SEO Indianapolis

Sure, the technique of using lists in ads, articles, and blog posts can be overdone.  Still, there's no denying - numbers are attention grabbers. When My Yahoo browser served up the titles "40 Fantastic Uses For Baking Soda" and "46 Smart Uses For Salt" - hey, I just had to know if this stuff was for real!

It was.  Melissa Breyer's Care2 Green blog contained a wealth of information about how baking soda makes a great stand-in for expensive personal care, cleaning, and deodorizing products.

Breyer's post demystified her topic, explaining that sodium bicarbonate regulates PH, keeping a substance neither too acidic nor too alkaline. How can you demystify YOUR services and products so that online readers feel they understand how the "magic" happens?

Breyer goes on through the full 40 "did-you-know"s about how baking soda is handy for just about everything you can think of (but never did), from helping your hair, to polishing silverware, to cleaning teapots, putting out fires. and sanitizing the septic system. What unusual applications for YOUR product can you use to capture readers' interest?

Notwithstanding the number 46 in the title "46 Smart Uses for Salt", according to the Salt Institute, I learned to my amazement, there are more than 14,000 ways to use salt (now I was really curious!). Some that inspired an "I didn't know that!" from me included:

• Preventing cake icing crystals
• Treating poison ivy
• Deterring ants
• Making candles drip-proof
• Brightening the color of curtains

As a professional ghost blogger and blogging trainer, I think using numbers in blog posts is less about grabbing attention with a catchy title, and more about demonstrating ways in which your product, your service, and your expertise are useful, perhaps in unexpected ways.

So go ahead - count those ways in your blog!


 

• 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.

• Alter text size, print the page
• Send a page as an email
• Create a bookmark
• Post directly to news and social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace

• A full-function Content Management System (CMS) that creates static non-product pages as easily as product pages with a WYSIWYG text editor.
• Events Calendar
• Polling Capability
• Media Manager
• Flash Video Manager
• Customized RSS news and/or blog feeds to web pages.

“Just how big is the oil spill in the gulf?” read the Indianapolis Star article headline, going on to offer “a little mathematical context” to put the Gulf of Mexico catastrophe in perspective.

While there’s no really positive perspective on the oil spill, as a professional blogger for business and blogging trainer, I have a really positive perspective on the technique the Star journalist used to make matters clearer to its readers. Helping online searchers take your “measure” could be considered the main mission of each of your blog posts.

The Star used several unlikely comparisons concerning the oil spill’s first two months:

• The Mississippi River pours as much water into the Gulf of Mexico in 38 seconds as the BP oil leak in two months.

• The amount of oil spilled would fill 9200 average-sized living rooms.
   
• Were the oil to be poured into gallon milk jugs, the lined-up jugs would stretch 11,000 miles.
   
• Converted into gasoline, all the oil spilled in two months would be enough for all American drivers combined to travel for three hours and 43 minutes.
   
• Divided among all Americans, the oil would fill four soda cans for each person.

Online searchers may know what they need.  They may not know what to call that need. They almost certainly lack expert knowledge in your field. That makes it difficult for potential customers to know if your prices are fair, how experienced you are relative to your peers, and where you “place” in the big “scheme” of products and services.  Is your business “small”? Compared to what? In what ways is “small” better for this particular service or product? Is your approach to your field different from most others?  Is that good?

Remember, your website explains what products you offer, what services you provide, who the players are in your company, the geographic areas where you operate and what type of clients you have. The reader, though, may have difficulty translating all the data into the “Why-is-that-good-for-ME” terms.

How big is your big? How small is your small, how local your local, how fast your speed?. How special is your special way of serving customers?

How many average-sized living rooms will your customer satisfaction overflow fill?

 

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!

 

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!)

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!

You can say only so many things about what you sell, what you know about, and what services you offer customers and clients, right? Wrong. Sustaining an engaging business blog over the course of years is very do-able - so long as you stay engaged.  In fact, as a business blogging trainer, my theme for this week's blogs is "learning around".  That means staying alert for tidbits and teaching tools (after all, what is a blog if not a teaching tool?) to keep fresh ideas flowing for your business blog posts.

What I've found over the years I've been a professional blogger is that, as long as I keep learning, I stay excited and readers can sense that in my blog. If you're a business owner, you'd have to agree with the next statement: What you learn isn't always peaches and cream.  In every industry there's controversy. 

People disagree on the best applications for the product you sell.  Some might even say your product does nobody any good at all.  There's controversy about best business practices, and about different approaches to providing professional services.  There's controversy on what types of investments are good for retirees, about whether pale or vibrant colors are best for bathroom walls, and about whether club soda is good for stains on shirts. There are always going to be different ways to skin the proverbial cat; while you may be convinced your way is best, not everyone will agree.

In my own profession of ghost blogging, there's lots of controversy - everything from "transparency" issues to how many keyword phrases belong in any one blog post.  In 2008, for three long weeks, my blog was "knocked down" from its spot at the top of Page One of Google by all the back-and-forth speculation about whether rapper Kanye West was using a ghost blogger.  Rather than ignoring the controversy, I needed to "weigh in", which I did. 

From my point of view, I wrote, all the excitement was "proof" that blogging works to drive traffic and interest (no matter who writes the blogs)!

"Read around" - read other people's blogs and articles, so you can be aware of controversies in your field.  Then - blog, so readers know where you stand and why. Controversy can be a blogger's best friend!

 

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"!

It was a sign post, not a blog post, that caught my attention during a recent visit to the Indianapolis Zoo.  Whoever wrote the copy for that placard promoting the zoo's new cheetah exhibit, though, would make a great blogger for business!

The sign itself, I might mention, was affixed alongside a 30-yard track where visitors were invited to try running as fast as cheetahs.  In other words, the zoo was engaging its audience, rather than merely having them gaze passively at cheetahs. That mini-promotion serves as an excellent model for Commandment One of blog marketing: Thou shalt engage thy readers!"

The title of the signpost used two "keyword phrases" (as every good blog title should), creating a tie with a current happening (the Indianapolis 500):

Like a Race Car, a Cheetah Is Built For Speed

Race Car                                     Cheetah
Chassis                                      Skeleton
Tires                                           Claws
Paint Job                                     Spots
Brakes                                        Footpad
Engine                                        Heart      

This "post" discusses cheetahs in scientific terms, (explaining, for example, that cheetahs have extra-large heart chambers), but makes the information easy for "readers" to understand by comparing the unfamiliar with the familiar and the timely.

One core function of blogs for business is explaining yourself, your business philosophy, your products, and your processes.  An effective blog clarifies what sales trainers like to call your "unique value proposition" in terms readers can understand. And one excellent way to do just that is by making comparisons with things with which readers are already comfortable and familiar!

Like a racecar, a cheetah is built for speed.  What is your business "like"??

"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! 

Develop Indy expects its rebranding effort to offer real results, says CEO Scott Miller.  Under the old name, Indianapolis Economic Development Corporation, he explains, the organization was often confused with the state's IEDC, frustrating staffers and customers alike.

Freshbooks CEO Michael McDerment lists five characteristics he thinks good company names need:

 

1. It's easy to remember
2. It's easy to spell and requires no explanation
3. Its describes your business category
4. It describes your benefit
5. It describes your difference

• PayPal
• BestBuy
• QuickBooks

McDerment's own company name, Freshbooks, is intended to convey a fresh approach to "something as tired as accounting", he says.

As a professional ghost blogger and business blogging trainer, I think McDerment's rules apply to blogs in at least two ways:

Blog post titles:  The title needs to be a pretty good indication of what the post will be about, serving as a strong clue to what the reader can expect to find.

URLs:  "If your business is online, you don't want to have to explain how to get to your domain," says McDerment.  Your domain name should reinforce what you do.

Develop Indy aims to develop company expansion and attraction to Indianapolis.  What does your company blog aim to do?  Give it a name that says so!

 

If you think the Indiana University School of Law-Indianapolis is a branch at the IU campus in Bloomington, or that it's IUPUI's law school, you're not alone - just about everyone confuses the two law schools, explains Norm Heiken of the Indianapolis Business Journal in "The Other Law School". Law school dean Gary Roberts has the burden of forging a separate identity for his law school:

• Mail is often misdelivered.
• Students apply to the wrong admissions office.
• The media mix the two schools up.

As a professional ghost blogger and business blogging trainer, I'd have to say all businesses face somewhat the same challenge of differentiating themselves from their competitors. Your website can begin the task by describing in some detail ways your business is unique.

A business blog can "flesh out" the distinguishing details:

• Special pricing or fee structure
• Additional services that are part of the package you offer
• Your unique approach within your industry

I remember my grandmother repeating (today we might consider this sexist, but the saying made perfect sense to her) "A woman's work is never done." It occurs to me that, in a very positive sense, a blogger's work is never done, because there's time in other blog posts to chisel, to hone, to correct, to add, to differentiate. As you continue to work on your business brand, your blog can keep up with your evolving mission and image.

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!

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!

"Regardless of what you're writing, whether it's a sales letter, blog post, company history, or proposal, the golden rule of clear communication should be communicating clearly," Indianapolis Business Journal's Jim Cota reminds us.

At an annual National Press ceremony, the Center for Plain Language (whose goal is to get government and businesses to communicate more clearly with citizens and customers) presents two awards: ClearMark (the best), and WonderMark (the worst), the latter so named because the judges were left wondering what the writers were thinking!

Cota's conclusion: In the interests of clarity, "Save the long words for Scrabble!".

The author I featured earlier this week in my blog, Lynne Truss, might add, "Use punctuation". As a professional ghost blogger and business blogging trainer, I'd have to say both pieces of advice are rock solid for writing blog posts to drive business.

Save the long words for Scrabble:
If the purpose of your blog posts is to welcome prospects who've found you online and convert them into customers, the language you use must be easy to understand. Always keep them and their needs in mind.

Use punctuation:
The last award you'd want for your blog is the WonderMark.  Minding your commas and apostrophes in blog posts will avoid having online searchers wonder what, exactly, you were trying to say (or, worse, where - or if - you learned eighth grade English)! 

There's only one kind of wondering you'd like for readers of your blog to be doing:
wondering if there are even more reasons why what you have to offer is what they need to have!

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!