If you want to blog for your business, and you should, WordPress is a great tool. You can use WordPress to build a blog for your business and for your professional website. However you do not want to use WordPress.com for your business.

I have been using WordPress since 2005 and never looked back. All my websites are built with WordPress and are doing pretty good on traffic via the search engines. Content is part of it and the correct technical structure of the page is another important part.

You have to take care of great content, so take time to write the best content. WordPress will take care of the technical part.

If you are going to use WordPress, remember two critical issues:

WordPress.com

#1- Do not use the free version on WordPress.com. During my workshops and training we start playing and testing with blogging and WordPress on this platform. However, it is for testing only. If you are serious about building your online Hub you will have to stop using this free version. You need the hosted version. Why?

WordPress.com can shut you down when you don’t play by the rules.

You can use it to promote your own product but you can not use affiliate links to other products. It is also not allowed to use links promoting 3rd party products or services. You can only link to products or services that you create.

You will get an email saying that you can not use it for business or making a profit on. All your hard work is lost.

Get the hosted version on WordPress.org

WordPress.org

#2- The hosted version is where you host the downloaded version of WordPress and put it on your domain. A place on the web that has your name on it, i.e. www.businessname.com, www.yourname.com, www.greattitle.com

You can do this at Bluehost (aff – internationally) or Deziweb (Netherlands) there are others but these are the ones that I use the most. This will cost you about EUR 10,00 / month. But you are serious about business right?

They both have a one-click WordPress install option. No need to worry about the technical issues. It installs WordPress automagically on your domain.

Now this WordPress website is yours, you own the content on this site. No one can shut you down. Let’s get started, build your Hub with WordPress on your hosted domain.

I also talk about this in Day 10 of my free 30 Day Course Attracting Clients Online.
Feel free to watch the video of this day here and join the course here, more than 300 people are already following the course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8Dq2SvAlf4

Bottom line. You need WordPress if you want to use the website for your business.

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Do not use WordPress.com

Happy New Year!
Wishing you a great 2011.
Wishing you lot’s of moments out of your comfort zone

International
My overall theme for 2011 is international.

One of my long term goals is, international paid speaking gigs. This way I can meet people from all kinds of cultures and learn. Also it will give me the possibility to do video interviews with entrepreneurs that make a difference from all over the world. With these video’s I want to create an online inspiration magazine.

SOBCon
Last year Liz Strauss gave me the opportunity to participate in a panel at SOBCon in Chicago. The panel was moderated by Becky McCray and Sheila Scarborough, they started Tourism Currents at SOBCon 2009 and made it profitable in the first month after the launch.

The panel was about starting your business, “A Business is Born and Branded”. The photo is me out of my comfort zone in 2010 at the SOBCon panel

In 2011 I will again visit SOBCon in Chicago, the ideas that are generated there are amazing. The speakers are super inspiring. Love it.
Thank you Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker. Join me and visit Chicago in April. Love to see you there.

Since the trip is pretty long, I want to find some speaking gigs around SOBCon, before and after. If you can help me with that please leave me a comment or send me a message at @ernohannink.

BlogWorld
Next thing on my US calendar is BlogWorld. The dates are not set yet but it should be somewhere around October/November. For this event I will apply to speak or be in a panel.

Next11
Also in May there is an event in Berlin, next11. For this event I am working with the Social Media Club to do something special in Berlin. Planning a great meetup for all European SMCs.

Guest posts
To be able to speak more internationally it is important that people learn about me professionally. For this I will write more on ernohannink.com, I have experienced the effect from increased blogging on ErnoHannink.nl in 2010.

One thing I haven’t done much in 2010 is guest blogging in Dutch. This will change in 2011, I will be writing for a new platform, Online Success. The launch will be in the next few weeks.

To really kick start blogging in English I will write guest posts for blogs that I really appreciate. This year already started of extremely well in this aspect with a guest post on v3im.com, Make your small business rock on Facebook.

This is a guest post written by my friend Erno Hannink, whom I was fortunate to meet at Liz Strauss and Terry Starbucker’s SOBCon Event this past spring. And by the way, if you’ve not yet explored SOBCon, being held in Chicago on 4/29 – 5/1, you should.

Guest Blogging is a good way to attract more visitors to your blog, and build realationships with experts in your field. Read the great ebook by Chris Garrett on this topic Guest Posting (aff).

Get out of your Comfort Zone
The guest posts and speaking in English means getting out of my comfort zone. Writing on your own blog is somehow more protected then writing on another blog. The readers on your blog are familiar with your writing style, on other blogs you have to adapt your style to fit the blog and be respectful to the readers of that blog.

Looking forward to learn a lot just because I get out of my comfort zone.
Let’s see what get’s shipped by the end of 2011. Planning and preparing is a great feeling, but in the end shipping only counts.

photo credit: Mooganic

Have you planned any guest posts? Speaking? Or other actions that is outside your comfort zone?
Please share below.

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Learn more in 2011 – Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

This is really funny and the wrong way around.
Sometimes I get a request from someone to remove a post or video that features their name or company name. The video or post is now on the first page of Google and they do not want people to see this on the search results. Sometimes this video or post ends up even higher than their own website.

Most of the time I adapt the post or set the video to private.
What do you do with a request like this?

I think this is the wrong way of thinking, influencing Google by removing the references that you don’t want to see on the first page.
It is a lot easier and more rewarding to put more content out there with items, articles, video’s that you do want people to see about you. This will then end up on the first page and push away the content that you don’t want on the first page.

What do you think?
Remove references or add the content that you do want on the first page of the search engine?

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Remove post or video to influence search engines

Blogging is really important for your visibility. A report from Hubspot shows that websites with 300+ pages have a significant increase in leads. Companies that write more blog post get more clients. Companies that blog get 67% (B2B) more clients than companies that do not blog. If your blog has 56+ articles than this leads to significant increase in leads.

So blogging is important if you want to grow your business.
And I want to grow my business, not just in Holland but also internationally.
Therefor I want to blog.

For now I have set a schedule for 2 blog posts per week. I also blog on two other, Dutch, websites for my business. Somehow this blog always comes in last. Something needs to change.

Last week Denise had a great question on her Facebook page that I responded to:

“How often do you post on your (primary) business blog? If it’s less than 2-3 times a week, what would it take to help you post more often? A blogging buddy? Share your blogging habits here and if you’re looking for a blogging accountability buddy, post your request here as well. Blog on!”

So I posted:

“How often do you post on your (primary) business blog? If it’s less than 2-3 times a week, what would it take to help you post more often? A blogging buddy? Share your blogging habits here and if you’re looking for a blogging accountability buddy, post your request here as well. Blog on!”

There were a number of people responding in the same way that I did and that need a blog buddy to keep a schedule. Using a tip of Denise I had contacted two other people that responded.

This is the way we ended up being four people and last night we had our first call. We all talked about our blogging goals and made them very clear. This way we can kick each others butt if we don’t keep the schedule.

Nice thing is that Denise shared the story on het blog as an example:

“If you haven’t been convinced that participating on social networking sites can be beneficial to your business, this should give you pause. Eydie not only has a new business partner and can expand her service offerings, but now four people from three countries are helping each other be more successful and there’s no telling what they will create together.”

Completely agree with Denise. I believe that online relations are real. Relations are essential for a business.

Of course you and I will learn in time if this works for all of us.
My blogging schedule on this site: Monday and Thursday. If I don’t keep up with this schedule just send me a note here or on my Facebook page.

Bron: Hubspot The state of inbound lead generation.

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Blog buddies to grow your blog

When you have a website or blog it is good that the search engines find your content. Finding your content is not enought though it should list in the top 3 results of the topic you are writing about, if you want people to read it.

Robert Scoble is rebuilding his site from scratch. At this moment his blog on WordPress.com has no styling.

To make a good new start, even when his blog gets lots of visitors, he is aksing out loud what are good resources for SEO and SEM. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing or the optimization and marketing of your site for the search engines. Great content alone doesn’t do it.

He asked this question on Friendfeed – which is much better than Twitter for these kind of questions, because the answers are listed just below the question. The question goes back to the top of the FriendFeed timeline as soon as there is a new reply or like. So you can identify interesting topics easily.

The first and many other replies are by the Google expert himself Matt Cutts. So here is a list of sites with the best SEO/SEM info (crowd sourced).

Is SEO/SEM still relevant? – Mona Nomura

• Mona: yes. Techcrunch tells me 60% of it’s traffic comes from search. – Robert Scoble
• @Mona: …can you expand on your question? What has made optimizing content and Web sites for search engines less relevant? – .LAG liked that
• I’ve recently heard Google changed their algorithm, plus with aggregating sites indexing for us (FriendFeed, Facebook, Twitter), there are many outlets and methods of people reaching our media — that is, if we remember to segregate to keep various audiences interested. ie: staying away from ping.fm like services. – Mona Nomura
• Mona, Yes. something like 90% of all traffic starts with a search engine, so unless you are a destination site ,you rely on search to send your traffice. There are times when RSS Subs can be more valuable, like when you are doing loyalty building, but generally NEW users are finding you through a social media or through search. More people are in search than social media..Ergo its still relevant -Brandon Wirtz

The list will continue to grow. The actual list: Who has the best SEO/SEM info? Post URLs here

You can also find a list of the URLs mentioned on FriendFeed on delicious -

I’m adding all these to http://delicious.com/jayneff… thanks! – Jay Neff

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

The best SEO and SEM information (crowd sourced)

About a year ago I wrote an article on the 10 pages every corporate blog should have in Dutch. It has become a very successful article in ErnoHannink.nl.

Last week a client asked a question that got me reading that article again. A sort of competitor replied on her blog on a post. The remark she added did not add much to the post, and the commenter added 4 lines to the comment with promotion for her service. My client asked if she should just remove the comment or what the blog etiquettes are.

OK, when you want to remove comments from your blog once in a while, it is good to show on your site that you can do this. You may want to remove offensive comments in your blog. Especially comments that are not against you but other people.

So what pages should each small biz blog have.

1. About page

Every blog (and website) should have an about page. When a new visitor lands on your site it could be on any page in your site. On average more than 50% of your visitors do not land on the homepage. The about page would explain your new visitor who the person(s) is behind the site. It is all about building trust with your potential customer.

You want to give the new reader reasons why they should subscribe to your RSS and/or newsletter. On this page you do not just write about yourself but what is it to the reader.

2. Contact

How can they contact you? Use a contactform. There are great plugins available for WordPress; like Enhanced contact form WP plugin by Joost de Valk. This is convenient when the reader does not have their email program available, e.g. when they are on the road.

Your address information could help to establish trust. Also a telephone number or your mobile number could be helpful for a potential client to contact you directly. Via Skype and Google Talk I receive a number of calls from potential clients. It is very easy to use, just one click and you have contact.

3.a Disclaimer

In this page you can explain why you blog or why your company blogs. What is the relation from this blog to you products and/or services. If you write reviews is there a commercial connection, i.e. do you get paid for a reference, is it an affiliate link or do you review for money or the product. This page should make it very transparant what the intention is for your corporate blog. It is also good to know what you (the blogger) do in the company, i.e. what is your position.

3.b Privacy

What do you do with the information that you collect via the blog, i.e. analytics, cookies, newsletter, RSS. Do you work with cookies how long will these be saved. What do you do with the email addresses that you collect for the newsletter or other ‘free’ information.

3.c Comments policy

Are all comments allowed? Do you remove certain comments? Do you use anti-comment-spam software. Are there restrictions to place a comment on your blog. Be as transparant as possible how you deal with comments. Removing comments or parts of comments, and you have no comments policy stating that you can do this, may cause difficulty with freedom op speech for the commenter.

4. 404

When a visitor comes via a link to your site or blog on a page that doesn’t exist they will see an error page. The so called error 404 page. The 404 means that the page does not exist in this site. This may happen because somebody is referring to an incorrect URL in your domain.

To place a custom 404 page on your site could get the visitor to explore your site in stead op bailing the 404. Create your own 404 page. Create a 404.php in your template, add some links to your best content, point to your RSS and add a search field and your done. A 404 page that converts visitors.
There are also several 404 trace plugins for WordPress so you can see what URLs generate a 404 page.

5. Archive

On many blogs I see limited possibilities to search deeper. As a reader I may want to read more articles on the subject. Tags and categories are 2 ways to explore your site on topics.

A page that gives an easy and fast overview of all the articles in your blog is very convenient. It also builds trust if there are lots of articles in the archives. A nice plugin for WordPress to do this is the Clean Archives Reloaded. This page is also very good for the search engine, easy access to all your pages for the search engine bots, especially if there is no sitemap available.

6. Subscribe

A page to explain to the visitors how they can easily stay up to date with your site. Maybe a short introduction to RSS and what a good RSS reader is. An explanation of the process to subscribe to your newsletter is good. What mails the subscriber may expect in their inbox. This way they can prevent that your valuable newsletter ends up in the email spam filter. Also explain what you do with the collected email addresses.

7. Best articles

A sort of home page where every visitor can find their way in your blog fast. The best articles in your lead subject. The best articles for beginners, best of all times, your favorites. A short introduction into the subject of your blog. I like how Problogger made the home page.

8. Clients / customers

It is good to describe what your most favorite customer looks like. What does she/he do? What is his/her business? What are their problems? It helps potential customers to show that they are in the right place. If they are not your target customer it is no problem that they leave. Not everybody can be your customer.
If you aim for everyone – no one will find you.

9. Services/products

We are talking about your small biz blog, most of the time a very personal written blog. Since it is your business it is good to show what you are selling. Do not just list the products or services. Talk about the difficulties your target market has, make it very clear that it is a urgent pain they need to resolve as quickly as possible. Then show what it will bring them if they fix that problem. Then, only then, show how you can help them to do this.

10. Testimonals

Of course you can scream from your site how good you are. It is better if other people say nice things about you. Somehow this is more trustworthy :0). It is good to have a page where you show off what other people are saying about you and your products or services.
A decision to buy something is more and more based on people’s opinion.

Bonus

11. FAQ

It is good to answer the most frequently asked questions. Writing a good page about this will decrease the number of emails in your inbox. So questions that you see repeatedly in your inbox try to answer them in a FAQ page.

Inspiration: ProBlogger 20 Types of Pages that Every Blogger Should Consider and 10 pagina’s die elke bedrijfsblog nodig heeft

Post from: Erno Hannink feel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

10 pages every small business blog should have