ ▪ Add the rel=author attribute to the anchor tag of the hyperlinked profile, as shown below:

You may also link the blog post to individual Author Bio Pages, as shown in the example below:

An Example for a Blog Hyperlinked to Individual Author Bio Page

▪ ▪ In this case, you would have to add a rel=me tag to the anchor tag and connect it to the Author bio page, as shown in the example below:

▪ ▪ Then on the author bio page, use the rel=author tag and link the Author’s name to his/her Google+ profile page, as shown earlier for single authors.

Step #4: Add Social Share Buttons Add Social Share buttons to your blog page. The buttons can be placed on the top or bottom of the blog or as a floating bar that moves as you scroll the page. Make sure to add share buttons that show the number of times the content has been shared, as shown below:

Social Share Buttons that Display the Number of Shares

The following are some free tools and plugins for adding these social share buttons: ▪ ▪ AddThis ▪ ▪ ShareThis ▪ ▪ Sharexy ▪ ▪ Janrain ▪ ▪ Sharre

Step #5: Promote on Your Brand's Social Media Pages You need to have brand pages on popular social media sites, such as: ▪ ▪ Facebook ▪ ▪ Twitter ▪ ▪ Google+ ▪ ▪ Pinterest ▪ ▪ LinkedIn On each of these social media profiles share a link to your blog content.

Step #6: Email Marketing ▪ ▪ Add a Call-to-Action button on your blog page to Subscribe via email, as shown below:

Example for a Call-to-Action to Subscribe via Email

▪ ▪ Send email newsletters of your blog to your subscribers. Some popular Email Marketing Services are as follows: ▪ ▪ iContact ▪ ▪ MailChimp ▪ ▪ BenchMarkEmail ▪ ▪ MadMimi ▪ ▪ VerticalResponse ▪ ▪ ConstantContact TIP: If you use Gmail for your business emails, you can make use of a WiseStamp Email Signature that includes your blog feeds.

Step #7: Submit to Blog Directories To get greater visibility for your blogs, submit it to blog directories. A list of blog directories with their PageRank is given below: Blog Directories: Ontoplist – PR: 6 (RSS included) (free listing requires you to include their badge on your site) Alltop – PR: 6 (Free) BestoftheWeb – PR: 6 Regator – PR: 5 (Free) Liquida – PR: 5 Globeofblogs – PR: 5 (Free) Blogdigger – PR: 5 (Free) Blogcatalog – PR: 5 Bloggeries – PR: 5 NOTE: When submitting your blog, make sure you choose the right category so that all your links source from your niche and look natural. If you hire someone to do the submissions for you, make sure they are doing it manually and not with the help of a submitting software.

Step #8: Submit RSS Feed to RSS Feed Directories To further enhance the indexing of your blogs and pass updated blog posts automatically onto various sites on the web, you need to submit your blog's RSS feed to RSS feed directories. Some of the RSS feed directories are listed below: Free Sites: Pulse Flipboard Superfeedr Social Buzz Club Twingly Fuelmyblog Feedplex Plazoo FeedShark Boing Boing All Feeds IceRocket Feedage FeedCat FeedAgg All For Blog Blogarama Blogs Collection Chordata Codango Crayon RSS Feeds Newz Alert Ngoid Red Tram RSS Buffet RSS Micro Swoogle Paid Sites: Wingee

Step #9: Submit to Social Bookmarking sites Submit your blog to social bookmarking sites, as listed below: ▪ ▪ Digg – PR: 8 (Free) ▪ ▪ Reddit – PR: 8 (Free) ▪ ▪ StumbleUpon – PR: 8 (Free) ▪ ▪ Tumblr – PR: 8 (Free) ▪ ▪ Delicious – PR: 8 (Free)

Resources for Further Learning: ▪ ▪ Blog Article: 9 Unique Ways To Promote Your Blog On Social Media ▪ ▪ Blog Article: Blogging for SEO ▪ ▪ Infographic: How To Promote the RSS Feed of Your WordPress Blog

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