Kelly Kautz
Free 55-Page eEbook: “The Small Business Blogging Blueprint”
“I’d like to create a blog, but I don’t know where to start.”
“I don’t have the technical skills to build a blog.”
“I have a business blog, but it doesn’t get any traffic!”
Sound familiar? As a marketing consultant, I’ve heard countless versions of these statements. Each week I meet more small business owners who want to start a business blog, but something gets in their way.
Lack of time. Lack of knowledge. Lack of a plan.
Why I Wrote About Blogging for Business
I, too, struggled with these problems when starting my first business blog in 2007. I had to focus not just on blog creation and maintenance, but on:
• Getting blog traffic
• Capturing customer leads
• Making sales
I read every blog book I could get my hands on. But most were outdated, and none addressed how blogging could grow my business. So I spent two long years in trial and error, testing out one technique and abandoning it for another until I discovered exactly what worked.
And let me tell you: you’d be amazed by all the blogging advice that’s just plain wrong. Hiding keywords at the bottom of every page, for example – while that may have gotten you search traffic in 1997, it could get you blacklisted from Google today. Continue reading
Top Web Picks for Women Entrepreneurs
Jemima Lopez is a freelance blogger and writer who writes for Zen College Life, the directory of higher education, distance learning, and best online schools.
A recent article in Forbes magazine questioned the status of women in the contemporary American workforce: are they as prominently placed as they deserve to be in managerial and senior positions?
The author of the article felt that the answer to that question was no, and that women still have obstacles to overcome to establish themselves in 2012 and beyond. Well, who are the entrepreneurial women who will lead the next generation of women to a brighter future? More importantly, what web resources are there for entrepreneurial women looking for guidance?
Here are three that have caught my attention lately.
1. CNN’s 10 Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs of 2011
CNN Money recently published an article showcasing the organization’s picks for the 10 most powerful women entrepreneurs of 2011. The article explains the decisions and motivations that helped these women arrive at their highpoint in the business world. Continue reading
The Power of a Retweet: How Twitter Can Take Your Content Viral
Today’s guest post comes from Lianne Froggatt, Digital Communications Manager for Ideasbynet.
Twitter: an increasingly powerful online medium that can do wonders for your business. Since its start in 2006, Twitter has been constantly growing and evolving, with more people joining every day.
Retweeting – the act of reposting another person’s status update – is a popular Twitter feature, but one that’s often underutilized by small business owners and solo entrepreneurs marketing themselves via social media.
How can you utilize this medium to stimulate conversation and drive more traffic to your site? First, let’s explore the benefits of retweeting other people’s content. Continue reading
The Gentle Art of Offending People
Last week, my editor assigned me an article on “the many types and uses of fabric.” I worried whether I’d be able to make the topic interesting. I had no idea my work would create a scandal.
The offending sentence: “Humans began wearing clothing made from spun fibers as long as 500,000 years ago, becoming the only animals to ever do so.”
This sparked a fury of emails, protesting my insinuation that humans are animals. We can’t run this! We’d lose advertisers! And biblically speaking, the earth isn’t nearly that old!
I’m not out to criticize anyone’s beliefs (though anyone who believes that humans aren’t animals obviously hasn’t been to my gym.) Rather, I want to show how easy it is to offend people without even trying.
WTF & Other Moral Quandaries
These days, I try hard NOT to offend people. I used to let it all hang out. Then I took a full-time job, and started rethinking the f-bombs sprinkling my Facebook status updates.
Is it OK to swear? What about insinuating a swear word, like WTF or FML? Was the word “hell” OK, or was that verboten, too? There are health benefits at stake, people! Continue reading
