Truth be told, most blogs aren’t really optimized for marketing
effectiveness. Even more so, some blogs are absolute marketing machines,
but they at the same time fail to fully capitalize on that fact by not
being really optimized marketing-wise.
Blogs may be Web 2.0, but bloggers should not ignore some of the good
old internet direct marketing tactics that have been working for
marketers online almost for a decade or more.
Here are the absolute 101 basics you really shouldn’t ignore …
1. DON’T FORGET E-MAIL DELIVERY
Bloggers are often abandoning or completely ignoring e-mail as a tool to
deliver their content to their readers. As an RSS evangelist I
certainly believe in using RSS to get your content to the world, but
only as a supplement to e-mail delivery.
While RSS provides us with many unique benefits, it is yet to reach
mainstream adoption. Until it does, marketers and publishers should not
even consider abandoning e-mail delivery, or risk ignoring most of their
potential readership.
If you’re still wondering why you need e-mail, consider the potential
you might be wasting without it. Someone visits your blog, likes the
content and would like to be notified as new content of interest becomes
available, and he does not know what RSS is or even care.
If you fail
to capture his e-mail address and consent at that exact moment, he might
never again return to your site, either because he forgets about it or
because dozens of other sites capture his interest even before the next
day.
2. E-ZINE PUBLISHING IS STILL A MUST
Publishing a blog is not a replacement for an e-zine. If nothing else,
publish a weekly or monthly e-zine of your top blog posts, available in a
single easy-to-consume format.
Some simply do not have the time to watch your blog regularly and others
will only want to receive a quick summary to get only your best and
most crucial content. Publishing an e-mail e-zine will do that for you,
giving you the opportunity to communicate with the widest possible
long-term audience for your blog.
3. E-MAIL AND RSS SUBSCRIPTIONS
Providing e-mail (e-zine) and RSS subscriptions is important to the
success of any blog. But neither of these will do you much good if your
visitors don’t actually see them and if you don’t give them enough
incentive to subscribe.
Foremost, display your e-mail e-zine and RSS subscriptions information
at the top of your blog, instead of somewhere far down where no one will
see them.
And second, use enticing copy to get visitors to subscribe. Briefly
explain the benefits of subscribing, what kind of content they can
expect to receive, and also do not forget about your privacy disclaimer,
calming potential subscribers that you will never abuse their personal
information.
4. EXPLAIN RSS
Most internet users still do not know what RSS is or how to use it, and
consequently the RSS buttons on your blog mean absolutely nothing to
them.
To overcome this problem, create a special RSS presentation page and
link to it next to the RSS subscribe button. On that page explain:
- What RSS is
- How the visitor will benefit from using RSS
- Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)
- How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)
- How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds
- Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds
- Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds.
5. TOP CONTENT
If you update your blog frequently, your less recent top content keeps
being pushed down and down, where most of your blog readers will never
bother to look for it.
Overcome this frequent blog problem by creating a list of your top
posts, clearly displayed and available from each of your pages.
Depending on the topic you cover, you might want to place these
headlines as close to the top of your blog as possible, in order to
quickly entice your new visitors to start reading the best of what you
have to offer and then use this content to convert them to loyal readers
and subscribers.
6. THE HEADLINE
The site or blog headline will tell your visitors what to expect from
reading your blog and will answer their key question: “What’s in it for
me?”
Make sure that your blog headlines gives this reason and the story inviting enough for your readers to keep reading.
7. LEAD YOUR VISITORS TO YOUR MDA
MDA is the Most Desired Action you want your visitors to take on your
site, ranging from a subscription to your e-zine to requesting more
information about your services or ordering your product / getting more
information about it.
Your blog will be of great help in this area, but only if you actually
lead your visitors to this action. Putting this information in your menu
simply is not enough.
Experiment putting some copy for your MDA directly below each blog post
(on your permanent blog post archives pages) and also prominently in
your left- or right-hand columns.
If you’re providing multiple services or products, promote each of them next to the appropriate posts, based on post topics.
And yes, this is more important than having dozens of Google AdSense ads
on your blog … if you want to use your blog as part of your marketing
mix.
8. LOOK DIFFERENT
Blogs are usually not heavily designed and most of them look exactly the
same. While light design is
one of the positive sides of blogs, you should invest some effort in
making your blog stand-out visually.
Don’t cram it with design, but
still make sure it’s different than every other blog in the market.
9. USE YOUR OWN DOMAIN
Having a subdomain.typepad.com type sub-domain might be the easiest
choice, but don’t forget that your domain name is your permanent online
address and part of your online brand.
Consequently, invest a couple of dollars to get your own domain name, to
enforce your brand, as well as making it easier for your readers to
access your blog.
10. DON’T FORGET YOUR KEYWORDS
What keywords do you want your content and blog to be found under in the search engines?
Don’t forget to implement these keywords in the titles and body content
of your blog posts.
I’m not saying you should write your posts to please
the search engines, but at least keep them in mind and use them when
possible, without taking anything away from the actual content.
11. INTERACT WITH YOUR READERS
If you’re blogging for business, don’t forget about business oriented reader interaction.
Mainly, solicit questions from your readers, pertaining to your field of
expertise, and then respond to them via your blog.
Post interesting
client case studies. When you get a review, post it or link to it. And
so on…
12. BLOG SPECIFIC PROMOTIONAL TACTICS 101
a. Intensively market your RSS feeds
b. Ping the search engines and directories after you update your blog, using a free service such as http://www.pingomatic.com
13. DON’T FORGET ABOUT THE CONTENT
And of course, none of the above won’t make any difference at all if you
don’t provide high-quality, interesting and frequent content.
These 13 points are of course only the most basic stuff, but enough to help you get on the marketing optimization train.
