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What Does Google Caffeine Mean for Bloggers?

August 25, 2010 By

Like a refreshing jolt to the system, Google released Google Caffeine back in June of 2010. Apart from its cool name, its purpose is to help find and index fresh content.Black and white photo of steaming cup of coffee This is a big change from Google “unleaded,” which sometimes seemed more concerned with just finding content. And making SEO consultants crazy by always changing their algorithms.

The primary motivation is to help users to we can get the most current content that is relevant.

Google said in their recent blog post about Google Caffeine

So why did we build a new search indexing system? Content on the web is blossoming. It’s growing not just in size and numbers but with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex. In addition, people’s expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to be found the instant they publish.

For several years now, Google has been preaching the virtues of Fresh Hot Content. They have been talking about “recency” and “frequency” as their two biggest buzzwords when it came to search. That’s why blogging has become so important in recent years (and why Pro Blog Service exists at all).

It appears that Google Caffeine was developed specifically to track the freshest, hottest content, to deliver to their users. Does your website contain content from two years ago? Or are you developing new content on a regular basis to engage your prospects in conversation?

If not, you need to consider rethinking your content strategies. It’s no longer enough to just to optimize a page, create a bunch of backlinks, and then leave everything alone. Google wants new stuff, fresh stuff. Otherwise, they believe you’re not committed to providing the best content to their users. And they’ll spit you out like 6-hour coffee.

Google Caffeine is redefining the definition of fresh hot content to mean, what have you done today?

Photo credit: Andreas Solberg (Flickr)

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    Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : What Does Google Caffeine Mean for Bloggers?  •  Keywords : content creation, Google, Google Caffeine, search engine optimization  • 
    Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: , , , ,

    5 Types of Presentations You’ll Find at Blog Indiana 2010

    August 21, 2010 By

    I’ve been Blog Indiana 2010and attended several of the presentations here. Our sessions tend to be the same kind of presentation, although they cover a wide variety of topics. Whether it’s at a conference, a seminar, or a corporate presentation, presentations tend to follow the same formula.

    Erik Deckers at his presentation at Blog Indiana 2010

    Me at my presentation at Blog Indiana

    If you’re interested in becoming a public speaker, there are five basic types of presentations you could give.

      1. How to: Basic tips, how-to, suggestions, and strategies. These are great for sharing information, and to establish your expertise. Title your talk something 7 NEW Secrets To Promoting Your Blog Through Social Media. People who are interested in sessions like this are looking for concrete, nuts-and-bolts ideas. This is the kind of talk I gave this year.
      2. Case Study: These historic talks show how you got from point A to point B, and the lessons you learned on the way. They can be inspirational or a cautionary tale, and if they’re done well, people can get both types of information from them. If you’re a great story teller, then I suggest you give this a try. Do a case study of a single client, or tell a part of your story (Note: We didn’t ask for your life story), or even 3 -4 short stories that are all centered around a single point. This is also a good place to ask for discussion from the audience. Paul Poteet gave this as a keynote presentation this year.
      3. Futurecasting: This is where the futurists and 30,000-foot-view thinkers can really shine. You can talk about what you think the future of your industry will be. If you make enough accurate predictions, you’ll be one of the hot properties on your industry’s speaking circuit. This presentation may look back historically to make its point, but a futurecasting talk is going to discuss what they believe will be happening over the next few years.
      4. Educational: Educate your listeners about a topic, idea, or tool. It may not be as in-depth as the how-to, but it’s great for teaching beginners about a particular concept. An informative session will teach people about Twitter — why use it, how it works, who uses it — while a how to session will cover the specifics of using it — signing up, following people, sending tweets. Doug Karr told listeners why their site sucks, with his Why Your Site Sucks educational session.
    Jason Falls, Jay Baer, and Chris Baggott participate in a panel discussion at Blog Indiana 2010.

    Jason Falls, Jay Baer, Chris Baggott (standing)

    1. Issues: Every industry has its issues and controversies, and these are a great place to address them. This can be a panel discussion, a single person facilitating an audience discussion, or even one person presenting one or both sides of the issue. Fellow ghost blogger Lindsay Manfredi talked about ghost blogging this year, which has been a big hot button issue for our industry for a few years. Chris Baggott, Jason Falls, and Jay Baer participated in a panel discussion to “dispel the myth of the blog reader.”
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      Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : 5 Types of Presentations You'll Find at Blog Indiana 2010  •  Keywords : Blog Indiana, blogging, conference, Douglas Karr, Indianapolis, Lindsay Manfredi, speaking  • 
      Filed Under: Blog ROI, Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Social Media, Tools Tagged With: , , , , , ,

      Blogging for Posterity, not Search or Readership

      August 4, 2010 By
      Screenshot for Google Analytics for Laughing Stalk

      We’ve been debating around the office whether it’s better to write for search or to write for readers.

      I think it’s actually a little of both.

      On the one hand, there are people who will never optimize a single blog post for search engines. They just write awesome stuff and people flock to them through word of mouth.

      On the other, there are people who believe that it’s okay to churn out crap, just so long as you win search engine results. Their thought is if you win more search, you get more traffic.

      The problem with the latter is that while you may get more traffic, you also get more people who see your writing is crap, and so you get more people who ignore you. The problem with the former is that you can’t rely on word of mouth. That’s why it’s important that you do both.

      I call it writing for posterity.

      Writing for posterity means you want to win search, but you also want people to read it. It means you optimize for search while you write as well as you can. This shouldn’t be an either/or proposition.

      I had a great example of writing for posterity on my Laughing Stalk humor blog last week. For no reason that I can determine, I got a big spike of readers — 600 over 3 days — showing up at a column I wrote nearly a year ago.

      My blog post/humor column, “Honey, It’s Over. Burma Shave!“, started ranking high on my Google Analytics, nearly 10 months after I first wrote it.

      Screenshot for Google Analytics for Laughing Stalk

      The source? Google.se, or Google Sweden.

      The reason? I don’t even know. I don’t know if I got featured on a front page somehow. I don’t know if a news story mentioned the incident. I don’t know if there was an auditorium filled with Swedes who were all visiting my site.

      What I know is that I had nearly 606 Swedes visit my site over a 3 day period, and spend some time on my site. They came because they found me on Google (Google Sweden, which I guess just makes me Swedish famous), and they stayed for an average of 40 seconds. Not huge time, but all the RSS bots seem to be screwing with my Time On Page stats.

      Had I tried to just focus on search for this post, my readability would have most likely suffered. But had I just focused on readership, I may never have been found.

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        Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Blogging for Posterity, not Search or Readership  •  Keywords : blog analytics, blog writing, blogging, readability, search engines, writing  • 
        Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Writing Tagged With: , , , , ,

        Corporate Blogging’s Chief Purpose from Google’s Chief Blogger

        August 3, 2010 By

        A couple weeks ago, Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot’s blog manager, talked to Google’s chief blogger, Karen Wickre about corporate blogging, and the important things companies need to do when taking the plunge into blogging.

        Wickre says the most important thing a company new to blogging should do is to get a feel for what’s out there, and consider what they would want their blog to say. A blog could be personal, could be about thought leadership, or could focus on customer service. But find the blog’s voice, and stick with it, she says.

        While that’s important, I don’t think it’s the most important thing. In some ways, that issue is going to resolve itself as time goes by.

        I believe the most important thing about corporate blogging is that a blog will “establish ground for the company.” Wickre said a good company blog should do all these things:

        • Do most posts offer useful or unique information?
        • Do they reflect the company’s values and interests?
        • Do they demonstrate the people behind the company/products?

        Wickre had other good points for corporate bloggers to consider, but for me, this was the biggest. We try to get our clients to see that their blog needs to be more than just a commercial, or a catalog. Yes, you can have those kinds of posts, but you also need to tell your customers about your company. You need to show what you stand for, how you work, why you work. You need to answer questions about your company, your products, and your values. You need to introduce your staff to your customers, and let them develop relationships. (Remember, people buy from people they like. If they like your staff, they’ll like your company, and they’ll buy from you.)

        Your corporate blog is more than just a marketing mouthpiece. It’s not a cheap form of sales literature. It’s the window into your company and possibly one of the best ways to communicate with your customers. So find the voice, jump in, and you’ll answer all Wickre’s questions as time goes by.

        Photo credit: DannySullivan (Flickr)

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          Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Corporate Blogging’s Chief Purpose from Google’s Chief Blogger - Professional Blog Service  •  Keywords : blogging, business blogging, corporate blogging, Google  • 
          Filed Under: Blog ROI, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

          Four Blogging Tips for Travel and Tourism Destinations

          July 26, 2010 By
          Screen shot of the Indiana Insider blog from VisitIndiana.com

          One of the best things travel and tourism destinations can use for social media marketing is blogging. It’s a way to share content that:

          • is easy to update. Writing a blog post is as easy as writing an email.
          • helps with search engine ranking. Search engines love blog content.
          • will last for years. Your content can be found years later by interested visitors.

          So here are the four things you can do with your blog to help market your tourism destination to your visitors.Screen shot of the Indiana Insider blog from VisitIndiana.com

          1. Tell stories about the stuff your guests are doing.

          Rather than just describe the activities that are available at your destination, talk about the things your guests have been doing. Write it more like one of the old weekly newspaper columns that used to tell us when the town’s citizens had visited each other.

          The stories should talk about some of the stuff the guests are doing. Do a quick interview with them, find out the favorite part of their activity, and write a brief synopsis of what they did. Include some photos if possible (see #2).

          We just heard from David and Sharon A. about the round of golf they played this morning. Sharon is a fair golfer and scored a 91, although David (89) is still recovering from a back injury. David said that while the course was a little challenging, he still couldn’t make it out of the water trap on the 13th hole.

          Meanwhile, the Robins just returned from their horseback ride, on Morgan and Shadow. Morgan is always a gentle horse, which is good, because David Robins has never ridden before. They spent the morning out on the trail and stopped for a picnic lunch out on Oak Lookout.

          It’s just a short post, and people may not really care about what the families are doing (more on that in a minute), but the people who have gotten caught in the 13th hole water trap, ridden Morgan, or had a picnic lunch on Oak Lookout are going to have their own memories of the place, and will remember the great times they had. (However, the families who are mentioned in your post may also tell their friends about your blog entry, and they’ll get to read about your place as well.

          2. Post your photos and videos.

          We talked in a previous post about why travel and tourism destinations should use photo and video sharing sites. The only issue is that you can’t always get people to go to those photo and video sites, especially if you’re uploading hundreds and thousands of photos.

          But your blog is also an easy place to share those photos and videos. Choose the embed code for your album or video, and paste it into a blog post. You can use this content to reinforce the text you’re writing about, and increase the impact of your posts. Plus, videos and photos embedded on your blog will help your search engine rankings

          3. Talk about behind-the-scenes stuff.

          Think about your good friends, the ones you really like. How much do you know about their lives, the stuff they don’t tell just everyone? Probably quite a bit. And it’s that non-public knowledge that probably makes you feel closer. You can do the same thing on your blog.

          Inn-Bedded Resorter Martin Earley is spending two months at The Balsams Grand Resort Hotel as their social media guy. He’s been enjoying all the amenities the guests get to use, but he’s also giving people a behind-the-scenes look at The Balsams. You can see a video of the kitchen during a dinner rush, but he has also spent time with the cleaning staff, and will also spend one night working security.

          He’s showing regular and potential guests how things work around the place, so people will understand a little better how their favorite New England resort works, but also so they feel a little closer to it, and will want to return again and again.

          4. Write it as a letter.

          The biggest mistake beginning bloggers make is writing for posterity. They imagine thousands of readers, book editors, and critics, all poring over their blog. As a result, the posts sound stilted and forced, the language is wooden, and the whole thing sounds like it was written by a marketing committee.

          Don’t write it for those people, write it for one person. Pick your favorite guest, your best friend from high school, or your mom. Write it in the same friendly tone as if this was only being read by that one person. In fact, start your post out with “Dear Sharon” or “Dear Mom.” Then, write the post to Sharon or your mom. When you’re finished, go back and delete the salutation. The tone of the post will come across as casual, friendly, and personal. The net result is more people will enjoy reading it, and they’ll want to come back every time you publish a new post.

          Photo credit: Erik Deckers (Disclosure: I am a travel writer for the Indiana Tourism Department’s Blog, Indiana Insider.)

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            Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : Four Blogging Tips for Travel and Tourism Destinations - Professional Blog Service  •  Keywords : blogging, business blogging, Social Media, social media marketing, tourism, tourism blogging, travel, travel and tourism, travel blogging  • 
            Filed Under: Blog Writing, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Communication, Marketing, Social Media, Social Networks, Tools Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

            The Problem With Corporate Blog Writing

            July 13, 2010 By

            As a professional blogger, I see a lot of different blogs, both small business and corporate. Some are good, some are terrible. Some are informative and engaging, some are daily commercials, some are stilted and formal. I can spot the blogs written by people who are passionate about their work, knowledgeable about their field, or exploring new knowledge.

            I can also spot the ones that are written by marketing professionals, committees, and the legal department.

            Blogging tends to make corporate types a little nervous

            It’s not that I have anything against marketers (I’ve been one for over 16 years). And I don’t have anything against lawyers. (Committees, on the other hand. . .)

            The problem is blogging has a different writing style, a different flow. In blogging, you don’t worry about being technically accurate, covering every contingency, option, variation, divergence, modification, and refinement, you just have to be right.

            But the blogs I see by marketers, lawyers, and committees don’t have that spark. Everything is written like a legal brief, or it uses all the proper product/service names, instead of what customers actually call it. Or it has that lowest common denominator feel of the committee, where every phrase is scrutinized, and meetings are filled with statements like “should we say ‘rediscover’ or ‘redefine?’” and then discussed heatedly for 30 minutes. (“Why can’t we say ‘rediscover or redefine?’” “But what about people who have not discovered or defined it in the first place?”)

            Marketing Copywriting and Legal Writing Are Not Good Blog Writing

            Blogging is informal. It’s written like people speak. It has punch, emotion, spark, verve. Sentences start with “and.” Or appear incomplete. While grammar is (and should be) used, people are a little more loose with some of the grammar rules. That’s not to say a blogger gets to write like an illiterate scribbler. But rather, they don’t need to march in lockstep with the grammar rules our 7th grade teacher drummed into us.

            A good blog has to capture the attention of the person reading it. It has to be well-written and interesting. Too often, corporate blogs are stiff, formal, and uninteresting. They’re literary yawn-fests that seem to want to drive away readers, not bring them in.

            I recently read a pro athlete’s blog that was hosted on his team’s website. And I could tell right away — see how I just started that sentence with ‘and?’ — that he didn’t write it. Or at least he didn’t have the final edit. That’s because the author or editor didn’t use team nicknames, and they made sure to include sponsor names.

            “We’ve been working hard at the Sheinhardt Wig Company Indianapolis Beagles Practice Facility all week, and are looking forward to facing the Cincinnati Rough Riders on Sunday at 4:00 p.m.”

            BLEAH! The only people who refer to anything by their sponsors’ names are marketers and race car drivers. The only people who refer to a team by their full name in an informal setting are marketers. Given that this particular athlete is not known for his eloquence, I could only assume this had been edited heavily, and not just for grammar.

            While I’m not a big fan of misspelled words, poor grammar, and text speak, I do think writers should be given their own voice, and not edited to sound like some marketer’s idea of what they think it should be.

            Basically, if you want to be a successful blogger, you need to learn to write like a real person. Loosen up the tie, disband the committee, unclench, and start to write like a real person. When you have an urge to fix something to as required by the marketing copy user’s guide, kill it.

            Learn to write how people talk, and you’ll start to figure out how people read. And then they’ll start reading what you have to say.

            Photo: St. Stev (Flickr)

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              Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : The Problem With Corporate Blog Writing - Professional Blog Service  •  Keywords : blog writing, blogging, Business Blogging Content, corporate blog writing, corporate blogging  • 
              Filed Under: Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Marketing, Writing Tagged With: , , , ,

              If You Want Your Content Republished, Have a Republishable RSS Feed

              June 18, 2010 By

              If you have a blog, 1/3 of the functionality is its ability to handle RSS feeds (syndicated news feeds). RSS is a vital part of the blog ecosystem, and if you are neglecting it, you are giving up 30-50% of the return on investment you should be expecting from your blog. Isn’t RSS automatic? Well, yes and no.

              Most blogs have some kind of RSS publishing capability (an RSS feed is part of what makes a blog a blog), and most have it turned on by default, the problem is that most blogging software have horrible defaults settings that result in your RSS feed being useless to everyone other than desktop news tickers.

              When you neglect your RSS feed:

              • You minimize the search engine optimization effect. You aren’t getting backlinks from people republishing your article, and therefore, aren’t getting any link juice.
              • You diminish your site’s ability to harvest traffic from social networks like LinkedIn, Facebook and niche sites on Ning and Groupsites.
              • People may be stealing your articles without sending traffic back to your site or crediting the author.

              If you want your content republished, have an RSS feed.

              So what does “republishable” mean?

              1. The full article text is included. If you have a WordPress or Typepad blog, chances are you are set for the summary feed which gives exactly 200 characters of each article, which is good for exactly nothing. Go to Settings… reading and change your feed from summary to full article.
              2. Links and picture sources are fully qualified. That means all links and images point to to “http://yoursite.com/super-cool-content.whatever” and not to “/super-cool-content.whatever.” It also means that when your article is republished, the links work. If your site runs Joomla, you’ll have to have someone who is comfortable with PHP make a change to the code that generates your site’s RSS Feed.
              3. An about the author block is included. This way, you will always be credited. Don’t do a lot of crazy styling – just keep it simple as many RSS aggregators (the software that grabs your feed and includes it in another website) strip most formatting out, leaving links, and basic HTML intact (stuff like the bold and italics tags). Include your name, a one line description of the author, and it is a good idea to provide a link to your blog, and even your LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook page.
              4. A copyright statement is included, if needed.
              5. Turn photos off in your feeds. Photos sized and selected for your blog are often not edited correctly for other people’s websites. If you use Typepad, you’ll have to make a settings change.
              6. Make sure your logo is set. Some sites will publish your logo next to or above your site’s headlines. Joomla site owners, chances are right now your logo is the Joomla logo.
              7. You have a clear set of rules on your site that tell others how they can use your content. A lot of blogs use Creative Commons licenses that make it a snap for people to understand your intent and their legal obligations.
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                Author :  •  Content Location : Indianapolis, IN  •  Headline : If you want your content republished, have a republishable RSS feed - Professional Blog Service  •  Keywords : blogging, creative commons, Joomla, publishing, RSS, seo, syndication, WordPress  • 
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                Which Blog Hosting Strategy Has Higher SEO Results?

                May 31, 2010 By
                bloglocation0

                After reading Erik’s blog postThe Number One Reason Companies Need to Blog About Their Products, I thought I’d clarify the best place to put your blog if your objective is to get the most search juice and the top search rank.

                If your blog attracts lots of links, it may be better to have the blog inside your website as the links will drive your site’s page rank and SERPs (Search Engine Results Page) up. In fact, links are so critical to search engine optimization that almost always, the right answer will be put the blog inside your website’s domain. For those who have and have no idea what I’m talking about, we’re talking about this difference in your blog’s address:

                mydomain.com/blog
                versus
                blog.mydomain.com

                This is a very important consideration as search engines see blog.mydomain.com as a separate website from mydomain.com. Search engines see mydomain.com/blog as part of the same website, so links to the blog are going to help raise the page rank and search position of the entire website.

                There really are only three reasons that are likely to come up for hosting your blog outside of your website’s domain for SEO purposes:

                1. You already have a top rank for your keywords and wish to banish your competitors further down the first page of search results.

                2. There is a technical reason you cannot have your blog inside of yourdomain.com. For example, you might use a subscription service for your website like a lot of Realtors, attorneys and financial planners do. Often times, these services will not let you install WordPress or another blogging system on their servers.

                3. No one is going to link to your blog, and so the best you can hope for are a few keyword links back to your website.

                Let me say it again: putting your blog inside your website is generally the best strategy unless you are already top ranked, have a technical limitation or no one is going to link to your blog.

                Note: In Compendium Blogware’s case, their blogs fall under situation number 2. They have to do subdomains or external domains(somenewsite.com) and cannot do a mydomain.com/blog URL as they would have to move their software to the server hosting mydomain.com. While the “rising waters raise all ships” philosophy will help your SEO efforts, you don’t get quite the boost that you do from the mydomain.com/blog strategy.

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                  Filed Under: Blog ROI, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Lead Generation, Tools Tagged With: , , , , ,

                  The Number One Reason Companies Need to Blog About Their Products

                  May 20, 2010 By

                  We write a lot of product blogs for our clients. No matter what size, shape, color, or price of the product, we’ve written several hundred blog product posts.

                  But for all the hundreds of posts we’ve written, there’s only one reason we do it: to win search.

                  Chris Baggott of Compendium Blogware has long beat the “blogging wins search” drum. (And while I don’t agree about his “myth of the reader” — I believe you should try to get and keep regular, returning readers — he makes a great point about winning search.)

                  A product blog post is one of the easiest things to write. It’s just 200 – 300 words describing a particular product with a link back to the original catalog entry or product description. Each post equals a backlink back to your website, and the more backlinks you have to your website, the better you rank in a search.

                  Should I Keep My Blog Inside My Website, or Have a Separate Blog?

                  We’re fans of keeping a blog and a website together, but there’s no harm in keeping the two separate. After all, the search engines recognize it as a separate website that links back to your original one. However, you’re better off putting your blog on your static website and use internal backlinks to go from the blog to the static pages.

                  But if you want to boost your search engine rankings even further, create a second blog where you publish your blog posts, and keep it separate from your regular corporate blog where you’re publishing your authority posts, credibility posts, issues posts, and educational posts. This way you can improve search and find first time visitors with one blog, and gain returning readers with the other.

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                    Filed Under: Blog ROI, Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Ghost Writing, Marketing, ProBlogService, Writing Tagged With: , , ,

                    7 Ways to Use Blogging to Promote Events

                    May 19, 2010 By

                    We’ve often used blogging to promote special events for ourselves and our clients. I’m even a blogger for VisitIndiana, the website and blog for Indiana Tourism, our state government’s tourism department.

                      1. Pre-event promotion: This is the one thing most people think of. But don’t limit yourself to a single blog post about the event coming up. Tie every blog post into your event. Blog about topics that tie into the event. For example, if you sell tradeshow displays, talk about the upcoming social media and tradeshow marketing panel discussion you’re going to host on June 9 at the Hilton Garden Inn. (By the way, I’m speaking at a panel discussion on social media and tradeshow marketing on June 9 for Skyline Exhibits – Indianapolis).

                    1. Live blogging: This can be challenging, but it can also be fun, because it draws people into the energy of the event, especially if they’re not able to attend with you. I have live blogged at two sporting events. One was the 2009 Indianapolis 500. I had also spent several days in May on the track, blogging about different things I saw, which helped build up my readership for the big day. I also live-blogged from an Indiana Fever game, which I will never do again. As I was writing about a play, something cool would happen, and I would miss it. Now I just tweet the highlights and enjoy the game. The easiest way to do live blogging is to use the Email to Post feature on WordPress or Blogger, or set up a blog at Posterous.com. I especially like Posterous, because I can attach photos and they’ll automatically be placed into each post.
                    2. Post-event wrap-up: You want to remind people of the good time they had, or tell them about the good time they missed so they’ll be sure to come back next year. Use this time to talk about what worked well, what could have been better, funny stories, traditions you might start, and photos of the great time people had. Ask attendees for suggestions about what they would like to see changed or kept the same.
                    3. Photo blogging: Set up some slideshows on Flickr or Picasa, and paste the embed code into a blog post. You can show photos you’ve already taken, or embed the code early, and then add photos as you take them, which will expand the slideshow. This is especially great for live blogging. Just use a photo uploader on your smart phone, get an EyeFi card for your digital camera, or make sure you have a way to quickly download photos from your camera and then upload them to your photo sharing site. You will need to do some tweaking on your account, but you can start sharing the photos right away.
                    4. Video blogging: The same techniques and ideas that you can use for photo blogging work for video blogging. I’m not talking about producing pre-written and edited videos. Rather, take some videos and upload them via your smart phone’s uploader, or YouTube. Take some quick interviews of event attendees, show some speakers/music/events/games, and post them as quick as you can. I especially like Posterous.com for photo and video blogging, because you can set up your account to automatically forward all photos and videos to their respective services when you email them to Posterous.
                    5. Get other bloggers: Ask other people to blog about your event in all three stages, pre, during, and post. Give them free admission or tickets to come to your event and write about it. You want to find bloggers in that niche or industry, but don’t limit yourself to only finding the most popular ones. The ones who don’t have a lot of readers can still be valuable. For one thing, they’re reaching a group of people that the bigger bloggers might not. For another, any links they make back to your website help your search engine optimization (see #7), which makes it easier for people to find your event for next year.
                    6. It’s all for Search Engine Optimization: It doesn’t matter if you got a lot of people to read about your event this year, or if only a few dozen people were following your blog at the time of the event. All this blogging does one additional thing for you: it builds your content out for search engine placement. If you’re going to hold your event next year, all the work you did this year will help you rank higher on the search engines for next year. This is true whether you’re hosting your own event, or whether you’re participating in someone else’s event. For example, if you’re taking photos, videos, and blogging about your participating at an arts festival, you’ll be one of the first names to pop up when people start searching for it again for next year.

                    Just remember, blogging is for the long haul too, not a just quick burst of publicity. It’s the marathon, not the spring. But it doesn’t hurt to have a fast start to get out in front of your competition either.

                    Photo credit: MattIndy77 (Flickr)

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                      Filed Under: Blogging, Business Blogging Content, Social Media, Tools, Twitter, Video Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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