There are so many blogs on the web I couldn’t possibly begin to estimate a number. This is one of the top reasons clients give for their reluctance to establish a blog. The benefits of B2B blogging can’t be ignored:

• Blogging establishes your business as an industry authority.
• Blogging increases expert credibility.
• Blogging allows you to connect with your customers and build relationships based on trust and loyalty.
• Blogging allows you to network with others within your industry.
• Blogging helps you build your brand.
• Blogging increases your online visibility through SEO and SEM techniques.
• Blogging provides a community platform to learn more about your customer’s needs.
• Blogging is a cost-effective marketing strategy.

I could provide many more examples of how B2B blogging can benefit your business. It’s been proven that blogs attract web traffic, but there is a lot more to reaping the rewards of blogging than just setting up a blog and posting content. Developing an outstanding blog depend on a number of variables. Generating interesting content your readers care about is at the top of the list.

The web is a constantly evolving space, but one thing hasn’t changed – content is still king. People still go online primarily in search of information. With so many B2B blogs joining the blogosphere, getting readers depends on getting their attention and keeping it. You’ll need to be able to brainstorm interesting engaging topics in order to do that.

One of the biggest worries clients who are interested in establishing a B2B blog express to me is the f ear of running out of things to say. It’s a legitimate fear given the number of blogs left abandoned on the web, but with a little planning and preparation this won’t be a problem. Here are a few tips to help you generate your best blog topic ideas:

Write about what you already know

You’re the expert so show your readers what you know and why your blog is worth returning to. The best blog topics you’ll writer will focus on topics you know inside and out. By the way – make sure your readers know you’re an expert by including an “about” page on your blog. Include relevant experience and links to other social media profiles like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Research the competition

What are your competitor’s blogging about? Do you have a different spin on a topic that’s been tackled?  Take a look at your competitor’s FAQ. Is there anything there that could be turned into a blog post?

Pay attention to social media sites

Look at the trending topics on Twitter, visit Industry Facebook pages, and answer questions in LinkedIn groups to find new ideas for blog posts.

Add a variety of content to your site

To give your blog post the best Google juice, be sure to include photos with keyword optimized captions. Share a video on days you don’t have time to write a long post. It’s all considered content by Google’s standards.

Pay attention to your readers

Are reader’s leaving comments? Are you keeping tabs on your blog’s analytics to see which posts readers are reading the most? This can provide valuable insight and generate ideas your readers will appreciate.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta Content Marketing Strategist and Web Writer with a background in journalism and media sales. She provides web writing services and consultation for start ups and other small businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition and leverage the power of web-based communication that speaks directly to their customers and buyers.

What primary factor motivates people to buy your product or service? It’s your ability to appeal to their emotions. People make purchases based on their emotions.

Whether you’re marketing your business online or offline, infusing copy fueled with emotional instigators like anger, fear, guilt or exclusivity can result in a very powerful marketing message.
Copy that leads your target audience to experience an emotional response they can actually identify with increases the desire for the solution or benefits your product or service can provide to make it all better. Consider these headlines (*note: these headlines are all fictional):

“Don’t gamble with your family’s safety. Order an Acme Wireless Home Security System today and get a second keypad free!”

or

“Over *65% of child predators target their victims online. Protect your children by installing Agent X Parental Control Software”

Both of these headlines are intended to appeal the reader’s fear of loss. Fear is a big motivator to take action. Each headline’s aim is to portray emotional intensity and motivate the reader to take action to avoid experiencing a loss. These headlines address a potential problem and offer the reader relief – a solution or solves a problem – by purchasing the seller’s product.

Infusing emotional instigators into your web copy is one of the easiest ways to show your customers the benefits of buying what you sell.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta Content Marketing Strategist and Web Writer. She provides web writing services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication to speak directly to their customers and buyers.

Lately I’ve been discussing the benefits of offering website visitors a free ebook with a couple of clients. For the past couple of years, our sluggish economy has perpetuated a desire access free products on the web. One client asked, “Why should I give away valuable information for free when I could make a profit?” In the short-term, I can see his logic; but I explained that a free gift could actually be used as a strategy to increase his site’s traffic and sales.

Free ebooks can generate money

A free ebook offered on your website has viral potential if it’s marketed correctly. Keep in mind that just because it’s free doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t contain well-written content with information your readers can actually use. It should be relevent to a topic they really care about. This is not the time for self-promotion. The product should be about your intended audience.
The content should be completely honest and stick to the subject within the title.

The format is compatible with mobile devices

More and more consumers are enjoying digital content on products such a Kindle, Iphone, Blackberry, Ipad and other innovative platforms on the go. It’s vital that your format be compatible with these mobile devices. Adobe pdf format is the most popular ebook format, and it’s universal to any browser that uses a pdf viewer which luckily includes the majority of mobile devices.

Freebies can help build your subscriber list

A free ebook can be offered in exchange for visitors providing you with their email addresses. This allows you to keep in touch with existing and potential customers. You can use your growing email list to build trust, loyalty and share information about special promotions.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta Content Marketing Strategist and Web Writer. She provides web writing services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication to speak directly to their customers and buyers.

Establishing a link building campaign is a good way to gain visibility in the search engine. You can buy links, but there are easy affordable ways to build back links for free.

Distribute optimized press releases/news outlets

Writing optimized press releases containing targeted keyword phrase and distributing them to online news organizations and PR sites is a great way to drive visitors to your website and build back links. Some sites charge for distribution, but you can find quite a few free sites available to help you facilitate the process.

Post on blogs

Establishing a blog is another way to get relevant links. The great thing about blogging is you control the content. You can also offer to write a guest post for a popular blog within your niche or industry to expand your audience, online visibility and building high-quality links.

Post on community forums

Take time to read and pot on community forums and discussion boards in your niche or industry. Joining these online conversations with communities of consumers that are most likely to be interested in your products or services is worth the effort to get quality back links.

Participate in social bookmarking

A lot of businesses miss out on reaping the rewards of this proven link building strategy. Social bookmarking can be a time consuming task, but it’s been proven to be one of the best ways to earn a good seo boost than link building through other social media channels.
Don’t rely on only one link building method. Instead utilize a mix of techniques to build high-quality back links.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta Content Marketing Strategist and Web Writer. She provides web writing services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication to speak directly to their customers and buyers.

There are still many businesses just starting to experiment with online marketing for the first time because for so long the Internet has been considered the playing field for those targeting a national or global market. Localized businesses like dentists, doctors, restaurants and boutiques have not always recognized the benefits of utilizing the Internet to create a marketing campaign that targets the local market.
Marketing online can produce impressive results for those targeting local markets. In some cases it may even give a business the competitive edge against the completion with the right strategy.

When Participating in Social Media Remember to be Social

Blogs and social media sites like Twitter and Facebook can help you market your business and make great connections, but in order to reap the full benefits, you must remember to exercise your social skills. You know – engage in conversation with others, spend time helping others by answering questions, sharing helpful information and providing feedback. Social media doesn’t work very well when your primary goal is self-promotion. Make an effort to start and join “conversations” with others and build relationships and connections. Set aside time each daily/weekly to comment on other industry blogs, respond promptly to comments left on your own blog and comments directed to you on social media sites uh as Facebook and Twitter. In other words observe the same social etiquette online as you do offline.

Use Google Adwords to Target the Local Market

Google Adwords has features that allow businesses to set up an account so that it only shows ads to IP addresses within select local areas. What this means is that the ads in your campaign will only be shown to consumers in the local areas that you designate. You should also consider running a second, nationwide campaign in addition to your localized campaign. This would allow your ads to be viewed regardless of location in case a person needs to know the product or service you provide is available in your area (i.e. a person relocating from New York to Raleigh, North Carolina might need a local real estate agent or dentist in the Raleigh area).

Take Advantage of Google Local Business Center Ads

Setting up a Local Business Center ad in Google is a great way to increase your rank in the local search engines. It cost nothing to create an ad, the only requirement is that your business have a physical address. You can easily optimize your ad for local search by including more information in the keyword phrase. For example, if you own a used car dealership and live in Austin, Texas you can label your listing “Austin Car Dealership, Used Cars.” This wll improve your raking for used car dealers in Austin. Google also makes it easy for businesses to connect local listings with their Google Adwords account.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta Content Marketing Strategist and Web Writer. She provides services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication to speak directly to their customers and buyers.

Image: Google Images

Many small businesses that are new to marketing their products or services online fail to focus their marketing message to their target audience. They believe that by zeroing in on a specific type of customer everyone else will be left out and that will negatively affect bottom-line profitability.
On the contrary, focusing on a well-defined market allows you to really focus your marketing budget on a population that is more likely to buy what you’re selling.  For example, if you’re a realtor who specializes in short sales, you can target your marketing and brand yourself to the market most in need of your services. You wouldn’t waste time and marketing dollars on the general real estate market which also includes home buyers, or sellers who are not in default or facing foreclosure. Marketing your products or services to clearly defined audience is a much more efficient and effective way of generating new business.
If you’re having trouble focusing on a target market, here are a few tips that might help:

Take a Look at the Products or Services You Provide

What are the benefits? Does it solve a problem or would it make life easier for your customers? Think about who would benefit most from what you’re selling.

Study Your Competition

Find out what your competition is doing and who they are targeting. Are they focusing on a specific audience? Don’t copy what they’re doing. Analyze their market carefully. You might find a market that’s being overlooked.

Analyze Your Customers

Do you notice buying patterns that point to a specific niche? This may be where you need to focus your efforts.

Use Demographics to Focus on Your Target Audience

Consider the following when narrowing in on your ideal customer:

• Age
• Location
• Gender
• Income level
• Education level
• Marital or family status
• Occupation
• Ethnic background

Analyze the Psychographics of Your Target Audience

Learn more about the personal characteristics of your ideal market by considering the following:

• Personality
• Attitudes
• Values
• Interests/hobbies
• Lifestyle
• Behavior

Determining your target market is not always simple. Sometimes it requires quite a bit of research. While tightening your focus on a niche market is the ultimate goal, you also need to make sure there’s an actual demand for your product or service ensure profitability.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta web writer and content marketing specialist. She provides services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication to speak directly to their customers and buyers.

*Photo: Google Images

When developing an online marketing plan for your business, you want to cut right to the chase utilizing only the techniques that will bring you the best results. There is so much information about online marketing floating around – some good, some obsolete (a result of ever changing technology), and of course some of the information out there is just plain wrong.  This is one area where what you don’t know can definitely hurt you. I’d like to expose what I believe to be five common online marketing myths:

Information Alone is Enough to Sell Products

I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you competition online is growing. Those days when you could post a few informative articles pumped full of SEO buzz words about your product/service to attract buyers is long gone.

Your target audience needs to be able to see your product/service as the solution to their problem. If you can sell them the experience of what you’re offering they’re more likely to purchase from and trust your company.

Treat Online and Offline Marketing Methods as Separate Entities

A lot of businesses still think this way about marketing – they focus marketing efforts either online or offline. The best strategy is to effectively combine the two. A 2007 study by Jupiter Research and iProspect revealed two-thirds of online users perform searches based on offline marketing efforts like radio, billboards, television and print material. Don’t assume a tunnel vision approach when developing your marketing plan.

Everyone Should Be Using Social Media

You need to be sure that there’s value in your social media efforts, otherwise you’re just going to end up wasting time and money. The best way to do by establishing some sort of analytics system that allows you to measure the effectiveness of social media before making a final decision on whether or not it should be part of your marketing plan.

Making Getting New Customers Your Priority

You’re probably wondering, “Well, what’s so wrong with that? Don’t all businesses work hard to get as much new business as possible?”

The argument to work harder for new business seems to make sense, but did you know that it actually costs 6 times as much to attract new business as it does to retain existing customers? In terms of dollars and cents, it makes more sense to do whatever is necessary to keep existing customers happy so they’ll keep coming back to buy from you again and again.

Successful companies generate 80% of their revenue from existing customers. Most customers that stop buying from a business leave because they don’t feel important or appreciated.

Take time to establish meaningful connections and relationships with your customers through online surveys, freebies newsletters and email marketing.

Spending Less than 20% of Your Budget on Online Marketing Techniques is Enough

More and more markets are utilizing online and mobile devices. Traditional marketing methods have become fragmented over the years and smart businesses are taking notice. A survey conducted in 2010 showed 59.8% of companies confirmed that over half of their multi-channel advertising campaign budgets would go to online and mobile marketing channels. (Datran Media’s Annual Marketing & Media Survey) Set your budget realistically to reach as many people digitally as possible for higher ROI.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta web writer and content marketing specialist. She provides services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication to speak directly to their customers and buyers.

Photo: Google Images

Optimizing your website content for mobile devices is a necessity these days as more and more consumers are utilizing cell phones for more than making calls. RipRoad reports that over 234 million Americans own a cell phone; and that 42.7 million were relying on smartphones between November  2009 and January 2010 (Visibility Magazine, Fall 2010).
Another study conducted by Pew reveals that 83% of consumers over the age of 18 own smartphones or cells phones, and 35% of those consumers use their mobile devices to access the Internet.
Each of these reports are confirmation of how important it is for businesses to ensure that customers can access their website or blog easily from a mobile device. Here is a simple checklist to help you navigate the process of making sure your site is ready for mobile searches :

Resize the Images on Your Site
Make sure the photos and graphics on your website can easily be viewed on a mobile phone. The easiest way to do this is to resize them so that they are slightly smaller. Make sure bottons and other navigational tools are properly sized for mobile viewing.
Ensure Optimum Loading Time
The rules for accessing websites from a laptop or desktop  computer apply to mobile devices browsing as well: your site should load quickly with no delays. Remember – as a rule consumers expect instant gratification when surfing the net. They won’t appreciate significant delays in granting access to your website. This can result in losing visitors which could affect profitability. Keep your site simple, easy to navigate using a cell phone or smartphone and visitors will have an easier time getting the information they need.
Install a Plug In
Wordpress users will find that a simple plug in can make their site mobile-friendly.  Here are a few to consider:

• Mfuse
• WPTouch
• WPTap
• WordPress Moile Pack
• Mobile Press

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta web writer and content marketing specialist. She provides services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility, brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication in order to speak directly to their customers and buyers.

Photo: Google Images

You already know one of the best ways of optimizing your website is with organic SEO techniques. For years SEO experts have discussed the importance of seeding your website content with targeted, long-tail keywords to improve SERPS. Long-tail keywords are made up of four or more words. Since they are so precise, the idea behind using them in your SEO strategy is that search engines have a much easier time understanding the meaning of the phrase, so the results you get when using the phrase during a search will return much more relevant search results. But is this still the case?

SEO is a constantly evolving landscape when it comes to online visibility. One example of this is the fact that keyword density does not hold the same importance in organic SEO that it did back in 2007. So do long-tail keywords still matter that much?

Changes in search engine algorithms have changed the way search results are determined. Evidence of this is the fact that keyword density rules have changed so considerably. It is no longer acceptable to readers or the search algorithms to reward subpar content overstuffed with keyword terms for the sake of earning a top spot in the SERPS.

At the end of the day, long-tail keywords still matter in your SEO strategy, and can be especially helpful when incorporated with many of the latest online marketing trends. For example, long-tail terms can be included in the messages you send to your social media connections on sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. This makes it easier for others to find you online which effectively increases brand recognition.

Long-tail keywords are also still an important part of PPC campaigns. You can choose from several different keywords through Google. You’ll find it easier to find the long-tail keywords you need because there is less competition than for broad, short-tail terms. Long-tail keywords are typically more targeted to your campaign’s intended audience. That means better conversion results.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta web writer and content marketing specialist. She provides services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication to speak directly to their customers and buyers.

People have a natural tendency to connect with others and form all kinds of relationships – romantic, friendship, business, etc. At the crux of any successful relationship is trust. Without trust you find yourself analyzing another’s actions and motives suspiciously assuming that the target of your suspicion is only out for self.

In the “real world”, there are ways to determine whether or not a business is a legitimate operation worthy of your time and trust. For example, when you meet with someone in person for the first time (e.g. a real estate agent, insurance salesperson), you can at least scrutinize their outward appearance and body language. It’s not as easy to know which online businesses can be trusted. After all anyone can throw up a website and claim to legitimately be “open for business.” Lots of scam operations have done just that bilking unsuspecting consumers out of their hard earned money.

So how can you set yourself apart from the untrustworthy online enterprises? It only takes visitors to your site a few seconds to size you up and determine the value of your proposition.

1.    Appearances Mean A Lot

First impressions online are just as important as they are in the “real world.” It may not be pretty, but it’s a fact that people generally judge a book by its cover. Accordingly to the Fall 2010 issue of Visibility Magazine, research reveals that website visitors evaluate a website in only fifty milliseconds – the same amount of time it takes to visually process an image.”

Your website’s design should be tailored to appeal to your target audience. Even if that market finds “quirky and fun” appealing, the execution needs to be completely professional. Avoid creating a cluttered website. Keep your content simple and to the point. Utilize white space and make sure navigation is user-friendly. You don’t want prospects hunting around trying to find out how to contact you, or searching for your “about us” page to learn about your company.

2.    Address Anxieties Before They Come Up

Common issues consumers worry about when doing business online include:

• Spamming
• Receiving goods/services as promised
• Identity theft

Reassuring these fears is important. A few ways of encouraging trust in your business include:

•    Providing payment and delivery policies upfront
•    Assuring consumers that your website is data security certified safe by well-known experts.
•    Posting your privacy policy to ensure consumers that the personal information they share is safe and will not be sold.
•    Prominently displaying warranties, return policies and guarantees.

3.    Establish Trust Through Other Brands

There are a few different ways of doing this:

• Publish positive reviews and awards by respected industry publications.
• Publish testimonials from satisfied clients/customers.
• Display popular client logos ion your website with their permission.

Establishing trust is what helps create a solid foundation for business success.

About the Author: Kimberly Ben is an Atlanta web writer and content marketing specialist. She provides services and consultation to businesses looking to increase online visibility/brand recognition, and leverage the power of web-based communication to speak directly to their customers and buyers.