xMarketing Newsletter 09/17/08

xMarketing Tip

Last week we talked about WHY you should consider using a blog to grow your website traffic. This week we will talk about how to use your blog once you set it up.

1. Provide helpful information (sounds like a “duh”, but many blogs don’t actually discuss anything of substance, sort of like a Seinfeld episode).
2. If you are a service business, provide advice to your prospects that may help them decide if they do or do NOT need you for a problem. For example, if you are a pest control company, provide some home remedies for minor problems so they can address some issues without calling. If you help them solve their own problem when they have a few normal ants in the laundry room, they are more likely to call you when a fire ant colony shows up next to their patio.
3. Post items 2-3 times per week. They don’t have to be long posts each time; a few paragraphs 2-3 times a week is better than a long article once per month.
4. Keep most posts short (< 500 words). On occasion, a hot topic deservers a longer post, but in general, assume some of your audience is ADD.
5. Put spaces between paragraphs. You are more likely to get a 1000 word post read that has paragraphs of only 2-3 sentences than a single post of one paragraph with 500 words.
6. Remember this is a blog for your business. While friends and family may want to hear about your latest vacation and how your kids did in soccer this past weekend, your customers and prospects do not. Prospective customers want to get to know you as it relates to their business relationship with them.
7. Do NOT use this as a direct marketing piece for your services. You can weave in some of your products or services as possible solutions to the problems your readers face, but focus on their problems, because that is what they want to read about.
8. Make it interactive by asking your readers questions to encourage them to comment.
9. Run a contest only through the blog a few times per year as an incentive to get them checking back, ESPECIALLY if the contest involves the blog readers voting on the winner.
10. If you have a newsletter, post copies of the old newsletters on the blog. If its a fancy graphical newsletter, just cut and paste the text to the blog, not all the images.
11. If you provide technical support to your customers, have a category in your blog devoted to that topic. Eventually, some customers hitting the blog for tech support will read the other parts of the blog.
12. Police your blogs for inappropriate comments. It is okay to have a legitimate customer satisfaction discussion on the blog with a dissatisfied customer as long as they treat the discussion with respect. If they just post things like “Your company sucks”, then delete the posts and ban the poster.
13. Keep an eye out for SPAM bots posting ads for viagra and get rich quick schemes to your blog. There are security features that can be enabled to slow up SPAM bots.
14. Include images, video, and audio when its appropriate to your topic.
15. Link anchor text back to your website. For example, if NeoNexus posts on a blog and discusses “search engine optimization”, then instead of just listing search engine optimization as straight text, we can hyperlink the word “search engine optimization” back to the page on our website that talks about our Search Engine Optimization services.

Tech Tip

Especially for Pet Owners.

I have a Belgian Malinois, and I wouldn’t give him up for any reason; but boy does his hair make a mess in the house! It gets absolutely everywhere! Since you can’t see inside your computer, you can’t see how much of your pet’s hair has made its way into that space as well. If you have a desktop, it’s easy to take off the cover and blow out the dust with canned air or even your hair dryer set to COOL will assist. But if you have a laptop, it is not possible for you do perform this task on your own. And if you have cats, (we have one of those also) cat dander can really invade the spaces inside your computer. It is as fine as baby powder and coats all the surfaces inside your computer. Your computer has a fan that while blowing hot air out, is also pulling your home air in. Pet hair and dander clogs the air circulation in your PC and causes your components to run hot and decreases their life span up to and including causing shut downs; usually at the most inopportune times. Laptop owners can bring their computers to our shop for cleaning. We can open them up and clean out while your run errands. To schedule your own appointment with Ryan, use our online scheduler by clicking http://www.securedata-trans9.com/ap/thatpurplepcplaceinc/index.php?page=10

Customer Spotlight

Down Under Irrigation and Landscaping has been serving Wilmington and the surrounding areas for over 20 years. Our staff consists of knowledgeable landscapers with experience in making the customers dreams come true. From outdoor kitchens to irrigation, Down Under is sure to surpass your expectations!

Services:

Full Design Packages, Hardscape Installations, Landscape Installations, Irrigation Installations, Maintenance Packages, Water Features/ Ponds, Outdoor Lighting

www.downunderlandscaping.com

Internet Cool Site of the Week

We all know how to read PDF documents with the free Adobe Reader, but how do we create a PDF to email or post on our website?

You can always purchase Adobe Acrobat for about $200. Its a nice tool with a lot of features. However, for those of you on a budget, there

is another solution:

http://www.primopdf.com/

The primo PDF software installs like a print driver. Once installed, any software that prints can print to PrimoPDF instead of your HP, Epson, or other printer. The software converts the print job into a PDF file. The cost? Zero.