Archive for the ‘business blog marketing’ Category

5 Tips To Speed Up WordPress for Business Blog Marketing

Friday, August 6th, 2010

WordPress is a very user-friendly site, which is why it is popular among those who are blogging for fun, and those who use blogs for business blog marketing. However, too much traffic to your website can slow it down, and if you’re not prepared, and influx of traffic can crash your site. Here are some suggested  tips and tricks from Mashable, to make sure you can handle a high number of viewers.

1. Utilize WordPress Object Cache or a Caching Plug-In – There are several ways to cache database queries, preventing new server requests on each load, which lessens the strain on the server. There are several plug-ins you can download, like WP Super Cache and W3 Total Cache. Or, you can enter the following code into your wp-config.php file:

// Enable the WordPress Object Cache:
define(ENABLE_CACHE, true);
Read more on this topic:

2. Choose the Right Web Hosting Service – Some web hosts are optimized to run Wordpress, and some are not. Here is a list of what you should look for when choosing a host:

PHP 4.3 or greater
MySQL 4.1.2 or greater
suPHP for security
Apache or Nginx

3. Be Selective About Plug-ins – Remove any inactive plug-ins, and any active plug-ins that you are no longer using. Also, make sure you are running the most current release of Wordpress, and all your plug-ins.

4. Choose a Simple Theme – With a myriad of themes to choose from, and the ability to customize your theme, it might be temping to go all out. However, themes with images, tables, or frames can slow down your site’s loading time. Want to know if your page is too slow? You can test it on YSlow or Pingdom’s Page Test.

5. Compress Images – People like pictures, so don’t omit them just to speed up your site. If images are formatted and compressed correctly. For black and white images, or images with only a few colors, it should be saved as a .GIF or .PNG. Images in full color should be saved as a .JPG. If you edit an image in Photoshop, use the “save for the web” option. When sizing an image, smaller is better.

These are a few of the easier ways to speed up your site. Next week we’ll get into more advanced techniques, so you can soon be on your way to a faster Wordpress site, ideal for great business blog marketing.

Business Blog Marketing 101: Recognizing Spam Comments

Wednesday, August 4th, 2010

Not All Blog Comments are Created Equal – Know What to Post or Just Delete

Moderate and monitor all comments on your business blog.

Spam, the dreaded online term for anything that keeps coming back to annoy you and forces itself into your blog comment queue. Comments from far east websites as well as tactics from black hat SEO firms will likely degrade your business’s  reputation as well as other ethical blog marketing efforts.

How can a corporate or business blog avoid these infectious comments? Follow this rudimentary business blog marketing advice.

1. Always, always check the “moderate comments” box on your blog platform. If you do this, then you can decide what comments are worthy enough to approve on your business blog.

Recognize what constitutes Spam and what may be legitimate. Here are a few examples I recently found on this SEO business blog:

Submitted on 2010/07/27 at 10:54am

Good brief and this post helped me alot in my college assignement. Say thank you you seeking your information. (from what could be a non-spam website)

Submitted on 2010/07/28 at 7:56am

thanks for keeping me up to date on this issue.

2. If a comment is questionable, then follow the link provided. More often than not, the website will no longer exist or it will be another blog with a list of links and no content. These links are NOT the type of link building you want for your business blog, which may impede any other marketing efforts.

Look at this example below:

oldfortharrod.com
Usually I do not post on blogs, but I would like to say that this article really forced me to do so! Thanks, really nice article.

The site above is legitimate, but the comment is not. Our SEO blog receives many comments like this and I think someone is just adding a random domain or it’s the work of an unethical SEO firm.

3. Monitor & delete your business blog comment queue often. If your business is maintaining a blog everyday or every week, and it’s receiving traffic, then someone should be monitoring the spam and other comments too. If it’s not your marketing department, then appoint someone else to do it.

Afterall, you don’t want to waste your time sifting through 65 spam comments every month, do you?

Search Circus monitors all comments on our SEO business blog and we offer ethical business blog marketing advice via articles, consulting, and adult education classes in the greater Cleveland area. Ask us how we can help your business garner a greater presence online.

How to Find New Content for Business Blogs

Monday, July 12th, 2010

It’s easy to become frustrated when writing business blogs. Depending on the industry, you may feel like you’re running out of ideas or aren’t keeping your blog interesting enough, which won’t encourage new readership. However, the Internet is chalk full of fresh ideas for your business blogs, you just need to know where to look. Here are 10 steps for finding new and interesting content for your business blogs according to Kipp Bodnar’s blog post “10 Simple Strategies for Business Blog Content.”

Compile industry information. There’s plenty of great information online. Make your blog all about collecting popular industry stats, photos, videos and articles. This gives readers a place to find all the information they want to know about the industry in one place. Many people will begin relying on you for breaking industry news, which will up your readership and credibility. Make sure to always give credit to the source of the information when you’re aggregating content.

Answer Questions. Check your email and with your sales and support teams to figure out what customers really want to know about your product or service. After you generate a list of questions, write a blog post for each that answers them in simple language (without any industry jargon) that your customers can understand.

Find Guest Authors. Seek out other experts and industry leaders in your industry and ask them to contribute an article for your blog. Many people will take you up on your offer (for free) in order to gain more exposure and links back to their own Websites.

Don’t just rely on text. Publish videos and utilize photos, charts and graphs within your blog. If there is an industry event or trade show, take photos and the next day, publish them with captions as your only blog post. It’s okay to take a break from text once in a while. Think about what other information would be interesting and useful to your readers that doesn’t involve text and try it today.

Make a list. Lists are quick and easy to read and people love them. Summarize other information in your own words using numbers or bullet points. Lists can be a how-to, best-of, truths and myths, do’s and dont’s, etc. They also are good for coming up with a new angle on a well-known topic.

Write an opinion article. Every industry has controversial topics. Pick a couple of hot topics and write an opinion article about the issue. Opinion blog posts usually attract more visitors and comments that neutral posts.

Use charts and graphs. Use interesting data about the industry to compile a chart that your readers might find interesting and/or valuable.

Check out your Website analytics. Analytics will show you who is reading your blog. You can see where they live, what kind of computer they’re using, how they’re finding you and other useful information that can help you cater to them more directly.

Review Industry Books. After reading some industry books (preferably new), make a video review or write a review for your readers. Make sure to point out both the good and bad aspect of the book and point out parts that you think your readers will especially love.

Be a reporter. Always stay up on the most recent and breaking news in your industry and try to post it as soon as possible. That way, your blog readers will begin to see you as a trusted expert in the field and rely on you for the industry news. Your blog will begin to show up on the search engine results pages more too because search engines place an added value on the first sites to discuss a subject.

Using these 10 tips to help generate content for your business blog provided by Kipp Bodnar’s blog post will surely help increase your readership and build your credibility and reputation as a valued industry expert.