Online Marketing Blog

When the first iteration of this blog went live, there was no intention of doing anything but documenting resources and sharing information. For a short time, we ran some Google AdSense ads and then participated in the beta of the Yahoo Publisher Network for a while. We even had a few image ads.

But ads just didn’t seem right so with the exception of very small sponsor text ads for the RSS feed, there is no advertising on this blog. I suppose one could argue the whole thing is an ad, but not in an explicit way.

There are millions of people around the world that speak languages other than English, yet most blogs I see offer up only English posts. The thought of posting in other languages doesn’t work well with many bloggers as they only know a few languages at most and the time it would take to re-post each post isn’t something we all have the time to do. So what about automatic translation?

Having a plugin to automatically translate your blog into Spanish, Chinese or other languages would be a great way to help gain exposure and readers from other parts of the world. Not only that, but it may also help increase the authority level of your blog.

We’ve been blogging here at Online Marketing Blog for just over three years, learning ins and outs along the way. Here are a few of the lessons learned in that time:

• Blogging has been the single most effective marketing initiative for our search marketing agency second only to providing top service to clients who then refer us to other companies. In fact our top sources of new business are:
  1. Referrals
  2. Blog
  3. Articles
  4. Web site
  5. Conferences
• Blogs can serve as a very effective platform for connecting online social networks and offline interactions.

We’ve been running polls the past month and I thought I’d share the results. Below are the past 4 polls we’ve run along with the number of respondents and the top 5 responses for each.

What do you like most about your search marketing job? (67)

• You are truly appreciated for your expertise and contributions (21%)
• The client projects are fun, interesting, challenging (19%)
• Flexible hours, work from home or office (18%)
• It���s all about the money (10%)
• Fun atmosphere/environment at work (10%)

Many blog readers also have blogs of their own. People start blogs for many reasons. Some are personal and an increasing number are for business. There are many, many reasons to write a blog. In this reader poll, we’d like to know what’s your reason?

Ron Belanger from Yahoo does a decent job explaining, “Engagement, Search and Social Media” in a video over at iMedia Connection. I like the context in which he presents social search - as a third channel to organic and PPC. Now if iMedia just offered some social bookmark links for the video!

WSJ posits a good question: “Google Tests New Ad Offerings — But Will Advertisers Follow?” In order to accomplish the transfer of ad dollars to other ad formats, Google will need to change existing mindsets about advertising in print, on radio and TV as being too expensive or complicated.

It has been amazing to see the growth of readers to Online Marketing Blog the past year and I really appreciate the comments I’ve received on blog posts and privately.

Our log files show the types of organizations that are reading this blog include huge and small companies, universities, search engines, competitors, friends, etc. To get an even better idea of who the readership is I’d like to invite you to do one or both of two things:

Kauffman eVenturing is featuring several new articles focused on helping entrepreneurs evaluate different aspects of online marketing, from search engine optimization and key word advertising to blogging, online publishing and using eBay as a distribution channel. A few of the articles:

Giving Online Marketing a Greater Share - Chris Topping (Brick and Mortar/Online Retailer)
Honing Pay Per Click for Targeted Results - Jerry Kenefake (Online Retailer)
What MySpace Means for Marketers - Zachary Rodgers (ClickZ)
The Rise of the Participant Economy - David Sifry (Technorati)

Recently I fielded an emailed question from a reader as to which is better home for a blog: as part of the company web site (www.company.com/blog/) or as a separate domain (www.companyblog.com)? I get this question often and see it mentioned in the forums as well.

There are many factors that influence whether your blog should be part of your site or it’s own domain name including:

• Branding
• Hosting platform
• Blog application (software or hosted)
• Resources for promotion
• Resources for content production
• Purpose of the blog
• Timeframe for expected results
• Target audience

PRWeb has announced a viral, direct to consumer powered press release that offers $1000 to bloggers that find all 10 of the new features PRWeb has added recently. Rather than offering a single or multiple press releases announcing all the features, PRWeb is experimenting with having bloggers blog about the features, then have them trackback the press release. It’s a clever way to get attention and links I think. Here are the details:

To participate, bloggers must:
1. Successfully identify all of the new enhancements made to the PRWeb platform since June 10, 2006.
2. Create a blog post that identifies these enhancements and discusses their impact.
3. Post a TrackBack/PingBack into this press release.

With so many blogs being created every day, it’s a mystery to many bloggers how to make their blog stand out. There are many types of blogs or purposes for blogs and a certain number of tactics are applicable to just about all of them.Some companies choose to hire a blog consultant, but others like to try things internally. For those “DIY” companies and individuals interested in practical tips for marketing and optimizing a business blog, try out the following list of blog marketing and optimization tips:

In the past I’ve written tips about marketing business blogs with an emphasis on content, frequency and distribution. Just like with optimizing web sites for better search engine rankings, there’s an abundance of information and tips on how to use blogs for business.

As far as business blogs go, the two implementations that I see most often are blogs as a component of SEO or blogs as a public relations tool. Granted, this bias is a manifestation of the focus of my company’s blog consulting practice, but I think the insight into what’s been working can benefit any type of blog.