by Brandon Cornett
A company blog can help you expand your company’s presence online, which in turn can help you attract new customers and generate business via the Internet.

That sounds great. But how do company blogs work? And more importantly, how can you use your company’s blog to achieve the best possible results?

The Company Blog Defined

Company blogs are exactly what they sound like — blogs operated by companies. By itself, a blog is simply a content-management system that allows you to quickly and easily publish content onto the web (usually in reverse chronological format). But when a company truly embraces the blog it can become much more than a simple software tool.

The biggest appeal of blogs is that they allow for easy web publishing. In fact, anyone who can create a Word document or a basic email message is technically qualified to operate a blog. It really is that simple.

This is the primary reason why company blogs have become so popular lately. Among other benefits, a company blog allows one person to perform the jobs of two people. In the past, it often took two people to get new content onto the company’s website — a writer and a webmaster. But with a blog, it only takes one person — the company blogger!

How to Start a Company Blog

If you’re new to the world of blogging, I strongly recommend paying someone to help you create your company’s blog. First of all, it will save you a lot of headache and hassle.

For instance, I could install, launch and customize for one of my clients in a day. I do it all the time, so it’s just something I’m intimately familiar with. But if one of my clients tried to launch a company blog on their own, it would probably take days or weeks — not to mention a lot of trial-and-error headache.

It’s not that my clients are inept … they just don’t have the experience going through the process of blog setup. Save yourself the hassle — pay a blog expert a small fee to do it for you!

Choosing a Blogging Program

Once you have somebody identified to help you set up your company blog the right way, you will want to choose a blog program. I won’t go into this too heavily because I’ve outlined the process in my Business Blogging Bible. Just know that it’s a necessary step before you go any further.

I recommend giving WordPress, Blogger and TypePad a trial run. Those are the three most popular blog programs used by most companies, and they all work well for company blogging purposes. I use Blogger and WordPress exclusively, and while they both have their own “personalities,” I would recommend either program without hesitation.

Writing Content for Your Company Blog

So now you have a blog program installed on your web host, you have familiarized yourself with the basic workings of the program, and you are ready to start publishing content onto your company blog.

Excellent! But where do you begin?

First, I would make sure you have three things for your company blog — a designated blogger, a basic blog strategy on paper, and an initial content plan to help you get started. You can follow the hyperlinks for more about each of those ingredients, so I won’t belabor the point here.

Blogging Expectations

The last thing I want to touch on is the expectation you should have for your company blog. In time, a company blog can help you achieve many goals at the same time. A company blog can help you increase your search engine rankings, your traffic levels, and your web-driven business as a whole.

But it takes time to get there … especially for a small business that does not have the “built-in” audience of a larger corporation. When Bill Marriott started his blog, for example, he had an instant audience (and plenty of media coverage). But things will be different for “Joe’s Landscaping Company.”

The point is, blogging takes a consistent effort — just like any other form of marketing communications. You need to publish useful content to your company blog on a regular basis. If you do, you’ll eventually start to enjoy the benefits outlined in this article. Just don’t expect these things right off the bat. It takes time and persistence.

I hope you have enjoyed my tutorial on company blogs and blogging. If you have any questions about blogging for business reasons, or if you need help setting up a blog for your own company, please don’t hesitate to contact me through my Internet marketing website.

Your guide to the world of free blog templates as a design strategy for your blog. An overview of blog themes and templates, how they work, where to find them and more.

Free blog templates can save you a lot of time and energy when designing your blog. In this tutorial we will take a closer look at blog template designs and how you might use them. But first, let’s start with a basic definition:

Web Templates Defined

The template concept actually started long before blogs came onto the scene. I’ve been involved with website development for nearly a decade now, and as long as I can remember there have been website templates available to simplify the design process.

Basically, a website template is a pre-built website that you can make your own. You can do this by customizing the template, adding your own logo, your own content, your own images, etc.

The primary advantage of using a website template is that they save the designer a tremendous amount of time. Instead of coding a website from the “ground up,” the designer starts with a pre-built “shell” and customizes it to his or her liking (or to the client’s liking).

Blog Templates Explained

In much the same way, a blog template is basically a design “shell” that you can apply to your blog (and the customize the design template as you see fit). But there’s one key difference between templates for websites and those for blogs — the blog templates are unique to a certain type of blogging program.

Each type of blogging program (such as Blogger and WordPress) functions in a unique way, as far as the structure and function of the blog. So a WordPress template will not work with Blogger, nor will a Blogger template work with WordPress.

If you’re running a WordPress blog, you will need to use WordPress templates exclusively (with WordPress, these templates are known as WordPress “themes”). If you’re using Blogger, you will need to stick with templates designed specifically for Blogger. If you’re using TypePad … well, you get the idea.

Where to Find Free Blog Templates

I’ll only cover the two most popular blogging programs here (WordPress and Blogger), because otherwise this article could go on endlessly. Let’s start with WordPress templates (which are also referred to as “WordPress themes”).

You can download free WordPress templates from many places. The most popular place is the official WordPress themes page, located at the following address:

http://themes.wordpress.net

There are hundreds of free templates for WordPress within the site listed above. You can use the “Test Run” link to see how each blog template / theme would actually look and function. You can also download each template for free.

Here’s the thing about the WordPress themes found on this site. Most of them have a line in the footer area that credits the theme / template designer. It’s usually a link to the creator’s website as well. That’s understandable, and you should leave this credit in place. But some of the people who create blog templates will insert several additional links as well, usually to the websites of their clients or other sites they own.

For example, the bottom of your WordPress theme might say something like this:

“This theme created by Blog Design Guy, and is sponsored by cheap Viagra and premium wood blinds.”

In the example above, the Design Guy link would likely be the actual template designer. The other two links would be to his client website, or other websites he owns. So essentially, this person is offering “free” WordPress themes that are really designed to increase the link popularity (and search engine ranking) of multiple websites.

Personally, I find this lame. I fully understand (and respect) the need to cite the designer and link to his or her site. After all, they created the WordPress template for people to use free of charge. But I think spamming up the templates with multiple links is silly. I recommend you avoid using WordPress templates / themes that employ this tactic. Stick with the ones that only link to the designer’s site.

Other places to find WordPress blog templates / themes:

• www.wpthemespot.com
• www.topwpthemes.com
• www.justskins.com
• www.templatemonster.com

Moving on to Blogger Templates

Blogger (www.Blogger.com) is another popular blogging program, and here too you have many options for choosing free blog templates for your own use.

When you set up your Blogger account, you will have to choose a blog template to use initially. Keep in mind that this template can be easily changed later on, so don’t think you’re “married” to it by any means.

Here’s the weird thing about Blogger (at least the last time I used it): When you first sign up for a blog account with them, you will only see a handful of blog templates … but after creating your free blog account you will have access to additional templates for Blogger.

As with WordPress templates, there are also plenty of other places to find free blog templates to use with Blogger. In many cases, the templates you find at third-party websites (outside of Blogger’s domain) are of better quality than the free blog templates offered by Blogger.

With that said, here’s where you can find plenty of template options you can freely download for your Blogger blog:

• www.blogger-templates.blogspot.com
• www.blogspottemplates.blogspot.com
• www.mashable.com/2007/09/13/blogger-templates/

Conclusion + Questions

I hope you’ve enjoyed this tutorial on free blog templates as a design approach for your blog. If you any questions about using a blog design template or anything else related to this article, leave me a comment below and I’ll respond here for the benefit of all readers.

Good luck with your blog design and template customization! 

Generating traffic is the key to success with any business blog. One of the best ways to increase your blog traffic is by increasing your blog ranking in major search engines like Google.

Sounds easy enough, right? Well, sort of. The challenge with boosting your blog rankings in the major search engines is that most other business bloggers are trying to do the same thing. After all, anybody who publishes a business blog wants top ranking in the search engines.

So how do you boost your blog ranking with so much competition? This is the question I’ve tackled in a new article posted to the website today.

Read the full article here:
Boosting Blog Rankings for More Traffic

Creating a business blog takes time and effort. But like everything else in business, you get out of it what you put into it. In this blog post, I’d like to motivate you toward creating a business blog by explaining the key benefits of blogging.

Creating a Business Blog - What are the Benefits?

• Easy to Publish — Business blogs are fairly simple to publish, even for somebody with no web-coding skills whatsoever. Just how easy is it? Well, if you can use an email program or create a Word document, you have the technical skills needed to publish a blog. Of course, creating a business blog in the first place will take a little more know-how (especially if you are creating a highly customized business blog). But once your blog is up and running, publishing content is as easy as typing an email message.
• Easy to Expand — Creating a business blog is obviously the first step you must pursue. But what about expanding your blog down the road? How do you go about that? Once again, the process is fairly simple and straightforward. After creating your business blog, you can easily add categories, sections, pages, new authors and more. Blog programs are designed to be expandable.
• Easy to Network — After creating your business blog you will obviously want people to find it and use it. This is another area where blogs surpass regular websites. Most bloggers are highly social online. Bloggers like to link to and recommend other business blogs they find interesting and useful. This kind of active networking can help you reach new audiences and attract endless amounts of traffic to your blog.

These are just a few of the benefits that can come from creating a business blog … the list goes on. So if you’ve been thinking about creating a blog for your business but you lacked the motivation, hopefully this information will get you on track!

More on how to create a business blog.

Business owners often ask me the question, “Should I create a business blog?” And I usually respond with another question: “Do you want to start blogging?”

I don’t mean to come off like a Zen riddle here, but it’s a very legitimate question to ask. My point is this. Many business owners feel the need to create a business blog simply because others in their industry are publishing blogs. That is the wrong reason to create a business blog.

Blogging takes work and dedication, and it goes a lot easier if you really want to blog. On the other hand, if you create a business blog simply because others are doing — and you lack the passion and purpose needed for an effective blog — than you will face an uphill battle from the start.

Good Reasons to Create a Business Blog

• You love to write and wish to apply that skill toward your business development.
• You have something informative, interesting or helpful to share with others.
• You have a lot of information at your fingertips that could be put to good use through an online publishing channel.
• You want to start an online conversation with your audience.

These are all good reasons to create and manage a business blog. But creating a blog just because the other guys and gals are doing is a bad idea. Trust me.

Anyone with a business blog can benefit from additional traffic. If your blog is a sales tool, then additional traffic means more sales. If your blog is a branding tool, then additional traffic means greater brand awareness.

You get the idea.

Doing something noteworthy is the best way to increase traffic to your business blog. When you write, or create, or offer something noteworthy, people will start talking. And they’ll start blogging … and linking … and sending more traffic your way.

Best of all, this technique is based on a simple principle of proportionality. The more noteworthy your act, the more buzz it will create.

Case in point, I recently completed a 130-page web marketing book for lawyers (in support of a law firm marketing website I own), and I’m now giving the book away for free. The website’s blog features a virtual cover of the book with a big “download for free” link beneath it.

I’ve also started to actively promote the book through various channels, including via online press release. This press release on the lawyer marketing book went out today, as a matter of fact.

What’s my point?

To those in the legal industry, this is something noteworthy. It’s an Internet marketing training guide, full of helpful tips and resources … and it’s free. This will help me generate buzz, inbound links to my blog, traffic to my blog, etc.

Now ask yourself, “What can I do that’s noteworthy? How can I get people’s attention in a way that increases my blog traffic? What will get my audience excited?”

Answer these questions, and you’ll have identified your path to increased blog traffic. Then all you have to do is follow that path.

Good luck with your business blogging adventures!

I would like to preface this tutorial by stating you should never “blog for the search engines.” In other words, always remember your true audience while engaging in acts of search engine optimization.

Now with that said, it only makes sense to increase the visibility of your business blog. Previously, we talked about the 5 P’s of starting a business blog. One of the P’s was purpose. And no matter how you define your blogging purpose, there is one necessary ingredient you’ll need for success — blog traffic.

Search engine visibility is one of many ways to increase traffic to your business blog, so it will be the topic of this discussion.

Key Phrase Research

Before you can improve your blog’s search engine visibility, you have to identify the key phrases under which your blog should be found. As we have defined, key search phrases are those phrases your target audience would enter into a search engine when researching services like yours.

For instance, if you’re a pool builder in Austin, Texas, your key phrases might include:

• austin pool builders
• pool companies in austin
• austin texas pool builders
• build a pool in austin texas
• and so on…

Key phrases are critical to your search engine success. The only way to connect with your key prospects through search engines is to know what phrases your key prospects are searching.

The trouble is, a lot of people waste time, effort and opportunity by incorporating the wrong phrases. This limits the number of people who find your business blog, and it prevents you from tapping into the best audience of all — people searching for exactly you what provide!

Don’t Guess at Your Key Phrases

Here’s the good news. You don’t have to guess which phrases people are searching and which ones they’re not. You can find out by using a search tracking service such as WordTracker.com or KeywordDiscovery.com. With either of these services, you can enter a particular search phrase, and they will tell you how many people searched for that phrase in the past month.

Both of the services mentioned above are paid services. But WordTracker does have a free version of their service that should be more than sufficient for your purposes:
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Keyword vs. Key Phrase
Don’t be misled by the term “keyword.” It’s rarely a good idea to focus on a single word when optimizing your website. That’s why I use the term “key phrase.” Few people enter a single word into a search engine these days. Most people enter two, three and four-word combinations (or more).

How Many Phrases?
How many key phrases do you need to focus on? Well, that depends on the key phrase research you do, what services you offer, etc. In my experience, most companies can limit their SEO efforts to 12 - 20 key phrases (or even fewer). You can probably guess most of these phrases off the top of your head, and that’s fine for starters. Just be sure to validate them through one of the services mentioned above.

Think of your key phrases as the seeds from which your business blog content will grow. When you find a phrase related to your business that a lot of people are searching, you need to plant that seed and grow content. Quality, keyword-rich content is the basic starting point for search engine optimization (which is the starting point for business blog visibility).

Just remember the disclaimer with which I began this article. In your attempts to increase your blog visibility you must never forget your real audience. Search engines will never buy your products or sign up for your services … some people tend to forget that.

A business blog is only as good as the content it offers, which means the blog is only as good as its author.

If you really want your business blog to be a success, you have to work hard to captivate your readers with quality content. This will keep them on the blog longer, make the more likely to come back, and encourage them to tell others about your blog.

But it all starts with captivating your readers. Here are three quick tips on how to do that.

1. Use Relevant Images - Your blog posts will be more eye-grabbing if you insert a supporting image / graphic into applicable posts. It won’t always make sense to do this (this post has no image, for example), so use your best judgment. In this previous post, I used images to reinforce the lesson I was offering. In this post on pay-per-click marketing, I used an image to clarify the difference between SEO and PPC.

2. Write a Great Title - You should put some thought into the titles of your blog posts, and for a number of reasons. For one thing, the title has some bearing on search engine visibility (learn more about optimizing blog titles). But more importantly, the title is going to largely determine whether or not people even read your individual blog posts, or your blog in general.

3. Offer a Solution or a Revelation - The Internet is over-saturated with what I like to call “fluff” articles and content. This is thoughtless content that’s only written to fill up a website or fuel a search engine optimization program. I hate this kind of content, and I know you probably do as well. So don’t add to it! Use your business blog to solve readers’ problems, or to educate them on something they hold valuable. Do this, and you will have their attention.

Everyone with a business blog can benefit from an increase in blog traffic. This is especially true when your business blog is directly tied to profits in some way.

But how does one increase blog traffic for greater online success? What steps are involved in driving more visitors to your blog? In truth, you could write a book on the many ways to increase traffic to a business blog. So I’ll just offer three of my favorite techniques for increasing blog traffic.

Traffic Tip #1 - The Online Press Release

Many bloggers don’t realize how easy it is to distribute a press online. This can give you an instant boost in blog traffic, and can also increase your search engine visibility as well. The key to this, of course, is to have something newsworthy to talk about — writing and distributing the press release is the easy part. For this blog traffic strategy, I often use such services as PRweb.com, PRleap.com, OpenPR.com and others.

Traffic Tip #2 - Search Engine Visibility

I’ve written an entire training manual to show you have to increase your blog traffic through search engine visibility. So I won’t repeat myself here. Just know that search engine visibility is one of the most effective ways to drive traffic to a business blog. On this subject, you might like my article on the relationship between search engines and blogs.

Traffic Tip #3 - Word of Mouth

In my mind, this is one of the best ways to generate blog traffic. Here’s why. When you create the kind of blog that is so useful or interesting that people can’t help but talk about it, you have created an online marketing machine with no limits. Imagine having a business blog that other people promoted for you, by linking to it, talking about it, and referring it to others. That’s what can happen if you dedicate yourself to creating something of value and uniqueness.

I hope you’ve enjoyed my mini-article on ways to increase blog traffic, and I wish you well in your business blogging endeavors.

by Brandon Cornett

What do you need when launching a business blog? Well, lots of things really. The necessary “ingredients” will vary from one business blogger to the next. In fact, entire books have been written on the subject of launching a blog.

So instead of rehashing what’s been written before, I’ll offer what I feel are the five most important considerations when starting a business blog.

The 5 P’s of Starting a Business Blog

• Program
• Purpose
• Person
• Passion
• Persistence

Program
Before you can start growing your blog, you obviously need to choose a blogging program. These are the all-inclusive systems that will power your business blog. The three most popular programs are Blogger, WordPress and TypePad.

Some companies with big IT departments actually create their own blogging programs, but in my opinion this is often a waste of time and money. WordPress, for one, can be customized and configured to support any business blogging objective. So why reinvent the wheel?

All three of the programs mentioned above can support a business blog, but they do have their advantages and disadvantages. My advice is to experiment with each one before making a decision. It’s also wise to talk to an experienced blogger who has used more than one program. He or she can help you understand the pros and cons of popular blogging programs.

Purpose
What are your blogging goals? What do you hope to get out of your business blogging efforts? How will your blog support your company’s marketing and communications goals?

You should answer these questions before you start blogging. It’s much easier to give a blog shape when you know the blog’s mission. Clearly define the purpose of your business blog, and then put that purpose in writing. You might even have a multi-purpose blog that supports several objectives. That’s fine too, as long as you define that purpose.

You can see that my blog’s purpose is clearly defined and specific. This makes my blogging duties much easier, and it will do the same for you.

Person
Who will publish your blog? Will you have one author or several authors? Will you write the blog’s content yourself or delegate it to someone else in your organization? These questions all fall under the “Person” factor — the third of our five P’s.

The author(s) of a business blog will solely determine the blog’s success or failure. The author is the blog, so it’s critical to choose the right person for the job. If you run a one-man or one-woman operation, you will obviously be the blog’s author. If you run a larger organization, you may have the opportunity to delegate blogging duties to the best candidate.

Whoever does the actual blog writing, it’s crucial that they possess the final two P’s of our list — passion and persistence.

Passion
If you are going to maintain a business blog, you will get much further and enjoy greater benefits if you blog with passion and enthusiasm. There are two primary reasons for this:

1. If you blog about something you are enthusiastic about (a particular niche, industry, product, etc.), you will be more likely to blog often. As a result, your business blog will grow rapidly and thus provide more search engine visibility.

2. If you blog with enthusiasm and energy, people will find your blog more interesting (than if you were half-hearted about your blogging). This will in turn help you grow your readership and foster interaction with your audience through the form of reader comments. So instead of having passive readers, you could enjoy the lead-producing benefits of active participation.

Half-hearted commentary stands out like a purple elephant in the corporate blogosphere. This kind of commentary does more harm than good, whether it comes from the CEO, the communications chief, or Joe Employee. Enthusiasm comes across in blog posts — and it’s contagious.

Persistence
With any business blog, success comes over time. This is true regardless of how you define success. Whether you’re blogging to increase sales, establish authority, generate leads or reinforce your brand, you will need to be persistent in your efforts.

This is especially true for smaller businesses, since a small business blog will not have the “built-in” audience of a larger corporation. In the early days, you will likely be blogging to an audience of one — yourself. But in time, persistence can change all of that!