Advanced B2B Blogging Blogging offers B2B marketers one of the easiest and most effective ways to drive substantial traffic, generate leads, increase search visibility, and leverage social media. Yet most B2B blogs miss substantial opportunities and have critical problems limiting success. In this advanced, how-to session we'll dive into benefits, strategies, tactics, optimization, promotion, and meaningful metrics of corporate blogging. * Galen De Young, Managing Director, Proteus B2B

1. Online Marketing Summit MINNEAPOLIS | JUNE 25, 2010 Advanced B2B Blogging Galen De Young Managing DirectorProteus B2B 1

3. Keyword strategy

4. Optimizing the blog & posts

5. Content

6. Driving engagement

7. Leveraging blog for lead gen

8. Promoting blog & posts

9. Managing the corporate blogging process

10. Meaningful metrics2

12. Platform with personal voice

13. Glimpse of what it would be like working with you

14. Reduces prospective buyers’ risk perceptions

15. One of the best ways to build organic links to your corporate domain

16. Drives relevant traffic

17. Builds trust authority of corporate domain—better search visibility3

18. Results of Targeted, Once-a-Week Blogging 4

19. Effective Keyword Strategy 5

21. No agreed-upon lexicon in most industries

22. Internal lingo doesn’t match market use

23. Implication

24. Diverse set of keywords and variants requires substantially more organic landing page

25. Paradigm

26. You need to view your site and the blog within it as a series of landing pages, each built for a specific keyword target6

27. 7

29. 1-2 word phrases

30. Long tail

31. Other likely words/phrases searches will use or add to refine search

32. Variants, singular/plural, word order

33. Branded and non-branded keywords

34. Targeted is better than popular

35. Remember the buying cycle

36. Members of the buying team + influencers (personas)

37. Review your analytics8

38. 9 By Problem Component of Solution Product/Solution Their Industry How Will They Form Queries? Place in Buying Cycle Your Industry People or Professionals Geography

40. Wordtracker

41. WordStream

42. Google AdWords Keyword Tool

43. Read (RSS)

44. Social media monitoring

45. Listen

46. Customers & prospects, competitors, social media, sales staff, media, conversations, industry consultants, seminars…10

47. Map Keywords to Site Architecture Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword 11 Verify via Analytics

48. Use Blog to Fill Holes in Keyword Strategy Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword Keyword 12 Blog

49. Optimizing BlogPlatform & Posts 13

50. Where to Place the Corporate Blog Blog.wordpress.com(hosted) Blog.YourDomain.com(sub-domain) YourDomain.com/blog (folder level) YourDomain.com/healthcare-consulting-blog At folder level Includes primary keywords 14

52. Specify title tags different than blog post title

53. Keyword-rich URLs

54. blog/?p=23

55. blog/materials-handling-sortation-induction

56. Spec alt tags, captions, file names of images

57. Spec keyword-rich meta description

58. Control what gets indexed

59. Date archives, author archives, etc.

60. Individual posts, category archives15

62. For search; for click-through

63. Include primary keyword in post URLs

64. For search; for click-through

65. Specify keyword-rich alt tags, captions, file names of images

66. Specify keyword-rich meta description

67. Not always in search results; depends on query

68. Focus on what will cause click-through

69. Keyword-rich headings16

70. Content 17

72. Keep focus on your reader, not your company

73. Start with great headlines for posts

74. Provocative, interesting, shareable

75. Keep posts focused

76. 200-400 words minimum

77. Use engaging images

78. Draws readers’ eyes to post; keep people engaged with content18

80. What content is of great value to your readers?

81. What content will people share and point to?

82. What will media in your industry find interesting and valuable?19

84. List of relevant blogs with .opml file for RSS readers

85. List of relevant twitter users in a given industry

86. Collection of relevant posts elsewhere

87. Top 25 posts on…

88. Best practices and how-to information

89. Provocative opinions

90. Create content for non-buyer influencers

91. Content is not just copy

92. Build a cool tool (e.g., Hubspot Website Grader)

93. Video

94. Games, humor, something fun20

95. Driving Site and User Engagement 21

97. Present set of related posts where possible

98. Hand select, don’t rely on automated plugins or engagement metrics to select

99. Intra-site linking in body copy of posts

100. Use good keyword rich anchor text

101. Don’t just link backward. Remember to go back to old post and link forward

102. Effective promotion of great content assets in sidebar22

103. Leveraging the Blog for Lead Generation 23

105. Easy sign-ups for “eNewsletters”, etc.

106. Promote lead gen offers in sidebar

107. eBooks, white papers, research, tools, etc.

108. Match lead gen offers to post content

109. Limit barriers to registration

110. Time high-value posts with new lead gen offers

111. Get them to site via other content. Let them find registration assets once there.24

112. 25

113. Promoting Blog & Blog Posts 26

115. Create great content

116. Rule #2

117. Create great content27

119. Determine relevant hashtags and and include them on tweets re new posts

120. Write great tweets (may not match post title)

121. Vary tweets & hashtags on multiple tweets, same post

122. Follow other relevant twitter users; get noticed

123. LinkedIn and other forums/groups

124. Join relevant groups

125. Post new content with short descriptions to groups

126. Make sure you share more than your own stuff28

129. Industry bloggers

130. Competitors

131. Online articles from industry media

132. Link out to other relevant content and blogs

133. Get on relevant lists of blogs/bloggers

134. Reach out to industry media via email and phone30

135. Managing the Process 31

137. Define an editorial calendar

138. Involve people beyond marketing

139. Create active, cross-functional team

140. Arm them with appropriate knowledge of SEO

141. Get drafts in time to revise, edit, select images, optimize before post date

142. About ½ your time should be on keyword research and above factors; ½ on actual post content

143. Don’t squelch natural diversity of lexicon32

145. Long-tail words, phrases to include

146. Draft a good working headline

149. Not everyone will earnestly follow your blog

150. Small subset of visitors will grab RSS feed or sign up for email

151. Continue to nurture leads until sales-ready

152. Don’t ignore leads that aren’t sales ready

153. Most are not ready to buy right away

154. Segment blog content to different channels/buyers

155. Buying team

156. Influencers35

157. Meaningful Metrics for B2B 36

158. Meaningful Metrics? 37

159. More Meaningful Metrics 38

160. 39

161. 40

162. 41

163. 42

164. 43

165. 44

166. 45

167. 46

169. Track lead generation by landing page and keyword

170. Off-Site Conversion

171. Telephone

172. Emails47

174. Consider how people search

175. Create content for all buyers & influencers

176. Use and monitor your analytics

177. Don’t just post, promote

178. Offer multiple ways to engage further

179. Be disciplined48

180. Questions? 49

182. Twitter: @GalenDY

183. Website: ProteusB2B.com

184. Website: SEO.Proteusb2b.com

185. Blog: ProteusB2B.com/b2b-marketing-blog

186. Blog: B2B-SEO.com50 Thank You

187. 51 Thank You Visit www.onlinemarketingsummit.com for more information Follow us @OMSummit