Katie: Welcome back to The BusinessMakers Overtime Show where you're here with some pretty blog crazy ladies here today, talking all about how the blogosphere can help you build your business in ways never seen before. Ah! (Laughter)

Esther: We'll enlighten you, don't worry.

Katie: Yeah, okay. So, one thing that I'd like to talk about is does every single business you to blog? Like I feel like that's – 'cause of course I work a lot in the social media consulting world and that's kind of like the hot thing. Like everyone thinks that it's just this cookie-cutter solution. You get on Facebook, you get on Twitter, you start blogging. I mean, what do you think? Does every business really need to blog?

Esther: I think that every business has things they can blog about. I think it takes a very in-tuned mind. I don't know if every business is quite there to take that content and turn it into a successful blog. There are a lot of things that go into it. Our blog is almost a year and a half old now, which is pretty good. We've been at it for a while.

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: And I'll tell you that our blog has significantly helped in our search engine rankings, and our natural search. Big time. We –

Katie: Now did you know that going in? Were you expecting that to be –

Esther: Yes.

Katie: Okay. Okay.

Esther: We were expec- we had some expectations about why we were going into it. We weren't just doing it to talk about blinds, although, I love talking about blinds, don't get me wrong, but there were some –blinds solve problems and that's really what the blog is about.

Katie: Okay.

Esther: It's not just about – and we talk about trends and we talk about colors and things like that and I actually work with SEO specialist –

Katie: Excellent.

Esther: - to choose topics. We look at seasonality. We look at trends –

Katie: Very good.

Esther: - in search. And then we actually, you know, you never know the plural of your brand or the plural of your product maybe gets half the number of searches as the singular version and that's –

Katie: Isn't that crazy?

Esther: - the keyword you need to target.

Katie: Yes.

Esther: Not the plurality. I mean you just never know and these are wh- this is why you have to have somebody who is monitoring this and focused on it. I always think it's funny. If I was writing a post about home insulation, how blinds help home insulation. I would probably call it, "How Blinds Help Home Insulation."

Katie: Okay.

Esther: And not, "Brr! It's Cold In Here! –

Katie: Right.

Esther: Let's Make It Warm In The House," like people call their blogs all kinds of weird stuff.

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: And if you're gonna write about your company, stick to what your company's about.

Katie: Exactly and I mean a lot of times I think people, when they're on the Web, and maybe just an everyday email writing, too, we don't always write like a magical robot, like Google can understand. So I mean like, we'll use words that just in conversation with an actual human, of course you're gonna get the gist of what I'm saying. But you're absolutely right. You can't be like, "Ooh, you know, crazy creative title that has no keywords related to my company at all!"

Esther: Right.

Katie: It's just not gonna be as effective as something, maybe a little bit more dry. You can still make it fun and you know, spice it up a little, but make it very, very exact, very, very clear, very literal whatever you're writing on the blog or on the website in general. And Google, search engines in general, just eat that up.

Esther: They do.

Katie: I, I love it. Although it's interesting 'cause some companies do get away with writing about stuff that has nothing to do with what they're selling. And it's not that there always, always, always talking about random stuff, like you know, "Yay, I'm a car dealership, but we're gonna talk about pretty pink princesses today," but a lot of times you see businesses that use their blogs as, not just a way to market their products, but you really market their culture. So I mean we talk about companies with stupid amounts of culture, like overflowing with culture. You know, we have Zappos, we have – I mean, all these businesses that pride themselves on being unique in being special, you know, because of their people. They do cool stuff.

Esther: I would not write about cars –

Katie: Okay.

Esther: - or computers. I would stick to work on me and our culture and we profile employees. You guys do that, too, don't you in your blog? You guys always seem to have such cool stuff going on in the Schipul blog.

Katie: On, yeah, on the Schipul blog, actually this month were doing something special where were doing our 30 days of thanks. So every single day this month, we had a different employee write about something that they're thankful for.

Esther: That's awesome.

Katie: And so this, of course, doesn't really go in exactly to Web marketing and Web consulting, but it's that culture thing, and it gives us the perfect opportunity to thank our clients; to shine spotlights on community leaders that we really admire that deserve a little extra credit; or just to be silly. So I mean maybe that's another thing to really consider if you're even thinking about starting a blog. You have to have a mission. You know, your blog needs to accomplish something. You don't have a blog just to have a blog to let your CMO stop blabbin' about it in every company meeting. Like, it needs to do something for you, and that could be everything from, okay, showing what a great company you have, culture you have – to maybe driving people to landing pages on your website, you know, to different promotions, tactfully. You know, it's not all about, "Yay!"

Esther: Stay away from self- too much self-promotion.

Katie: Post – yeah, post in press release and "Look at us, we have this on sale." Like, nobody really cares. And I don't actually think that blogs speak with that Austrian accent that I just did.

Esther: (Laughter)

Katie: Was that even Austrian? I can't do accents very well.

Esther: I'm not sure what that accent was.

Katie: (Laughter)

Esther: I'm just kidding.

Katie: I don't know either. (Laughter) Ah, see going on a tangent but kind of related. Just like in a company blog. (Laughter)

Esther: Absolutely. I think you're right, though. I mean there's, there's so much – this is what I'm talking about that you guys have done a great job of looking within your company, looking within your culture and pulling out the stories. That's what it takes. It's not just about your products. It's not just about your sales. It's about pulling out the stories and focusing on what is special about you.

Katie: What if you do something that may not be like your typical crazy online marketing business, like so you own an auto repair shop. You repair Volvos for a living. What if your blog was all about how to stay safe on the road or maybe you had some suggestions on, you know, how to get through an insurance claim process or maybe, you know, it's just ways to identify different sounds. You know, if you hear your engine clack three times on a cold morning, you know, just a way to share what you know, keep it a little bit fun and just keep people excited and more in touch with you. I mean it just – there's just endless ways that people can, you know, really jump in online.

Esther: Totally.

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: Those are great ideas. For anyone out there that has a car repair shop. You just got a free consulting job.

Katie: Exactly and if you do with her Volvos, mine really needs some work. So call me. Call me.

(Laughter)

Katie: So a couple of blogging tool basics that I'd like to talk about. These are two general areas that I think are pretty important for anyone looking to start a blog. Or maybe you have one, you wanna take it up to the next level. And I think they're pretty simple, but I think they're really worth talking about. So, number one, it's all about the analytics. I mean you have this vision, this mission for your blog, but you need to make sure that it's performing for you, just as you would a print campaign, a radio campaign, television commercials. Make sure that you're taking advantage of the free tools that are out there, like Google Analytics, which, I mean I think is so universal now. People implement this, you know, behind their sites. But also look at some other options. There's a site/online software called Clicktale. And that's ClickT-A-L-E.com, so it's kinda like the story of your website clicking interaction and I love it because it's all about heat maps for your website and for your blog. And this is invaluable to me because sometimes you're not gonna get it right on your first try. You're not gonna put information in a place that's really obvious. You may see it because you work on it every day but someone else may not know how to subscribe to your RSS feed or how to find categories. How to find coupons you're featuring. So by using a heat map tool like that, that will actually let you see exactly where people are hovering their mouse.

Esther: Ooh, I like that.

Katie: Like where they spend the most time on your site.

Esther: That's really cool.

Katie: You know, are they confused and, you know, you can see they're looking for something 'cause they're going erratically all over the screen. You may need to reconsider, you know, next week just changing it up just a little bit on your template.

Esther: What a great tool for just user experience in general. It's awesome.

Katie: Exactly. And I mean, typically, for Clicktale, the pricing is incredibly affordable and maybe it's something that you just do every time you're running a special promotion to see how effective a certain campaign is or maybe it's something right before you're ready to relaunch your brand-new beautiful blog that you're actually testing people in your office. See where they hover. What links they click on the most. You know, how many people actually follow through on what you want them to do.

Esther: That's really cool.

Katie: So I mean it's just really helpful so you should treat a blog – while it is a more informal communication tool – you need to treat it like a serious marketing tool, like you would a website or anything else that you have expectations for performance.

Esther: I think you made a great point earlier. You can't just stick up blog.

Katie: No.

Esther: And go, "Okay, you have a blog now. We're so now." It doesn't really work that way.

Katie: We're so hot right now. Yeah. (Laughter)

Esther: We're so hot right now. Doesn't work that way, people.

Katie: B to the Log.

Esther: Yeah.

Katie: So another great general area – and again, these are basic things that I think people should really reconsider, whenever they're looking at their blog design. To me it's all about the great, rich content. And I think I keep saying rich media, rich content over and over and what that means it's videos, it's audio, it's photos. It's breaking up your blog. Breaking up that, that reader, that visitor experience with stuff that's pretty. Like we like eye candy, you know, having all that black-and-white or whatever crazy, you know, colors or text is on your blog, having all that there means people are not gonna be even bothering to read what you've got to say. So I mean, make sure that you're aware of sites like iStockphoto. And I think that, I mean, even with the Overtime Show, we're huge fans of iStockphoto.com. A great place to get beautiful and incredibly affordable images that were really spice up anything that you have to say. Another huge favorite of mine is a site called compfight and that's C-O-M-P-F-I-G-H-T.com, which is a great place to search these Creative Commons licensed images off of Flickr, which we – I think we've talked about a number of times – is photo networking site. These are images that people have made available to, you know, businesses just like you. If you search under a commercial license, of if you have a personal blog, which is a great way to get started into the, you know, corporate blogosphere. Get your feet wet with personal blog. You know, you can find, you know, just general images where all you have to do is just give some attribution on who created the image and you're good to go. There's no payment, there's just a little link love and voilà, you have just a beautiful, beautiful blog.

Esther: That's cool.

Katie: Yeah.

Esther: And that's a good thing to remember. You shouldn't just Google image search –

Katie: Be very careful.

Esther: - to find your images because that's stealing, people.

Katie: It is.

Esther: You're – it's stealing. I mean you can't just take someone else's image.

Katie: Exactly, and not even –

Esther: Get in a lotta trouble for that.

Katie: Y- actually you really can. You really can, so you kinda, kinda need to watch yourself.

Esther: Yes you do.

Katie: (Laughter)

Esther: Well, I actually really learned a lot. Katie's our blogging expert, for sure. Katie's been blogging for how many years?

Katie: Uh, ni- a little over nine years now. A long time.

Esther: Unbelievable. She was way ahead of the curve on this one. So you really have been hearing from a major expert.

Katie: (Laughter)

Esther: It's awesome.

Katie: Or just a geek, you know, whatever. (Laughter)

Esther: Well. That's neither here nor there.

Katie: Tomato, tomahto.

Esther: Yeah. As usual, we've had a wonderful time chatting and I hope you had a great time listening to his talk –

Katie: Yes.

Esther: - 'cause we thought this was another fabulous show.

Katie: Yes.

Esther: We love blogging.

Katie: We've enjoyed it. We love blogging and we love sharing all that good stuff with you.

Esther: And we hope you enjoyed Paul, too. He's awesome.

Katie: Yes.

Esther: Thank you for being with us and don't forget to check us out at Twitter.com/overtimeshow and Facebook.com/thebusinessmakers and of course you can check us out at TheBusinessmakers.com./overtime.

Katie: That's right. Connect, connect, connect.

Esther: We wanna hear from you. Please leave us comments.

Katie: Yes. We love 'em. We love 'em. And last but not least, we would like to thank our absolute favorite turkey, John, our producer. We love you, man. You're awesome.

Esther: Thanks, John!

Katie: And, to the rest of you, have an absolutely gorgeous Thanksgiving. We are thankful for you as listeners, you as friends, you as mentors. We just think the world of ya.

Esther: We do. You've been listening to The BusinessMakers Overtime Show heard here and online at TheBusinessmakers.com. I'm Esther Steinfeld –

Katie: And I'm Katie Laird.

Esther: - and we will see you next week.