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.

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1. At a loss for words when blogging?
2. Blogging. An excuse for poor communication?
3. 5 toys to make your blog more sexy

PRWeb releases hit top sites like Google News and Yahoo News – the #1-ranked online news site – as well as industry-specific websites and blogs. Depending on the level of service purchased, you can choose to issue your release to a number of specific industry and regional newsfeeds. At the top level, your release will be distributed to the Associated Press top-circulation daily newspapers.

Like many of us in this business, PRWeb has had to evolve with the changing landscape of the Internet. Now you can add images, PDFs, videos and podcasts to create the multimedia release. To capture the attention of the social media crowd, you can link it to your Twitter account and add Technorati tags for the blogging community.

Then there are the reporting functions of PRWeb. Want to know how well your release did? You’ll get a PDF report that indicates:

• The number of headline impressions
• The number of full page reads
• Percentage of visits by country
• Top 20 search terms used to find your release
• Comparisons of releases for your organization
• At the top level, your report will actually show you what city in the world your release readers are coming from

If you want to take advantage of this great service with a great press release, I can help. Let’s talk.

Related posts:

1. Did it work? Tips on measuring the success of your online press release.
2. Why free press release sites may be all you need
3. Shipping your online press release overseas – different story

On this morning, we board a sailing boat with our friends, Trevor Birmingham and Jennifer Langley. The first stop on our excursion is the hot springs and mud bath. The boat drops anchor about 40 metres from the hot springs, and we must swim on our own to get to the warm waters of the small cove. Getting there is easy. We spend a luxurious few minutes basking in the tub-like waters and covering ourselves with natural mud. Suddenly, the boat’s horn bellows and we quickly start making our way back–against the current. After a few anxious moments and several mouthfuls of salt water, all passengers are safely on board, and we are heading towards Nea Kameni.

At the bottom of the volcano, the walkers gather to listen to our guide, He warns that we must have plenty of water for the hour-long walk ahead of us. I look at the trail winding up the side of the volcano and observe the walkers who are slowly, methodically trudging along. I am having a rethink. Hot sun. Black rock. Sixty minute walk. Are we crazy?

Nevertheless, we follow the others and climb the volcano. At one point, our guide stops and clears away a small area of dirt. He invites us to place our hands as close to it as possible. It feels like sticking one’s hand directly into an oven. No one can touch it. The purpose of this exercise is to prove to us that this volcano is still active, and is still a threat to Santorini. Yet, we carry on. Apparently, our guide is confident that Nea Kameni won’t blow her top today.

After the volcano walk, we make our way down and back to our ship, our water bottles long empty. Hunger is setting in, and we are thinking about lunch at our next stop – the island of Thirasia. On land, we walk right past a little open air taverna with an outdoor grill piled high with octopi and huge seafood kabobs, and a clay oven filled with individual dishes of moussakas and lamb stew. Tired and hungry, the four of us decide to settle in right here. We are hooked.

Lunch is quite delicious, although slow to arrive. As we are leaving to head back to the ship, we spot the kitchen staff hastily washing the lunch dishes – in a basin of water, outside! I suppose the health authorities don’t make regular trips to the island of Thirasia. I secretly hope that this lunch doesn’t come back to haunt us. Thankfully, all four of us are perfectly fine. And we have another story to enrich our account of our wonderful Greek holiday.

Related posts:

1. The seduction of Santorini
2. The magic of Mykonos
3. Discovering the open road in Santorini

Recently, I attended a WHO meeting, where I found myself in a very different type of group. WHO stands for Women in a Home Office. It’s an amazing Canada-wide organization founded by Anne Stone. I met published authors, accomplished professional coaches, wellness consultants, and the list goes on. Needless to say, I was extremely impressed with the calibre of members, and most of all with their desire to support and help each other.

At the end of the meeting, I was inundated with business cards and questions about the web and SEO. I realized that while I have been immersed in SEO for several years, I often take it for granted that everyone else just “gets it.” In actual fact, to many people the web and SEO is still a huge question mark.

While feeding off the energy and insight of others in our industry is important, sometimes we simply need to go back to basics. Listening to questions from those who don’t live and breathe our work like we do, and answering in a way that “turns the light on” can introduce us to a wealth of new prospects.

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Each nugget is clever and insightful, but one especially hits a personal note. Number 9 is “Don’t love ‘em and leave ‘em.” The copy reads: “Make sure your customers know how much you value them. And all it takes sometimes is a thank you. Share with them your plans and let them be inspired by what’s coming.”

It occurred to me that here I am, a recent transplant to Calgary, Alberta, from Southern Ontario, on the cusp of a new life, new business and new opportunities. What must my existing clients and business partners be thinking? Do they feel that they’ve been loved and left? I hope not.

Let me just say thank you to all of you who have supported me in my professional career and helped to shape the writer I’ve become. As my business evolves from here, I will be sure to keep you informed on new offerings and expertise that may be helpful to you in building your own businesses. I’m excited to see what’s around the next corner, and I’m taking you all with me!

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