BroadVision Marketing Blog

A business blog is the anchor to which all your other social media platforms are tied. It’s your blog that goes on your Facebook Fan Page and you tweet about. These in turn get passed around by others who in turn come to your website to read that blog. Furthermore when the search engines are aware of the information in your blog, strangers will search for some keywords and find themselves on your business blog. That’s powerful stuff.

Topics: Google, WordPress, Corporate blog, Business Blogging, blog, Facebook, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business Owner, Business, Branding, Blogging, Twitter

Business blogging is a powerful low-cost marketing tool when you look at all the other marketing tools available. Its power is in the fact that you are writing about what you know. While it takes time, your knowledge is the value added if you have taken the time to learn how to use blogging properly. There is a big caveat here. Do not expect your blog to get you instant clients, customers or even readers. Expect little and you will be surprised when things work out. Expect instant success and you will be disappointed.

Topics: marketing, Web search engine, Business Blogging, blog, BroadVision Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business Owner, Jaco Grobbelaar, Business, Branding, Blogging, Marketing strategy

Keywords—you know you can buy lists of them or buy help sorting out what yours are—but what are keywords really, what‘s the deal with them,  and how can you figure out which ones to use?

Defining keywords, keywords define search

People use keywords all the time. When you put what you are searching for in Google or the other search engines, you are using keywords. Search engines go through enormous data bases and send you results by listing sites that apply to the words you “googled”.

Topics: Google, Web search engine, WordPress, Uniform Resource Locator, Keywords, Kevin Sinclair, website, Marketing Plan, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles

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Are you still worried about spending too much time writing your blog and not enough time doing your work? Not to worry, there are still some more good ideas around.

Let’s take a quick look at why you need some good ideas. First, there is the fact that you want to be consistent about publishing.  Your readers will quit coming to your site if you don’t put up work in a timely fashion. Whether you write three times a week or once a month, you need to be there when they come. People get very put out when they look up information and are sent to sites that haven’t been active for years.

Topics: WordPress, Arts, blog, Marketing Plan, Facebook, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, LinkedIn, Business Owner, Business, Blogging, Twitter

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="216" caption="Jewelry Shop"] [/caption]

Do you think that content is more important than the headline? Many people would agree with you or at least agree that both are of equal importance. Since this is so and this blog has explored writing good headlines, it’s time to give content attention.

Sometimes it seems like writing content is actually harder than just running your business. At least with your business you understand what your clients want because they will tell you loud and clear. In blogging you cannot even be sure that anyone is reading. In your shop you understand cash flow, both in and out. When you blog you get all sorts of analytics, except the one that tells you the number of people who came into the shop because of what you wrote.

Topics: Writing, Pet store, blog, Marketing Plan, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business Owner, Business, Blogging

Does your headline grab your audience’s attention to get them to stop and read your blog? Your headline is that critical first impression that will draw people in or leave them looking elsewhere for information.

If you don’t put enough thought into your headline, you can have outstanding information; but no one is likely to read it. Stella Anokam of www.stellaanokam.com in a recent article “Why You Should Spend Time To Write Attention-Grabbing Headlines” said, “Do you know that over 50% of your traffic (and sales too) are lost due to your headline writing?”

Topics: Keywords, Headline, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Blogging

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="Early blog machine"] [/caption]

At a Chamber of Commerce meeting recently someone mentioned that they were using niche blogging, but you didn’t have a chance to ask what that was. So what is niche blogging?

You already have a blog set up for your business, but what would happen if you set up blogs that could be used in your business from different angles. In other words what if you took a vertical move and created more than one blog that crossed several industries? These multiple approaches are called niche blogging and are a way to greatly expand your influence.

Topics: Chamber of Commerce, Niche blogging, Social network service, blog, website, Marketing Plan, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Business, Blogging

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="240" caption="WordPress blogging system"] [/caption]

Not everyone who reads the blogs I've been writing is an expert yet. If you are a newbie, do you know if you are writing a blog that is used for a website? What does it become then?

Mike Clough in his post of June 28, 2010 ( http://bestbizpractices.org/2010/06/28/is-your-blog-really-a-blog/) clarified the question by saying, “When a blog is used for website functions, it loses its value as a blog and in fact becomes just another website.”

Topics: Using Different Media, Small business, information, Web content, blog, website, Facebook, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, LinkedIn, Blogging

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="193" caption="Google search"] [/caption]

Now that you have decided to write a blog for your business, you go on line and ask Google to do a general search on your product. What’s this? There are millions of blogs on the internet and it looks like millions about your product. One look at the competition and you are tempted to head for the hills.

But don’t do that. You can compete if you spend the time to create informative blog posts. This is not just a business whim, but a strategic point of your marketing campaign. If you want to be successful, you have only to take the time and effort to write content about your product. Before you start you might want to spend time answering some questions that will help you develop your strategy and actually help you write.

Topics: marketing, Using Different Media, Marketing and Advertising, Google, Google Search, Customer, readers, social media strategy, product, informative posts, brand awareness, blog, clients, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Marketing Principles, Business, Branding, Blogging