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 veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

Blog buddies to grow your blog

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 veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

The best SEO and SEM information (crowd sourced)

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 veel free to use the content but give credit to the writer (CC BY/SA)

10 pages every small business blog should have