Search Engine Optimization Indianapolis

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• A full-function Content Management System (CMS) that creates static non-product pages as easily as product pages with a WYSIWYG text editor.
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• Media Manager
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Randy Michaels could have made an excellent blog trainer, but the CEO of the Tribune is far too busy training his news anchors not to use newspeak.

We bloggers for business tend to be preoccupied with words we should be using (those keyword phrases that help our blogs get found by the search engines), but Michaels has come up with a list of words and phrases to avoid. With the idea of delivering news in a down-to-earth, conversational manner, he trains his newsmen and women to pretend they are "speaking knowledgeably to one person".  By NOT using what he calls "newspeak", they enhance their reputation as communicators, he teaches.

What a great standard for blog-writing for business, I thought while reading the article. Write copy that reads as if you (or your ghost blogger) were sitting down talking to readers one at a time. (The expression "all of you" is near the top of Michaels' no-no list; others include "flee", "seek" "aftermath", "alleged", "area residents", "at this point in time", and "behind closed doors").

One question I pose to business owners prior to beginning a corporate blogging project is this: "If you had only 8-10 words to describe why you're passionate about what you sell, what you know about, and the services you provide to clients, what would those words be?" (If you're really being passionate, you're probably using words from Michael's approved list!)

In Personal Branding with Social Media, Spinweb CEO Michael Reynolds wrote something that really connects with Randy Michael's rules about using conversational language:

"People want to do business with people they like and trust.  All the business branding in the world will not close a sale if the prospect does not like and trust the person with whom he is doing business….Social media allows us to deliver those trust factors," concludes Michael Reynolds.

Next time you're composing a blog post for your business - shoot for the one-on-one style!

 

Fnu Lnu, a term used by authorities to identify unknown suspects, is actually an acronym for First Name Unknown, Last Name Unknown, a John Doe, as it were. When you're selecting keyword phrases to use in your website and blog content, it's useful to remember that you are the fnu lnu in the equation.  Online searchers don't know your name - or the name of your business!

In fact, unless your business name is precisely the service or product you provide ("St. Louis Cosmetic Dentistry" or "Cincinnati Heating Services Specialists" or perhaps "Best Doggie Care in Des Moines"), at Stage #1 of their search, what the majority of consumers are likely to have typed into the search bar are words describing:

• Their need
• Their problem
• Their idea of the solution to their problem
• A question

Blogging for business, then, means introducing yourself to strangers.  Not that it isn't a good idea to email links to your blog posts to existing customers and clients, but, for developing new relationships, your blog will be your central prospecting tool.

To convert those "strangers" to friends and customers, then, address your blog posts to them, and write about them.  Fact is, they're going to care about your name only if and when they know you care about their problems and needs, and that you have just the means to take care of them.

Because of the relevant, recent, and frequently posted content you've been delivering to the blogosphere, search engines have delivered prospects to your fnu lnu door.  Now that they've arrived, introducing what you sell, what you do, and what you know about - with your business name attached! - is what you get to do as the reward for all that diligence.

This is the stage when "Aha!-I've-Come-To-Just-The-Right-Place", readable, engaging blog content counts most. Getting from fnu lnu to Joey's Body Shop, Maggie's Hair Salon, or Hendricks Bankruptcy Law Office - that's the getting-to-know-you business blogging goal!

This week, my Say It For You blog posts are all about picking up ideas from everywhere and everything to keep your business blog full of fresh, interesting content.

Visiting an indoor golf training center, I learned about a teaching system called "Straight Line Golf".  (Traditional golf instruction focuses on correcting players' individual weaknesses; Straight Line takes all players through the same teaching track, and focuses on getting the ball straight to its target.)

No, I hadn't come to the golf center to blog or to do business, but (listening with my "third ear") I picked up a "signal" that this straight line training holds a valuable lesson for business bloggers. For us, the "line" begins when someone browses the Web searching for information about a product or service related to what our company offers.  The search engine brings the visitor in a straight line to our blog.  The blog, in turn, leads in a straight line to the website, and then to our "Contact Us" page or shopping cart.

That means everything about your online marketing needs to be consistent with everything else, with your blog's engaging content and keyword phrases being the conduit for the "match".

I got another "third ear" idea from an unlikely source that resulted in What's on Your Blog Bumper?.. Stopped in traffic one day, I saw a personalized license plate on the car ahead of me saying "Celebrate the Arts.". Now, there's not much room on a license plate for a lot of words, and the driver of the car behind doesn't have much time to read the plate.  The "lesson" here, though, is that, for just a moment, that plate was bringing the topic of the arts to the top of my mind.

Blog posts, I realized, need to do just that.  Your potential customer is scanning various websites and blogs and yours comes up.  If something in your blog post is "right on" for that reader, your company will be, at least for a little while, "top of mind" for that reader.

Can a license plate help you explain what you sell, what you know, or what services you provide?  Point being, you don't ever have to run out of ideas for blog posts if you keep on , looking, listening, and "learning around"!

"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! 

Three things Casey WIlliams never wants to see in his rear view mirror, he says in IndianapolisStar.com, are the new Ford Taurus, the Chevy Caprice, and the Carbon Motors police cruiser. all models driven by Indiana State Police.

In business blogging, by contrast, your "rear view mirror" is exactly where you'd like to see your competitors. Continuing to post blog content consistently and frequently, using keyword phrases in your titles and sprinkled liberally through the content of each blog post - all those things raise your chances of rising in search engine rankings.  Add extra engine power from links, social media, and even videos, and you'll be on track to leave rivals in the dust.

"Great content," says Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware, "depends on understanding the keywords that drive your business." Beggott suggests using online tools to understand the keyword phrases that drive not only your business, but traffic to your competitors' websites.

Once you've gathered this critical intelligence, he explains, you can use it to create pages (blog posts as well as "landing pages" on your main website) titled with those key phrases. 

A police cruiser, whatever the automobile model, in your rear view mirror, would probably prove  to be a less-than-pleasant experience.  The sight of online competitors' "grilles", on the other hand - now that would be a sight for any business blogger's eyes!

The same philosophy of simplifying a marketing message that's behind your elevator speech (that 15-20 second description of your company's product or service that you could rattle off while in an elevator with a stranger) works for print and electronic marketing, advises Julie Williams of Green Jays Communications.

"Don't try to say too much", Williams went on to explain at the All Things Marketing and Sales  seminar I attended last month. "Better to stick with your elevator speech and keep repeating it - verbally, in print, and on your Web site."  The idea is that eventually people will come to recognize the message as yours, which builds your brand.

Sticking to elevator-speech simplicity and using repetition are both absolutely excellent pieces of advice for business bloggers. In order to win search, it's crucial to maintain frequency and consistency in posting content on the Web; both of these are measures search engines use in ranking a blog, and a higher ranking makes it easier for you to "get found" by your potential customers.

After more than one year of building muscle at weekly weightlifting sessions at Exercise, Inc., I can certainly relate to the metaphor of building blog muscle through repetition. The benefits of the Exercise, Inc. program come from lifting significant weights and doing that consistently.

Elevator speech or weightlifting - choose your metaphor. Building blog muscle takes simplification and repetition!

Irreverent TV talk show host Joy Behar's motto is "So What? Who Cares?".  Now, those are two questions business blogger need to imagine online searchers asking - because, sure as my name is Rhoda, they will! 

To begin creating blog content with even a hope of generating new leads, business owners had better address the "Who Cares?" part first: 

"Great content depends on understanding the keywords that drive your business," says Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware.  Once you know which words and phrases people are using to find the kind of products and services you offer, you can use those keyword phrases in blog post titles and sprinkle them generously through your text.  The result will be that the ones who care  will be the ones attracted to your site!

Using keywords to "win search" so that your blog post shows up on Page 1 of Google or Bing is just Step 1.  There's still the "So what?" to be satisfied. Your title helped the search engine understand what your page is about, and it matched your blog post with human beings.  Now you have the chance to answer to those human beings, reassuring them:

• They've come to the right place to get the products, the services, and the answers they need
   
• You're very glad they've arrived
   
• You understand their concerns
   
• You have valuable, usable, expert - and understandable information to offer

In other words, the answer to the "So what?" readers are asking themselves is "So this!", meaning you stand ready to offer solutions. "At the end of the day," Baggott explains, "searchers are looking for solutions."

It's no surprise, says Marketing Sherpa, that lead generation is very important in today's economy. Whether  business owners are composing their own blog posts or working with a professional ghost blogger like me to create content, success depends on responding to the Behar Big Two -  "So What?" and "Who Cares?" with frequent, relevant, "So this!" blogging for business!

The other day I read something really thought-provoking about how email, social media, and blogging relate to each other when it comes to attracting business. Regular readers of this Say It For You blog will recall that I advise business bloggers to read ten articles or other blogs for every blog post they write, and I try to follow my own advice on that score. Chad Richards, Social Program Manager at Firebelly Marketing obviously follows that advice as well, because he shared a comment he'd read during the past week by social media maven CT Moore.

Moore had made the point that "search isn't great for creating awareness of something that people don't know exist.  With search, users have to request it." Social media, then, Moore went on to explain, is better for creating the initial awareness.  Once that awareness is raised, he says, search is good for reaching users who are already aware, but who want to learn more and become more engaged.

After sharing Moore's observations, Chad Richards ended by reassuring his own readers that he wasn't bashing email, only sharing his own observation that email works best when it is integrated with social media.

Blogging for business, of course, is part of "search", which means being introduced to strangers (you don't know their name; they don't know yours) because the solution you describe in your blog appears to be a good match for the needs those online searchers expressed. As Chris Baggott, CEO of Compendium Blogware notes, "The Internet has now surpassed the print yellow pages and newspapers as the primary local resource for consumers looking for products and services."

Since, as a professional ghost blogger and business blogging trainer, I become part of each client'' marketing team, I like to describe blogging, social media, and email as the "Three Musketeers" of the business' online marketing.  Blogging is the hub, as Baggott puts it, because that's where you're adding fresh content about your business, using the keyword phrases that lubricate the search process.  

Moore was right about searchers having to want what you sell, what you do, and what you know in order to be directed to your blog site. However, when you think about it, the same holds true for Twitter and other social media (you receive social media "awareness alerts" based on whom you've chosen to befriend and on which groups you've chosen to join). To me, then, marketing often begins with someone finding your blog. (Their awareness might have been created through a Tweet or LinkedIn or Facebook "lead", or they might have simply keyed a description of their need into a search engine.) Later, once a client relationship has been established, email (again, along with social media) is going to be useful for staying in touch.

Remember the motto of the Three Musketeers,Athos, Porthos, and Aramis? "All for one and one for all".  With the Three Musketeers of online marketing - blogging, social media, and email - it works the same way!

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!

"It's easy, it's fast, and it's proven to increase results," says direct response copywriter Michel Fortin, referring to adding pictures, photos, clip art, and graphics to salesletters. Using pictures along with text, according to Head First Labs, increases brain activity and aids learning. It stands to reason that including photographs or pictures in business blog posts makes the blog more interesting and engaging to readers, besides offering a hint of what your website is about.

Again talking about salesletters, Fortin stresses that better headlines have been proven to increase readership and response by as much as 700%...."But adding photos and graphics near the headline", he adds, "has equally boosted response, sometimes even more."

The types of photos Fortin recommends using for printed marketing pieces are the same types, I think, that are perfect for business blogs.

• Photo of the author. In the case of ghost-written blogs, there would be a photo of the business owner(s) whose "voice" is expressed in the blog
   
• Photo of the product being offered
   
• "Before photo" representing the problem suffered without using the product or service
   
• "After photo" showing successful results or relief
   
• Graphics and clip art images to portray abstract concepts. 

One really important tip Fortin offers is adding captions to photos.  "Captions are powerful, as they're almost always read," he claims.  What's more, he points out, a caption can add an interesting fact or tidbit related to the graphic.

By providing recent, frequent, and relevant content on your topic, you've "gotten found" on the search engines. The next step, of course, is to "get read".  "If you don't get people to start reading your copy," Fortin warns, "it doesn't matter how good your copy is." Pictures and photos can certainly help in that department.

 

(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"!

 

Ernest Hemingway, challenged to write an entire novel in six words, scribbled these six on a napkin:

                                             For sale: baby shoes, never used.


There are any number of lessons, I think, that business bloggers can learn from the legendary Hemingway "demo":

Brevity
Six-word blog posts aren't going to hack it in terms of SEO "Brownie points"; six-word titles certainly are. Since, as Brian Halligan points out in his new book Inbound Marketing, Google (and other search engines) try to match article titles with the phrase being searched, the more focused titles are on the business' keywords phrases, the better..

Arouses Curiosity
"Show 'em a gun in the first reel" is an old screenwriter's rule-of-thumb. The blog title is the "first reel", introducing the theme, hinting at "action" to come.

Emotional Impact
Yes, we're talking about business blogs here, but blogs are a part of "pull marketing", and  emotions are what's behind the "pull" in the posts. Professional speaker and speech coach Lou Heckler says a story needs to have moved/astonished/angered/tickled/amazed you for you to share it effectively with your audience. Never-used baby shoes have an emotional impact. While blog posts can be informative, filled with myth-busting proofs, it's the emotional impact that keeps readers engaged.

The first few ingredients listed on a food container are the most important.  Since the first "ingredient" of a business blog post is, in fact, the title, take a tip from Ernest Hemingway and  make that ingredient count!

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!

"Links are the lifeline of blogging," says homeschoolblogger.com.  Inbound links to your blog are tracked by "web crawlers" and help your blog move higher on search engine pages, SEO mavens explain.

Today, though, let's talk about different kinds of outbound links, and the different ways those can in fact serve as lifelines to your blog.

Internal links:
a) From your blog post to one of your own website "landing pages".
(You're using the link to guide the reader along a smooth navigation path, hoping to convert that "looker" into a buyer.)

b) From the present blog post to one you posted at some point in the past.
(If the reader wants more information and you've already provided further details on the subject in an earlier post, the link makes it easy for the reader to find.)

External links:
a) From your blog post to a news source or magazine article.
(In your post, you're showing how some current happenings relate to your product or service, or you're expressing your company's point of view about a news development relating to your industry. Linking to news sources lend credibility to your blog and positions you as the "go to" place to find out what's happening.)

b) To someone else's blog post on your subject.
(This type of link shows you're staying in touch with others in your industry and that you're confident you have special value to offer within a competitive environment. In fact, visiting others' blogs can help you improve not only your blog posts, but your products and services!)

c) To a website or blog you've quoted to illustrate a point.
(Linking to others is a form of networking.  I like to shoot an email to business owners whom I've quoted or mentioned.  They're usually flattered and quite often begin to follow my blog and post a comment or two on my site.)

When homeschoolblogger.com mentions that blog links should be readable as well as clickable, they're talking about hyperlinking the text.  In other words, rather than writing something like "click here" (which interrupts the flow of thought), you write in conversational tone and simply create a link that the reader can choose to ignore or follow by clicking.

There's a reason we call the internet a World Wide Web. It's all about connections and links!

Taped to the reception counter at the Tom O'Brien Chrysler dealer's showroom was a poster that immediately caught my eye: "125 Ways You Can't Tell the Difference", the headline read, referring to pre-owned autos versus new vehicles. Having just this month blogged about the power of using numbers in blog post titles to engage readers' interest, I thought this poster at the dealership a perfect example of the concept I'd tried to convey in my blog post. It was the number 125 on that poster that I found so arresting - could there really be that many ways?

Speaking of numbers, there are a number of ways that car poster can serve as 
a good tutorial for business blogging:       

Titles count (play on the word "count" intended)

A blog post title what draws an online searcher to progress to the content of the blog, because the title hopefully broadcasts two signals to the searcher:
 

1. They've come to the right spot to get the information/products/services they need
2. This blog post is going to be interesting reading.

The title counts with Google and friends from a Search Engine Optimization standpoint as well. In fact, that's why it's so important that you use the key search terms and phrases in the title of each blog post.

Focus counts.

Did I read through all of the 125 ways listed on that poster?  Of course not.  The title had already focused my mind on the concept of pre-owned cars. The very fact I was able to discern an actual list on the poster was enough for me.  Later, I thought, I might actually skim through the items, but the truth is, that poster had me at "hello".

Putting on my professional ghost blogger hat, I imagined how things might be if we were talking about a blog post, rather than a poster.  To engage online readers once they'd found the blog, I wouldn't go for the big numbers except in the title.  Instead, I'd:
 

• Focus on just a few of the pre-owned cars from the dealer's inventory, complete with photos (or even a video).
• Focus on just a couple of reasons you'd never know the difference between pre-owned and new without a Car-Fax report.
• Throw in some valuable hints on savvy car buying, showing readers how much the Tom O'Brien folks know and care about cars. 

Much more important, the blog post would need to convey how much the Tom O'Brien folks care about their customers' safety and comfort!

 

My children have children of their own, all older than kindergarten age, so what made me feel compelled to read that Indianapolis Star article about teaching kindergarteners? It was the number that aroused my curiosity: "9 Problems We Must Overcome".
 
The O Magazine title this month is "100 Things That Are (Actually) Getting Better". Somehow
I doubt that, minus the number 100, the title would have been as much of a grabber.  I know it was the number 100 that made me pause (It's hard, these days, to avoid the perception that a lot of things are actually getting worse, not better, and I just had to know what 100 things I might be missing!)

To freshen up blog post content, start with one idea about your product or service. Then try putting a number to it:

• 2 Best Ways To Eliminate Unpleasant Room Odors…
• 3 Discipline Problem Fixes to Try First….
• 4 Simple Home Remedies for Headache…
• 5 Home Décor Tips…
• 6 Knottiest Financial Issues in a Marriage….

The point of the "lists", of course, is to demonstrate ways in which your product or service is different, and to provide valuable information that engages readers, helping them see you as a go-to guy or gal to solve their problem or fulfill their need.

Who's on your list? Ted Demopoulos suggests you ask yourself, referring to other blogs and online resources in your "space".  Listing different viewpoints or tips from others, then clarifying your own position is one way to make your blog be the go-to site. 
"4 Different Viewpoints on Rearing Money-wise Kids…" is somehow more enticing than just "Viewpoints on Rearing Money-wise Kids", wouldn't you agree?

To top off the positives of using numbers in blog post titles, at least some SEO experts believe bullet points and numbered lists earn "Brownie points" with search engines.

Just one more reason to count the ways…

 

The larger a pepper, the less “hot”, is just one of the interesting tidbits I learned from a Whole Foods representative at the Indiana Health Expo the other day.  Peppers, in fact, could serve as a metaphor for blogs and websites, with shorter, “spicier” blog posts packing more immediacy than their longer, more formal website cousins. The typical website offers more detail and a broader spectrum of information on a company’s products and services, while blog posts focus on one idea with more intensity.

The first three ingredients listed on a food container, I learned at the Health Expo, are the most important, because ingredients are listed in descending order of how much of each is in the product. When it comes to business blogs, it’s important to use key words and phrases in the title and early in the text of each blog post. Those key words indicate to the search engines what the main idea of the post is going to be.

I found the Whole Foods presentation particularly engaging because it offered information I’d never heard before.  Offering information that is new to the typical online reader is a key principle of business blogging. The Health Expo speaker captured my attention with information new to me. I learned about a food called Quinoa (pronounced “keen wa”), which is a rice substitute high in dietary fiber, and about Greek Yogurt. New information is a winner for business blogging.  If you can’t offer brand-new information, your unique approach or “slant” shows searchers you’re far from run-of-the mill.

One of Suzanne Gunelius’ six tips on turning a business blog into a sales tool is “Provide Exclusive Information and Tips.”  A great example of that is a blog I read called Breathe Easy, which talks about about dog food. The blogger warns that comparing ingredients can be tricky, because, although two labels may have the same ingredient name, there can be a world of difference between two brands.” The recommendation is for buyers to look for the words “human grade” on the dog food label.  That’s the kind of valuable and detailed advice that distinguishes “human grade” blogs from the pack!

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!