Blog Comment Maintenance

One of the beauties of a blog is that it provides user interaction.  One of the curses of a blog is that it subjects you to “user” interaction.  Comments are a great way to get feedback and have a conversation with your readers but there will be . . . SPAM.  Maintaining blog comments is vital to making it a dynamic communication tool.

So let’s deal with the positive aspect first, reader comments.  Trainers, consultants, and professional coaches can frequently write about something that not everyone will agree with.  Whether the comments are supportive or critical, it is always a good sign if your readers are taking time to comment on what’s written.  It’s the most direct indication that your blog is connecting with readers.

But comments only fill in one side of the conversation.  Many bloggers treat comments as the “reader review” section.  It has the potential for much more.  If a reader has a question or needs clarification, write a comment that provides the information they need.  If a reader criticizes a point in the article, either acknowledge the criticism or provide follow up clarification.  The point is whether good or bad, don’t ignore your readers.

Now for the negative aspect of comments, SPAM.  SPAM is unavoidable.  There are ways of minimizing it like captcha apps or more in depth SPAM tools like the one I use, SPAM Karma.  However, these are just a first line of defense that will miss some of the craftier comment bots.  The ultimate decision on what comments get approved and what comments get marked as SPAM comes down to the blogger.

We’ll tend to give the commenter the benefit of the doubt.  If there’s a chance that the comment is truly from a person then we approve it.  If you review some of our past posts, you’ll see examples of comments that are likely from a bot, but we’d rather allow a few bits of SPAM rather than mistakenly deleting a reader comment.  Here are our guidelines for approving or denying comments

  • Is it written properly?  Some misspelled words or inarticulate grammar is OK but if it’s so poorly written that a viable point is hard to decipher then it gets rejected.
  • Does it have a message that’s on point?  We just deleted a comment from a “reader” about becoming a creative writing teacher.  Nothing wrong with creative writing but it had nothing to do with the article on SEO.  If it doesn’t relate to the topic then it gets rejected.
  • Is it overly promotional of a product or service?  A lot of comments will come with hyperlinks in the comment or user name.  It’s a ploy by SPAM bots to generate a lot of incoming links to their site.  If we see comments that read as ads, it gets rejected.

Maintaining your comments section by replying to reader comments and scrubbing SPAM shows readers that you intend to have a dialogue with those that engage with you.  This interaction allows for more and better insights about your field of expertise and a feeling of community with your readers.

Blog Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Considerations

One of the most powerful benefits for a blog is its SEO capabilities.  Every single post can provide content to the search engines on a topic catered to your product or service.  This is extremely valuable to trainers, consultants, and professional coaches because it provides a platform to illustrate their knowledge and how they help clients.  However, a plan needs put in place so that the right content is being fed to search engines.  Setting desirable keywords and page structure is critical to maximizing the SEO benefits.

Keywords are phrases that you’d want to rank highly on search engines for.  Make that list and have it handy.  The more you can work those phrases into your articles the better.  Using those keywords in titles or links can add an extra boost to the importance search engines place on it.

A word of warning not to get carried away.  Using the same phrase every other sentence is annoying to read and first and foremost we want to ensure that the posts are valuable to our readers.  Also don’t try to cover every topic all at once.  For instance, in my case, if I write a post about blogging, I shouldn’t be looking to sprinkle in a lot of email marketing keywords.  Mix in the appropriate phrases where it makes sense but don’t force it.

After a post is written with identified keywords, an often overlooked aspect of blogging is incorporating search engine optimization features.  Truly, there is no reason to skip it as there are plugins for blogging platforms that make it easier than ever.  For wordpress, I use All in One SEO Pack  but if you are less familiar with SEO, YOAST provides a visual dashboard to rank how well the page is set up and provides suggestions to improve.

Whatever plugin you use there are 4 major areas that should be filled in.

The first is a category.  These are your overarching topics for the blog.  Using categories serves as a general keyword and on most templates will function as a navigation link that readers can use to sort articles.   Assign a category to every post, nothing should be left on the default “undefined”.

The second is tags.  Every keyword or phrase that is in the article should be tagged in your blog.  This insures that the code includes those keywords directly to the search engine so that it’s sure to be incorporated into the listing.

The third is URL name.  It’s more advantageous to have the URL include the title and/or keywords rather than be a random string of numbers, which is usually the default setting.  Most plugins will do this automatically or let you define it manually.

The fourth is a title tag.  This is an unseen section of the site but very important for search engines.  Most plugins will use the title by default but can usually be modified.  The title is a good start but if you can work in a couple extra keywords here, so much the better.

SEO is often a part of blogging that trainers, consultant, and professional coaches struggle with but it doesn’t have to be daunting.  Once you set up the tools for SEO it’s just the follow up step to writing an article.  The advantage being that it will be visible to more people via search engine and drive targeted traffic to your site.

Article Schedule with Social/Email Integration

Many times with online marketing simply completing the tasks is the most difficult aspect of doing it.  So why not kill a few birds with one stone?  A blog’s posting schedule can be synced with email marketing and social media marketing programs to cover all the channels at once.

The simplest way of doing this is by making your blog your central content hub.  Once you have an article ready for posting you can create an email marketing message that features that article.  Provide a teaser for the content and then link back to the blog.  In this way, the content is not just a blog post but also an email marketing communication.

Same principle applies to social media.  Once a blog posting is live it can be featured on all your social media profiles.  Feature the title or a short teaser and a link back to the blog.  Again the content serves as a blog post but also as a social profile feeder.

Most online marketing campaigns for trainers, consultants, and professional coaches is based around valuable content and the blog serves as the central place for that content.

Once you have your schedule in place and are using the content for multiple marketing channels, you can focus on streamlining the process further.  There are a lot of automated tools to automatically feed your blog to social media channels.  Some are integrated right into the blogging platform, others can pull new blog posts from the blog.  Many email marketing platforms have social media  integration so your email subject line can be used as a social media post and eliminate the need to feed the information separately.

When you duplicate where the blog content is being used, it exponentially adds to the value of the blog because the content for the blog has several channels to engage prospects.

Blog Custom Layout

Is your business the same as every other business?  Every trainer, consultant, and professional coach I work with would suggest it isn’t.  They work in specific geographies, on specific topics for specific industries.  So your blog shouldn’t look just like other blogs. Customize your layout to sync your blog with your website, social media, and/or email marketing.

The first objection I always hear to this is, “I don’t have a budget/expertise to custom develop a blog.”  Customizing a layout isn’t about reinventing the technology.  Use what’s available.  Blogging platforms can be custom designed.  You don’t even necessarily have to start from scratch with the layout.  There are thousands of templates that can be installed on platforms like wordpress.

The caution is stopping there.  Many people install a template, look it over, and say, “The blogs ready to roll.”  That’s fine for a personal blog that’s unlikely to be seen by anyone but the author.  It’s not up to professional standards for trainers, consultants, and professional coaches.  You can use the template as a guide but shouldn’t leave it as your end design.  At minimum your logo, photo, or identifying marks should be added.  In most cases, design tweaks will need made to match the layout up with your other materials.  Things like contact information and interlinking between your communication channels (social media) should be added.

In a perfect world, the blog is part of the website.  It’s always much easier for users to find and use your blog if it’s integrated with the website.  As an added bonus, it makes all the content of your website, including calls to action, immediately available to people that visit the blog.

If it’s not immediately feasible to host the blog directly on your website you can use a third party hosting platform (i.e. wordpress.com).  This will allow you to do the required customization but won’t be integrated with the website.  That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be interlinked.  If you have a blog hosted on a third party site then it requires more linking to communication channels (social media and the website) so that visitors have easy access to your information.

Your blog should look like it belongs to you.  If you’re going to the trouble of creating the content, invest the time in getting full credit for it.  Over time, the customized design provides a visual cue to readers that content with your layout are credible. It’s an old branding stand by but one that applies to the new digital world as well.

Have a Business Blog? Make it Count.

I recently had someone ask me, “Aren’t blogs dead?”.  No, they are alive and kicking, they’ve just gone through a metamorphosis. Ratherthan being the single stop for readers, blogs can serve as bait.  The content can be distributed across many channels to lure people to the blog and by extension, your website. When done consistently and with quality it’s a relaible way to generate leads.

A blog can be a wonderful tool to promote your business and give people an ongoing reason to visit your site.  However, there is a tendency with business blogs to set them up quickly without having a plan in place for making the most of it.  This can be especially true for trainers, consultants, and professional coaches.  Below is a list of things that you should have a plan for:

We’ll cover each in subsequent posts . . .

B-to-B Online Marketing Around the Holidays

As the holiday season grows closer, many of us associate it with the busiest shopping season of the year.  But for B-to-B the inverse is often true.   While consumer shopping spikes business to business transactions often lag.  Consultants, trainers, and professional coaches need to modify some of their online marketing plans to account for the decreased activity without abandoning the time period as a lost cause.

There are two bad plans for your B-to-B marketing over the holiday period (late November through the early part of January in the US).

The first is pretending the time of year does not matter.  While you’ll want to schedule any informative content that you regularly provide, sales or offer emails are unlikely to convert well.  For example, if you run a monthly event to find new opportunities, it’s likely that registrations will suffer.  Instead of forcing your regular events an alternative “gift” incentive might be more appropriate.  For example, offer a free whitepaper download or training webinar as a thank you to people that subscribe to your email newsletter.  Make the offer simple to redeem.  Prospects don’t even need to leave their office to take advantage of either example.  The holiday period is a challenging time to get people to take advantage of more elaborate or expensive offerings, so find ways of providing simple value add incentives.

The second bad plan is giving up the holidays as a lost cause.  This plan abandons regular communications because “no one’s paying attention now.”  Your regular informative emails or newsletters are a given.  If you publish monthly or bi-weekly, then you need to meet that expectation.  True, rates will likely be somewhat lower but being consistent with your offer assures your audiences that you will deliver on your commitment.  Furthermore, this time frame is not a total lost cause for B-to-B.  Some businesses might have put off a decision until the end of the year.  If their budgeting cycle will reset, they might be primed to close a deal with a consultant, trainer, or professional coach.  Keeping your online marketing churning through this time period provides an opportunity to stay top of mind with prospects and clients.

Take the holidays into account for your online and email marketing.  It’s not the boom time that consumer businesses experience but it can be fruitful none the less.

When Scheduling Goes Bad

Having automated processes in place that allow you to pre-schedule email or social media messages are a great tool.  However, the people behind the tools always need to be aware of those sends and make judgment calls in extenuating circumstances.

As an example, Hurricane Sandy is hitting the east coast hard this morning.  Many businesses are closed as people rightly look after their welfare and the welfare of their loved ones.  Sending out an advertisement or an invitation to an event today is likely to be ignored or ill-received.  However, there are plenty of automated messages that will go out today because they were pre-scheduled or out-of-town marketers won’t be aware of local circumstances.

After working on a communication and crafting the message, scheduling is a good way to ensure it is sent at an ideal time.  However, marketers need to remember that extenuating circumstances will come up and send schedules should be modified in these cases.

It’s not always practical as emergencies can rise without warning.  But in situations where there is a looming threat (like a hurricane) then delaying sends until after the threat has passed is advisable. 

Best wishes to the East coast cities hit by Sandy and stay safe.

When Do I need Online Marketing Help?

One of the most challenging questions for trainers, consultants, and professional coaches in regards to online and email marketing is knowing when they need to hire outside help.  There’s not a hard and fast rule but there are three guidelines of when to look for help:

  1. Don’t Have Time – This is an easy issue to identify.  If you or your staff does not have time to consistently do the online marketing activities, then hire outside help that will stay on top of it.  Online marketing typically isn’t effective when done sporadically.  If pieces of your marketing campaign aren’t getting done because it’s being forgotten or postponed, get some help.
  2. Lacking Quality – This is a guideline that’s harder to define as standards for quality can be subjective.  Sometimes this can be solved by upgrading you or your staff’s skills.  This is often the case if the person responsible for your online marketing wants to do the work but struggles. Before investing time, money, and/or energy into upgrading a skill set, make sure that you or your staff member is close enough to a professional quality to make the investment worthwhile.  Often times, if a person has a poor aptitude for online marketing, trying to train them is just a frustration that still results in sub-par quality.As a general rule if you find that the quality of the content comes off as unprofessional or get feedback that others do, then the person producing the work needs to improve the product or outside help needs brought in. An online campaign that looks home grown because the quality is lacking can often do more harm than good.
  3. No Results – An online campaign should produce results in either business leads or sales.  How many leads or sales depends on the campaign but some results should exist.  If you are producing high quality communications on a regular basis but getting nothing from it than the approach is probably flawed.  This can be the most difficult problem to solve and often warrants hiring outside help.

Trainers, consultants, and professional coaches can produce quality online marketing campaigns on their own but it takes effort and dedication.  If you find that you aren’t meeting the guidelines above, then it might be worth hiring outside help and invest those efforts elsewhere.

If you decide to hire outside help here are some things to look for . . .

Web Marketing: Stay Up To Date

Liking an idea and executing it are two very different things.  Many consultant, trainers, and professional coaches want to leverage their knowledge into an online marketing campaign but struggle to put it together.  This is especially true if they see or hear an idea they like but don’t think through steps for executing and maintaining the campaign.  Online marketing campaigns are timely and if there’s no sustainability plan then the effort can cause more harm than good.

The most common example of this is an online blog.  Many consultants, trainers, and professional coaches will see a blog they like and then haphazardly set up a blog of their own.  This frequently is thrown up on a blog service website.  Those a little more dedicated might find suitable templates, customize a layout, and/or have the blog set up on their site.  This shotgun approach typically creates subpar results.  The blog can come off as disjointed or may never be properly promoted at all.

Creating content consistently takes time and if there isn’t an agreed upon system for creating the content then the blog will stagnate.  This is the most common fate of hastily done blogs and reflects poorly on the individual or company who created it.  It’s a clear sign that projects go unfinished if a blog is found stagnant.  Our blog is an example that it takes commitment to maintain.  Though we’d like to post more regularly we are committed to a new post at least once every other week and maintain that schedule regardless of other demands on our time.  At minimum, if you have a blog and find that it’s not being updated; remove it from your site.

A blog is just an example of how web marketing needs maintained.  Other common offenders are social media pages or news/press release sections of the site.  If you identify an idea or channel you’d like to use, then a sustainability plan should be top priority.  An even higher priority than design or technical details because if the content isn’t current, then it won’t generate results.  Keep up to date with your online campaigns so they are relevant and add new touch points with clients and potential clients.

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