Full Service Ad Agency

• Understand the different markets that are available on the various social networking sites.
   
• Understand the varieties of tactics that can be employed to best communicate with your target audience on those social sites.
   
• Create content to publish on the social sites.
   
• Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
   
• Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

• While existing newsletter strategies already in place for existing customers is still important to a degree, the ability to develop new social networking strategies is equally important.
   
• Don't forget, the percentage of the population that regularly visits Facebook is the same as the percentage of your customers that are on Facebook, as well.
   
• If your customers are on Facebook, you need to reach them there.

• Nearly 2700 websites were viewed, with an average visit of 57 seconds per site.
   
• One hour and 53 minutes is spent on Google
   
• Two hours and 40 minutes on AOL (which could be considered the first social networking venue)
   
• Three hours and 8 minutes on Yahoo (including their popular email service)
   
• And a whopping five hours and 25 minutes on Facebook, an 82% increase over the same time a year earlier. And their popularity just keeps growing.
  • As of February 2010, the average time spent on Facebook was up to more than seven hours per month.
  • The average user spent more time on Facebook than on Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Microsoft, Wikipedia and Amazon combined.
     

• You need to stay abreast of the ever-changing landscape of the segmented target markets that are using, or not using any longer, particular social networking sites.
   
• You should include your social networking site information on your offline marketing materials, including TV, radio, and especially print advertising. The mere presence of those Facebook and Twitter logos on your website says something about you to your audience.
   
• Create content to publish on the social sites.
   
• Set up and develop your blogging strategy. We can even write expert content for you as ghost bloggers.
   
• Establish an email marketing campaign as part of your social networking.

Some headlines convey a potential benefit; others convey a problem. Gappers, though, says advertising maven Michel Fortin, make people want to close the gap between the two, so they keep reading.  Headlines, he adds, can be newsy, sensational, controversial, intriguing, or inspiring, but "all that matters is that headlines get readers to keep reading".
In fact, Fortin compares headlines to resumes, which are not meant to land a job, but to land an interview.  "Headlines are the ads for the ad copy," he teaches.

Two Fortin tips on "gappers" are excellent advice for business bloggers, I find:

• Adding a negative situation to the headline is effective, because it appeals to more dominant emotions of readers.  It's more powerful, Fortin tells plastic surgeons, to ask, "Suffering from wrinkles?" than "Do you have wrinkles?" Rather than saying "Lose 40 pounds in 6 weeks!", it would be more powerful to say "Shed 40 pounds of disease-causing fat in just 6 weeks!"

In other words, think of a negative situation that is now present, or one that will be without your product or service, and write your headline about it.  That draws readers into the copy of the blog post, where you explain how they can close the gap between the bad situation and the solution. 

• Start the headline with a verb, painting as vivid a picture as possible, advises Fortin.  "Zoom Past the Confusion" is a much better headline than "Get More Clarity!"  Rather than saying "Poor Fiscal Management Leads to Financial Woes", he says, try "Don't Let Poor Fiscal Management Suck Money From Your Bottom Line!".

As a professional ghost blogger and blogging trainer, I think Fortin's onto something with the "gapper" idea.  After all, SEO and keyword phrases get searchers to your blog.  The first thing they see on the Google (or Bing, etc.) page is - your title. Now you've got to pass readers' "So what? What's In It For Me?" test. 

Headlines that make people want to close the gap between:

• Where they are & where they would like to be
• The problem & the solution
• The puzzle or dilemma & the answer

 - those are gappers!

(With profuse apologies to the late President Reagan, each time you write a blog, tell yourself - this one's for the Gapper!)

Just as shoppers are presented with lots of choices while browsing at the mall, Internet browsers have lots of choices about which sites to "enter".  If your "store window" doesn't do it for them, they'll be quickly moving on to your neighbors' stores.  That's why advertising blogger Michel Fortin stresses the importance of headlines in ads and in business blogs.

So, OK, you get them to come on in and check out your blog. What keeps those "shoppers" from turning around and walking right back out into the mall?  Your blog content. Obviously, It's got to be on the mark - recent, relevant, and on point with whatever motivated the search.  We've all been there, done that - or gone away and not done that, as the case may be!

I think the Egg McMuffin story illustrates how testimonials in your blog can make the difference between engaging online readers - or losing them before you have the chance to even start the conversation.  Mental Floss Magazine's "Egg McMuffin: Born of McLovin'" explains that back in 1972, Herb Peterson, who ran a McDonald's in Santa Barbara, California, loved eggs Benedict.  Peterson created the Egg McMuffin (grilled Canadian bacon on a steamed egg over a slice of American cheese squeezed into an English muffin) and got scolded for serving it without authorization from McDonald's executives. Even McDonald's founder Ray Kroc thought the idea was crazy.

(Here's the part I think is so relevant for bloggers:
"But, when Kroc saw how much customers liked the new sandwich he changed his mind."

In other words, stories about customer satisfaction turned around the skeptical attitude of the executive nay-sayers. That's precisely the reason it's so important to use customer satisfaction stories as content for your business blog. No ad copy, no claims, no statistics can ever wield the power of "people just like them" praising the product or service.

Testimonials go a long way in answering the five why's:

• Why this reader (is a good fit for your product or service)?
• Why you the business owner?
• Why this offer?
• Why now?
• Why this price? 

Whatever your "Egg McMuffin" is, be sure to showcase its fans in your blog!

Blogs do it better, I realized all over again while reading my Home and Away magazine from AAA Hoosier Motor Club.  AAA Vice President Suzanne DeCelles' article, "Travel Beyond the Internet" is what college English teachers call an "argument paper", telling the professional travel agent's side of the do-it-yourself-travel story.

Could a traditional corporate website bring forth the "argument" in favor of doing business with a particular company as compared to its competitors? Sure, but hardly in as chatty and person-to-person tone, I don't suppose, as a blog post.

Actually, the DeCellis magazine article might easily be turned into several blog posts, with each one focused on a different aspect of the answer to the frequently-asked question:

 "Why use a travel agent when Web searches offer a myriad of options  for vacation planning with just a quick click?"

            
Why you?
Your blog offers the chance to present your expertise, your unique approach to your field and the business principles you live by.

""Instant access to detailed information about any hotel, resort, or vacation or cruise destination is only one facet of the research an experienced travel agent conducts," explains Decellis.

Story board
Your blog offers the chance for you to tell your story, or to allow a customer to tell a story about you in the form of a testimonial.  As Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware points out, people like to do business with people they know. Your blog lets them get to know you.

"A few years ago," Suzanne DeCellis relates, "a travel advertisement featured two hotels, both listed as first class.  One was dilapidated, the other rustic and quaint." The pictures were somewhat inconclusive.  The caption: "Only your travel agent knows how rustic a property should be!"

Your company website can offer relevant and engaging information to online searchers.  Your blog is more in the Paul Harvey camp, letting searchers in on the "rest of the story"!

 

"Making things happen, meaning sales, web hits, engagements, etc. is not just a function of how many people you reach; it's also a function of how many times you reach them, and how much you spend reaching them,". Bryan Farrish explains to speakers trying to get radio interviews.

The idea of blogging for business is an almost exact parallel to Farrish's idea about radio interviews: You want to hit as many people as possible, several times, and do so for the least amount of money as possible, he says. In reaching these goals, he goes on to say, you're going to have advantages with small stations in smaller markets.

Each one of the advantages Farrish mentions relative to radio fits for blogging, I found…

• Most listeners need to hear something several times before they act.  (Since smaller stations are more likely to ask guest back, you'll have several "shots" at your audience). With short, focused blog posts appearing with frequency, you're more likely to not only "win search", but gain repeated opportunities to spread your message. Through links and archives, your Individual readers are easily able get back to earlier posts, or navigate to other sources you've found.
  
• Small stations are more likely to put you on their website, plus announce your website during the interview, Farrish tells speakers. Readers are more likely to leave comments on your blog rather than communicate with you through a traditional website.  Its simple for interested readers to sign up for an RSS feed to your blog, and even list it on their blog roll. Traditional websites are not flexible - or small - enough to move with ease among online conversations.
   
• With smaller radio stations, you'll reach a larger demographic of listeners (with fewer stations in small cities, each station has a broader spectrum of people listening to each). With blogs, the reach is basically unlimited!
   
• Smaller stations' advertising rates are less. You can't get lower advertising rates than the zero space-cost for blogs!
  
  When you think about it, smaller might be a lot better for both radio stations and blogs!
         
   

"White noise", produced by combining different frequencies, can be used to drown out or mask distracting sounds. Students use white noise machines with headphones to help them concentrate on homework; hotels provide white noise machines to help guests fall asleep. White noise devices are used in psychiatrists' waiting rooms to protect patents' privacy.

Bloggers for business need help drowning out all the "noise" created by their competitors. Sleep Well Baby white noise machines, for example, needed to "drown out" the "noise" of 1,599,000 competitive websites made in order to appear on Page 1 of Google (Sleepwellbaby.com ranked #1 on Page 1 the day this post was composed).

In fact, business blogs are favorably positioned to eclipse noise made by both traditional websites and pay-per-click online advertising.

Website "noise":

• Frequency:
  Since search engine algorithms appear to assign "value" (what I like to call "indexing Brownie points") to pages that are frequently updated, traditional websites simply can't compete with the much more frequently changing content of blogs.
   
• Keyword phrase use:
  A well-designed website page might be very keyword-rich.  Still, there's no way a website can complete with the cumulative use of keyword phrases in blog posts over weeks, months, and years.

Pay-Per-Click Ads:

The third way (besides blogging and websites) to use search as an acquisition tool is buying "AdWords" in the hopes of ranking among the top results for a percentage of words purchased. (Every time a searcher clicks on your listing, you pay a fee, hence the Pay-per-click name.)  According to the Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Study, PPC users typically target as many as a thousand keywords as compared to the couple of dozen bloggers use to win search.


White noise is never noise for its own sake. The real goal in using a white noise machine might be better concentration on homework, better sleep, greater privacy. In much the same way, when bloggers for business use white noise tactics, it's never for SEO's own sake.  Drowning out competitors' "white noise" can help business owners and online searchers focus on the conversation at hand, matching up the products and services with precisely the people who need them! 

Advertising maven Donny Deutsch looks for the human, emotional connection between a product and its audience. "The market is not an abstract entity," says Deutsch, but "real people with real desires and needs". Pointing to the "great fiasco" of the New Coke, Deutsch says the product failed because it was attempting to solve a problem that didn't exist.

On the other hand, he points out, "every revolutionary idea predates the public awareness of a need… Every visionary's dilemma is convincing people that they needed something they didn't know they needed."

As a professional ghost blogger for business, I realize blog marketing doesn't attempt to create a new market where one doesn't now exist at all.  On the contrary, blogging is "pull marketing", designed to attract searchers who have already identified their own need for a particular product or service. 

That is not to say that, through your blog posts, you can't introduce readers to a solution they hadn't known was an option for them. In fact, because an effective blog is part of an ongoing conversation (as compared with the more static content on traditional websites), there is the chance to introduce your unique approach to satisfying customers' needs.

No matter whether you're using traditional push marketing (mailers, ads, commercials, etc.) or blogging, at the end of the day, as Donny Deutsch emphasizes, "if a product doesn't meet a need, all the marketing in the world can't sell it." On the other hand, he points out, "some of the most successful businesses are new twists on old ideas".

Blog posts, I've found, need to be written for the customers of the right kind, the ones who need what you've got to offer. Your unique combination of

• Art (engaging content about your special approach to your field)
• Science (winning search through frequent posting of relevant content with strategic use of keyword phrases),

has gotten you "found" by your target audience. Now is when that human, emotional connection between the product or service and the audience Deutsch was talking about can begin!

"Start with a brief description of the news, then distinguish who announced it, not the other way around" is one of the 10 Essential Tips For Writing Press Releases.

Writing about the "what" before the "who" is good advice for blogging as well as for press releases.  The opening sentences of each blog post must make a clear connection between what the searcher needs and the "what" your business has to fill that need.

That means writing about them, and only then about you and your business. Describe the issue or problem to show you understand what brought the searcher to your site:

• Even with air blowing through the vents, your room still feels stuffy….
• With an important presentation coming up, John feels terrified….
• Dressing for a business interview is a matter of following three simple rules….

Once you've "hit the need on the head", your blog post can go on to describe your solution in the form of a product or service you offer.

Writing about the "what" can take the form of describing how readers will feel after using your product or service. The other day I heard the most wonderful Michigan.org radio ad that was designed to evoke listeners' feelings :

    When was the last time you stopped to taste an apple, not just eat it….
…the rich smell of pines in the morning
…the laughter of children coming off the lake
…the echo of the wooden deck under our bare feet…
…a place that remembers the taste of fresh ice cream dripping in the sun…

(www.Michigan.org won the Travel Industry Association's Mercury Award for best state tourism radio advertising campaign.)

Help readers begin reading each business blog post with the end in mind.  The details can follow. Make the connection through the "what", and the "who" will be sure to follow!

Just the other day, a business owner prospect, B. posed a question I'd heard many times before:

 If my website is already showing up at or near the top of Page One on Google
and Bing, what value would having a blog add to the mix?

This question of what value a blog might bring to a business is the sort to which stock answers rarely apply. As I've mentioned often in earlier Say It For You blog posts, business blogging must be considered a single tactic in an overall marketing strategy. At the same time, it's just the sort of question to kick off a discussion of the role a business blog might play in converting "clickers" to customers.

My friend Damon Richards, owner of Port to Port Consulting, would say B. has won the first set of a three-set match, in that he's "won search". In fact, B. has "won search" without blogging.  B. performs a specialty service in a niche market, and his business name describes the service he provides. It stands to reason online searchers looking for that service will find B.!

Is B. winning the set and losing the match? Apparently so.  "Why am I not getting more business out of my website?" he asks, frustration creeping into his voice.

The second "win" B. needs is to have searchers click on the link to his website, so they can learn more about his business and how he solves problems for his clients. In fact, B. doesn't know to what extent the second "click" is happening, because he has not set up analytics to give him that information.

Setting aside any judgment on the quality of B's website itself in terms of content or graphics, adding a blog would keep the material current, offering readers a sense that they're getting "the latest scoop". It's much less cumbersome and much less expensive to add new, up-to-date content on blogs than on most traditional websites.

"What Have You Done For Me Lately?" is the title of an article about the Small Business Administration, about new services the SBA provides in addition to business loans. Bloggers for business, take heed. Your loyal customers may know what your core services are, but you can use your blog posts to tell online searchers what your business has been doing lately and what you can do for them!

If you're job hunting today, says The Savvy Networker's Liz Ryan, you can't afford to let done-to-death, boilerplate language sink your resume like a boat anchor.  Ryan advises "killing" timeworn, massively overused resume phrases such as:

• Results-oriented professional
• Excellent team player
• Superior communication skills
• Savvy business professional

Ryan recommends replacing those with individualized, specific narratives about ways you solved problems creatively in the past.
 
Since, according to Compendium Blogware CEO Chris Baggott, "Blogging is the hub of all your social media activities," it stands to reason you can't afford to use done-to-death, boilerplate, overused advertising copy in your blog content, the likes of:

• Devoted to customer service
• Skilled technicians
• Competitive pricing
• Convenient location.

Instead, my advice as a trainer for business blogging would be to adapt Ryan's resume advice to blogging, "killing" those canned phrases, specifically highlighting how your business is unique, and giving examples of ways you helped customers and clients solve problems.

Blog posts can engage readers by debunking myths and offering information designed to elicit a "What do you know!" response. Humorous speaker Todd Hunt's newsletter taught me something I hadn't known:

A CD from a stage show is not a sound track.  It's a cast album.
 (Soundtracks are from movies.)

How does providing this tidbit help Hunt promote his speaking and book-writing business?  Hunt's topic for corporate presentations is improved communications using precise, correct English.
     
A second tactic for positioning yourself as a go-to guy or gal in your field is to "teach" in your blog posts, comparing unfamiliar, industry-specific information with something the average online reader knows and understands. Igloo Books uses that technique in teaching children about animals:

      The saltwater crocodile grows up to 20 feet long. That's about twice as long as a speedboat.

Business blog posts need to be more - much, much more - than mere online directories, providing "competitive advantage and helpful information for consumers", says Compendium. Business bloggers need to replace "boilerplate" with "concrete, visual stories that bring your power to life."

Fellow blogger Michel Fortin says he's a big fan of reasons-why advertising. "Good, successful copy," Fortin adds, "tells the reader why right up front."  (If you don't, he warns, they're left wondering why you left that information out!)

Fortin's alluding to ad copy, but the same five why's he mentions can serve as great guidelines for using proof in your business blog posts to build belief in your services and products.

Buyers (and I'm extending this to apply to online searchers who've found themselves at your blog) want to know five different types of reasons:

Why you (the reader)
Your copy should qualify the reader for the offer you're making.  Why did you target this particular market (the one represented by this potential buyer)?

Why me (the author)
"Credentialization is an important element in copy," says Fortin. In the case of business blogs, the "me" is the business or the professional practitioner (or the ghost blogger as his or her voice). What is our expertise and experience?  Why do we care?

Why this (the offer)
What are the specific solutions you provide? Why is your product or service designed in the particular and unique way you describe?

Why now (the urgency)
What reasons can you offer the reader to act now - (missing out on something important, preventing further damage, expected scarcity of the product, etc.)?

Why this price (the value)
Your blog can make clear where you fall price-wise in your market and why your business has chosen that pricing niche. 

Answering the "why's" overcomes buyers' natural skepticism, and blog posts are the perfect tool to use for going beyond the "telling" and the "selling" to the "proving". As I've said before, only blog believers become website buyers.

 

You cannot be a top producer, says corporate trainer Roger Dawson, without getting enthusiastic about your product or service. What Dawson doesn't mean by enthusiasm, he's quick to point out, is frantic jump-up-and-down behavior.  No, real enthusiasm, he explains, means believing in your industry, your company, your product, and your ability to serve your customers.

Since business owners' enthusiasm is exactly what blogs are designed to convey - as well as to engage online searchers, I thought Dawson's tips on growing your own enthusiasm would prove useful in successful blogging for business.

Get feedback from your customers.

The more you hear from your customers that they were delighted with their purchase, advises Dawson, the better you will feel about what you do.

Use testimonials in blog posts, capture customer success stories, and welcome comments to your blog.

Improve the quality of customers' feedback by promising less and delivering more.

Blogs, as contrasted with brochures and traditional websites, are there to show first and foremost how much you care, and only then how much you know. Blogs are designed to be advertorials rather than advertisements, information sharing rather than billboards, sharing more than selling.

Learn about your competition and their shortcomings, says Dawson, not for the purpose of "knocking" them, but so increase your own enthusiasm for your unique products or your unique approach.  

Two of the four P's of business blogging are Passion and Personality.  Blog posts are ideal for communicating the unique personality and core beliefs of the business owner.

No doubt about it - enthusiasm sells. And, when it comes to blogging for business, enthusiasm spreads - to searchers, search engines, and right back home to YOU!

Marketing maven and fellow blogger Michel Fortin learned an interesting lesson about blogging from the book 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing.  Very simply, the lesson is this:

IT'S BETTER TO BE FIRST THAN BEST

What Fortin pulled from that statement is that it's more effective to be perceived as superior than to state outright that you are superior. So how, Fortin asks, can you create the perception of superiority?  The interesting truth is, he observes, that if you're perceived as first in some category, people have the natural tendency to think you're the best in that category! That tends to work, Fortin points out, is that, even when your competitors are better than you. (Since you are the first, their marketing efforts only help remind people of…you!)

Look at your own life, Fortin says.  You remember your first kiss (but most likely not your second one), your first car, your first job, etc. The conclusion this leads to about marketing is simple, Fortin says.  If you market your company as "better", all you're really doing is reminding others of your competition.  On the other hand, there can be only one "first".

If there's no category in which you can be first, manufacture one, advises Fortin. You can be, for example:

• first to cater to a specific market
• first to offer additional services to your core service
• first to offer a certain kind of bonus or reward
• first to package your service or product in a certain way
• first to offer a particular guarantee

As a blogging trainer and business ghost blogger, I like Fortin's concept of creating "firsts". Here's why: In blog posts, you can explain the whole thought process that led you to be the first at….(whatever), showing you're sensitive to the needs and concerns of searchers (after all, why hadn't your competitors thought of that way to make the product or service more customer-friendly?)

In fact, the reason blogging for business trumps traditional advertising in general is that, in blog posts, you get to share your thoughts in a conversational way.  In fact, you might say most advertising is all about being best.  With your business blog, on the other hand, you can keep reinventing your image, creating ways to make your business seem first.

Beauty may be in the eyes of the beholder, but, through your business blog, you can be "first" in the eyes of those online searchers who need what you have to offer!

(Can you see what happened here?  Now you're focused on the word "negative".  Had I titled this blog post "Being Positive in Blogs", I would have focused your thoughts on ways to make a positive impact.

Business blogging, of course, is all about "up".  To be found on a search engine by more potential customers and clients, your blog needs to move "up" in search engine rankings and appear on Page One of Google (and Bing and Yahoo). Even more important, blog titles and content need to focus on the positive results customers can expect from selecting your products and services.

Copywriter and consultant Michael Fortin says that most of the copy he critiques disobey the cardinal rule of selling, by failing to use "upwords", Fortin's acronym for:
 

• Universal
• Picture
• Words
• Or
• Relatable
• Descriptive
• Sentences

To "up" sales, "up" words, Fortin says. Words need to paint vivid pictures in readers' minds, rather like icons on a computer desktop. In order for our minds to translate words and phrases into something we can refer back to, we need a visual equivalent in words.

Leave out the "buts", advises Fortin, and substitute "ands".  Rather than saying "It's a great concept for a website, but it's going to take at least a month to put together" (a negative in the customer's eyes), say "It’s a great concept for a website and it will take only thirty days (imagine getting that whole wonderful job accomplished in only thirty days!) to get it up and running."

When I train business owners and their employees how to develop content for their blog posts, I try emphasizing the positive in a different sense as well. Although one approach in a business blog is to compare your products and services to others', it's important to emphasize the positive rather than "knocking" a competitor. Rather than starting with what "they" (the competition) is doing wrong, devaluing other company's products and services, use the power of WE to demonstrate what you value, and the way you like to deliver your services.

To "up" online rankings, blog "up"!

 

There are almost as many different opinions about the best way to write blogs as there are on recipes for "absolutely the best" apple pie. Much of the debate centers around the ideal length for a blog post, with one touted rule of thumb being to keep the post short enough so readers don't need to scroll down to read it all.

Based solely on my own years of experience as a professional ghost blogger for business and in writing this Say It For You blog on the topic of business blogging, my answer to the length dilemma is simple: Make each post as short as possible (to get your idea across), but no shorter.

Fellow blogger Jameiah Earle, in Literary Kicks, calls pieces of fiction having fewer than 1,000 words "micro" or "flash fiction". When it comes to blogging for business, Inbound Marketing authors Halligan and Shaw stress that "people searching on Google are actually looking for something" and have a specific goal. As you make decisions about your blog posts (including how long each post should be), your goal must be to satisfy theirs, reassuring readers they've come to exactly the right place.

Here's one practical suggestion for keeping your blog copy "tight" and on target:  If you've explained the first of several:

• reasons why a certain thing is important…..
• myth-busting facts about your industry…
• customer stories or testimonials you have to share…,

just "push away from the table", as your diet coach might advise.  Leave some of your thoughts on the subject for another blog post, splitting your content into more than one "installment". Each part of the "mini-series" should be able to stand on its own, yet a post might be continuing a thought from an earlier blog post, or promising more on the subject to be expressed in future blog post.

Small business consultant Lorraine Ball, invited to be a guest blogger on Say It For You, explained that using Twitter with its 140-character limit  has made her a better writer overall, training her to look at every word and consider the value it adds to a sentence.

Unlike Twitter, blogs, at least theoretically, are subject to no length limits.  However, when it comes to business blogging, it might be a good idea to slice up the "pie", and that half a slice is better than one!

I'm no car buff, but that TV commercial really caught my ear.  "What do you get when you pit a Ford Escape against a Lexus?" the announcer asked. The answer, unexpected as it was arresting: "Bragging rights."

So I'll give you one better:  What do you get when you pit business blogging against pay-per-click advertising?  Bragging rights again. According to Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware, "There are two basic ways to use search as an acquisition tool" (referring to acquisition of new customers): Pay-Per-Click and Search Engine Optimization."

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) is a form of paid advertising on the Web. (You the business owner bid on keyword phrases.  Every time an online searcher clicks on your listing, you pay a fee.) According to the Marketing Sherpa Search Marketing Benchmark Study, marketers using PPC typically target more than 1,000 of these keyword phrases in an attempt to rank among the top results for a dozen out of the 1,000 they've selected.

By contrast, blogs need to target only 1-2 dozen total keyword phrases (with the blogging company paying no fee when the sties get "found" and clicked on) to achieve comparable search results.

What if the "Lexus" isn't a PPC but a website?  How do blogs stack up against traditional websites?  Since search engines assign value to pages that are frequently updated, traditional website pages simply can't compete with more frequently changing content on blog pages. While a website page might be very keyword-rich, the cumulative use of keyword phrases over months and years , and over pages and pages of relevant content builds up the kind of "equity" that leaves traditional web pages in the dust.  Again, bragging rights for blogs.

As with any tool, blogging for business works only when - and if - it's used.  Good corporate blog posts may earn bragging rights when compared with other marketing tactics, but only if business owners actually keep up the pace.  The fact is, few entrepreneurs, even given the help of talented and passionate employees, can spare the time to post relevant, new material with enough consistency and frequency to improve search engine rankings.  Often a professional ghost blogger can help those owners earn bragging rights and convert online searchers to new clients and customers!

Five times as many people read headlines as read the body copy, "Father of Advertising" David Ogilby taught.  Blogger and book reviewer Brad Shaw tests headlines against three Ogilby to-do's:

• The headline promises the reader a benefit
• The headline contains news
• The headline is conversational

Business bloggers can take all three of these tips from the Master to heart.  In fact, headlines may prove even more important for blogs than for ads.  Blog headlines help capture the interest not only of online searchers, but of internet "web crawlers" as well (a compelling reason to make blog headlines key-word rich).

Here are some ways I can think of for using the three Ogilby to-do's in blog post titles:

CONVERSATIONAL

a) Asking a question:  "Do you…?"   "Have you ever……?"  "Where can you……?"  "Why would you……?"
b) Reassurances:  "It's OK to……"  "Everyone likes……….."

In talking about advertising great David Ogilby in one of my earlier Say It For You blog posts, I mentioned his five-point acid tests for ads.  When it comes to blogging for business, headline acid test #4 is the one I think is paramount:  Does it fit the strategy to perfection?

While of course headlines have to make searchers want to learn more of what you have to say, we business bloggers must remember: a blog is only one tactic in an overall marketing strategy, and everything about each blog post, including the headline, needs to be consistent with the "voice" you want your company to project.

Composed with that broader context in mind, that times-five effect of blog headlines will bring benefits not only to the readers, but to the business' bottom line!

A favorite lunch spot for me is the Illinois Street Food Emporium in Indianapolis. Well, the other day, besides a very tasty salad and soup lunch, I got something extra in the form of ideas about ways to use blogs to drive business.

Here's how it happened: Waiting for my number to be called, I noticed something.  Fastened low on the wall near the door of the restaurant was a metal thing-a-ma-gig with coloring sheet handouts for kids to color.  That day's handout had an outlined picture of a snowman talking with some penguins.  There was space on the paper to fill in the child artist's name, age, and phone number, and a pocket in which to deposit the finished work.

My first thought was how simple, yet ingenious a tactic those coloring sheets were - keep the kids occupied while Mom or Dad finish up a conversation. (As a professional ghost blogger, I'm always alert for ways business bloggers can engage readers.) Then I realized there was even more to it than that - some kid was going to win the contest and get his picture posted up there and want to keep coming back to the restaurant, perhaps bringing Auntie or Grandma to see the beautiful job he'd done on the penguins! (One benefit of engaging blog post readers is they want to come back to your site, or bring your site to them in the form of an RSS.)

There was one thing missing about those coloring sheets, I realized. As so often happens, even the best of business ideas falls short in some detail when it comes to execution.  I saw snowmen and penguins, but nowhere on those coloring pages did I see the name, address, or phone number, or email of Illinois Street Food Emporium!  Coloring's a great way to keep the kids happy while they're in the restaurant (maybe they come back to show off their winning entry or claim their prize). But at least a third of the page was white space that might have been used for advertising.  Uh-oh - a business blog page with no Calls to Action! 

FutureNow's  Brendan Regan teaches business owners to "optimize a marketing outreach from the driving point to the landing page and on through to conversion." In other words, for any business blog to enjoy bottom-line success, there needs to be a smooth process, a navigation path,  that begins when a customer first becomes conscious of your existence to when you're closing a deal.  The CTA's, or Calls To Action on your blog page, even sometimes in the text of the blog post itself - need to be there and be square!

“A (business) blog is a form of web communication allowing companies of all sizes to reach new audiences…, says Darrell Zhorsky. But, “allowing” and actually “reaching” are two different things, as many a new business owner discovers to his/her dismay. The reality, as ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse points out, is that “many blogs produce quality content that doesn’t get read.”

Once you taken the big step of getting consistent about posting content on your business blog (or hiring a professional ghost blogger like me to do it for you), the necessary next step is promoting your blog so people know it’s there.

One obvious, but often overlooked tactic, is simply letting your clients and customers know about the “Birth of the Blog”. The blog’s URL should occupy a place of honor on your business cards, flyers, ads, brochures, and website.  And, if there’s one particular post where you really “nailed” the message you want to convey about your business – print that one up on postcards or little laminated handouts to have handy at networking meetings, trade shows, letters or invoices.

Just created a new post? Tweet it, Facebook It, “Link it in”.  Or, capture one essential idea from your blog in a Tweet, linking back to the blog itself. As Jason Falls points out in The Beginners Guide To Promoting Your Blog “Twitter is a place to have conversations with people”, (not an advertising billboard).  That means you need to provide links to other interesting and informative sites, so that your blog becomes the “go-to” spot for information in your field.

In using social media to promote your blog, don’t forget to “stay on brand”, is a reminder offered by Entrepreneur. “Go ahead and announce sales and specials, but also give your fans, friends, and followers something more.”

Blogging is an incredible way to connect with customers  who are searching for exactly what you sell, what you do, and what you know about.  But they have to find you first.  Bottom line is:  you can’t just blog there – you have to promote your blog!

Between Shakespeare's Juliet asking "What's in a name?" and father-of-advertising David Ogilby's emphasis on headlines, there's simply no contest when it comes to blogging for business - titles matter! There are two basic reasons titles matter so much in blogs:

• For search - key words and phrases, especially when used in blog post titles, help search engines make the match between online searchers' needs and what your business or professional practice has to offer.
• For reader engagement - after you've been "found", you've still gotta "get read".  

In my magazine reading this week, I came across titles that illustrate just two of the many ways to make titles "pop":

The title of an advertisement in USA Weekend asks the question: "Do You Have Constant Ringing In Your Ear?"

If ear ringing is, in fact, a problem for the searcher, there will be a "Bingo!" I've come to the right place" response. But even if I somehow arrived at this site looking for, say, hearing aids or even diamond earrings, the title has an immediacy that grabs my attention, perhaps causing me to reflect, " You know, sometimes I DO have a sort of ringing sensation…"

The concept of asking readers if they're grappling with an issue or a need that you not only know about, but which you're accustomed to helping solve - that's perfect for the headline of a business blog post.

One title on the cover of O Magazine is a "grabber" in a different way: "100 Things That Are (Actually) Getting Better".

This title passes Ogilby's "acid test" by making you wish you'd thought about many things actually getting better, because most people suffer from the perception that a lot of things are getting worse nowadays.  The title's not only refreshing - it arouses curiosity. (Are there really that many things getting better?  What have I missed?)

One thing Indianapolis small business consultant Lorraine Ball thinks is getting better is blog writing. Ball attributes the improvement to Twitter and other social media, which focus on titles short enough to "Tweet".

Truth is, no clever or even Tweet-able title can substitute for well-written, relevant content in the blog post itself, content that provides valuable information to your readers. But, in order for blog marketing to lead searchers to become buyers of your products and services, your stuff has got to get read!

Sorry, Juliet.  When it comes to business blog posts, the answer to the question "What's in a name?" is EVERYTHING!