Freelance web and seo copywriting from Mud Creative » Blogging

Free Social Media Listening Tools

louise — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 16:03:56 +0000

Wouldn’t you just love to know what people are saying about your business on the Internet? Whether positive or negative (or dead silence, which is not great either), understanding how your company is perceived by others is an important part of knowing how to shape your product or service to satisfy them.

Mhairi Petrovic of Out-Smarts provided this valuable list of free tools in her January newsletter so you can be your own personal fly on the wall. She has kindly offered to let me post it on my blog.

Take it away Mhairi….

One of the best ways to explore whether social media is right for your company is to listen. Social media listening means using these tools to listen for mentions of your product or service, company, competitors and industry. By doing so you will get a great feel for what is being said about your product or industry, how people communicate, what is appropriate – and you might even learn a thing or two.

Here are some great tools you can use:

1. General:

Google – www.google.com
Google Alerts – www.google.com/alerts – this service sends e-mails outlining Google search result for your key-phrases.
Backtype – www.backtype.com/ – search terms, follow conversations.
Social Mention – www.socialmention.com – real time social media search and analysis.
Pipl – www.pipl.com – great tool for assessing your personal brand online across multiple social networks.
Trendrr – www.trendrr.com – social and digital media tracking.

2. Twitter:

Twitter Search – http://search.twitter.com/
Monitter – http://www.monitter.com/
Tweetlater – http://www.tweetlater.com/

3. Facebook: www.facebook.com

Facebook search – for people.
Facebook search – for keywords.
Facebook wall comments – Lexicon.

To subscribe to the Out-Smarts newsletter, visit www.out-smarts.com.

5 toys to make your blog more sexy

louise — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:33:33 +0000

A blog can be an endless sea of words or an alluring spot where readers want to lose themselves for a little while. In my own efforts to turn my blog into something of a guilty pleasure for visitors (not that I’m there yet!), I’ve found some fun toys that I’d like to share:

1. Have “Bruce” read to you – slowly

Proofreading is great – and absolutely necessary. But you know how it is. When you write something, you get very close to it. Sometimes, even the most eagle-eyed of us will overlook an obvious spelling or grammar mistake. However, if you have your computer read your post back to you, your keen ears might pick up things your eagle eyes have missed!

This is easy to set up on a MAC. Go to Apple > System Preferences > Speech and choose your preferred voice (such as Bruce or Viki) and the speed at which you want it read. Then set your key command (I use “command shift s”).

When you want to hear your text, highlight it in your document and press your command.

2. Catch the eye of search engines

It’s no secret that the right keywords can help your blog get noticed by the search engines, hence sending more traffic your way. However, when writing a blog post, working in popular keywords related to your topic isn’t always in the forefront of your mind. If you’re on a roll, you just want to write and publish, right?

SEO Blogger is a Firefox add-on created by Wordtracker that actually suggests the right keywords to use while you’re writing your blog.

This free tool provides real-world search data. It opens in a sidebar panel where you enter a keyword or keyphrase and SEO Blogger gives you keyword suggestions ranked by popularity. You decide which to use in your post.

I have a Wordpress blog, but according to Wordtracker, SEO Blogger works with whatever blog publishing software you’re using.

3. Get personal with a Gravatar

Your Gravatar (Globally Recognized Avatar) is an image that follows you from site to site, appearing beside your name when you comment or post on a blog other than your own. It could be your photo or an image that represents your business. I use my pink rubber boots for mine.

Mud Creative gravatar

The nice thing about the Gravatar is that it gives you control over the image that is used. Otherwise, your comment will be accompanied by a generic symbol or gray silhouette. Your Gravatar shows a little bit more of who you are, and can even encourage people to click through to your site. Readers are more apt to connect to a face rather than a name.

Go to www.gravatar.com to add some personality to the comments you leave on other blogs.

Note, though, that if you’re leaving a comment on a blog that does not have the “Show Avatar” setting selected, your Gravatar won’t show up. But the use of Gravatars is catching on across the blogging community, so it’s only a matter of time!

4. Share the luv

One day I was leaving a comment on another blog, and when I hit “submit,” a link to the last post I’d written on my own blog at Mud Creative was added to the bottom of my comment. That means that anyone who reads my comment can click on the link and visit my blog!

Always a wealth of information, Tzaddi over at Thrivewire informed me that it was a WordPress Plugin called Comment Luv.

Comment Luv is a great way to “share the luv” by promoting other people’s blogs. Plus, it encourages them to visit the Mud Creative blog and leave me a comment when they want to contribute to the conversation.
Luv luv luv it!

5. Be Social-able

OK, this may a no-brainer for many bloggers, but it is worthy of repeating.

Add a social bookmarking widget plugin to make it easy for readers to bookmark and share your posts on their favorite social media channel like LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter. The more people you have sharing the news about your posts, the more your audience will grow.

My blog uses the AddThis plugin, (One of the many helpful nuggets from Glenn Murray of Divine Write in his terrific book, SEO Secrets) which adds a globally recognized button at the bottom of each post. Readers simply click on it and a box of social media choices comes up, enabling them to spread the word.

It’s always nice to share, and even better when you make it so easy to do.

What toys have you discovered to make your blog more sexy and attractive to others?

At a loss for words when blogging?

louise — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 20:24:10 +0000

Poor Sue Horner of Red Jacket Diaries has lost her blogging mojo. I enjoy Sue’s lighthearted style. She’s witty, insightful and always gives me something interesting to think about. Sue’s latest post is no exception. And since I wouldn’t want Sue to stop blogging due to a case of misplaced mojo, I wanted to share some tips that I’ve picked up along the way:

Don’t put too much pressure on yourself if you’ve fallen off the wagon. If you’re used to blogging three times a week, don’t sweat it because you haven’t blogged for three weeks. Give yourself permission to take that break, and work back up to your usual pace. It’s OK…really.
Write a guest post for another blog that you follow and respect. Writing for a whole different audience stretches the mind and pushes you to come at a subject from a fresh angle. Plus, it exposes your work to new readers and can grow your own blog audience.
Invite bloggers in other areas related to your business to do a guest post on your blog. It will start a whole new conversation on which you can build.
Start a blog idea file on your computer. Fill it with headline ideas, quotes, links to interesting articles, quick thoughts on books you’re reading etc. When you’re stuck, there’s always starter fuel there just waiting to help you burn up your keyboard.
Re-purpose older blog posts. New readers are continually coming on board, and if you’ve been blogging for several months or years, you’ve got quite an inventory built up. Go back to the beginning to find posts that are still relevant that you may be able to put a new spin on.

Smart tips from article writers

Coincidentally, I was just reading a post by Chris Knight on the ezine articles blog called “Turn Someday into Today.” He talks about ways to overcome procrastination in article writing, but the lessons are just as relevant for blogging. There are a number of worthwhile comments on Chris’ article, but in particular I liked the response from Kevin Dervin of the Marketing Action Club. Here it is:

Start with brainstorming. Great brainstorming isn’t judging the ideas or trying to figure out what the article will actually say. It’s just cranking out a bunch of possibilities.

* Write down 10 questions you get asked by clients over and over again

* Write down 5 questions you get asked by prospects over and over again

* Write down 3 things you wish every one of your customers would do because it make a difference in their current situation (Author’s note: love this one!)

* Write down 4 books everyone in your industry should know about and read.

The numbers above aren’t important. It’s just about filling up a sheet of paper with ideas you could write about.

Inspiration is all around us

At one time or another, we’re all faced with blogger’s block. But there are sources of inspiration all over the web and in our lives every day. You just have to look for them. I did – and this post is proof. Thanks Sue!

Blogging. If it’s not part of your “here I am!” strategy – it should be.

louise — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:25:07 +0000

Today I had tea with a group of entrepreneurial women at the monthly WHO (Women in a Home Office) meeting. I was invited to share what I know about creating a flow of traffic to one’s website. Among other things, we discussed the importance of having and maintaining a blog as part of a strategy to increase exposure. This is a synopsis of my presentation:

Why is having a blog a good idea?

Your blog is a place to build your own community, to share what you know and to position yourself as an authority in your field.

• Showcase your expertise – Become a thought leader in your industry. Offer advice. Critique an industry book. Do a review of a trade show or industry event.

• Grow your business in specific areas – You have complete control over the content. You can slant your posts to talk about areas in which you want to build your business. For example, if you run a landscaping company and you want more work in landscape design, your posts can be related to things like “5 tips to design a maintenance-free flower garden.”

• Build customer relationships –Interested customers and clients-to-be will drop in from time to time to read your opinion on issues, to discover what’s new with your business, and to find out what events you’ve participated in. You’ll create a more personal relationship between you and your customers.

• Find new clients, specialists and associates – You never know who might be reading your blog. It could be a prospective client looking for someone with your expertise, or individuals whose special skills complement your business.

• Test ideas or products – Publish an idea for a product or service and see if it generates interest. Does anyone link to you? What do they say?

• Become more connected – Ask some of your associates to do guest posts, and provide posts for their blogs too. This shows how your network radiates outward and creates reciprocal links between sites (which helps your search engine rankings.)

• Rank higher in search engines – Search engines reward sites that are updated often with fresh content, that link to other related sites, and most importantly, that have many inbound links.

Tips for successful blogging

• Post consistently – every two weeks or once a month, but try to be consistent.

• Make each post approximately 500 words.

• Break your posts up into sections with subheads. Use bullets when possible for easy reading.

• Make it personal. Show your readers who you really are. Avoid corporate speak. Use first person.

• Participate in the conversation – Blogs enable readers to comment on a post. Good or bad, comments mean that people are reading and reacting to your posts. Be prepared to participate in the conversation by replying to comments openly and honestly.

• Follow other blogs in your industry and comment on them when you have something valuable to add to the conversation. (Your comment always includes a link leading back to your own blog.)

• Monitor what others may be saying about you or your company. Go to www.technorati.com and search for your name, your company name or your product name to see if bloggers are talking about you.

• Publicize each blog post through other social media channels like Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

How to set up a blog

• If you don’t have a blog, setting one up isn’t too hard to do. There are plenty of blog services on which you can create and maintain your blog – and they’re free. My favourite is Wordpress.

• For comprehensive directions, check out this fabulous article on How to set up a blog for beginners.

Top ten grammar mistakes on Web pages

louise — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:58:52 +0000

Shortly after posting the article on “Blogging. An excuse for poor communication?,” I came across an excellent article by Robin Nobles at Search Engine Workshops called The top ten grammar errors that haunt Web pages. Robin points out that “our websites are our online storefronts, and if our sites are full of errors, what does that say about our professional image?”

In this frank discussion about grammar, Robin talks about many of the more common mistakes people make as well as some spelling issues that are specific to the web world. It’s well worth a read for anyone who is confused about web site vs. website or e-mail vs. email. And what’s the plural of e-mail anyway? You may be surprised!

Blogging. An excuse for poor communication?