The Zen of Social Media Marketing. Shama Hyder

engine optimization, and it is discussed in detail later in the book.

      MAINTENANCE: The website of today in many ways is a living, breathing thing. In the past, you could create a website and sit back. Today, you can’t. Passively keeping a website is almost akin to opening a store, stocking the shelves, and then doing nothing. You don’t have to re-create the store every day or even every year, but you do need to tag products, move items around, change displays, and so on. Your website is the same way. Once you have the design and structure in place, you don’t have to keep changing it. However, you do need to maintain it by adding content.

      AHA! Zen Moment

      Blogging can be a great attracting and converting tool! People can find your posts attractive and subscribe to your blog, becoming instant consumers. Over time, they can be converted into customers.

      A blog is an instantly and easily updatable website. A blog is the hub of your social media strategy, enabling you to grow your online presence as social media trends change and evolve.

      Andy Wibbels,

      author of BlogWild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging

       Content Marketing

      If you do any marketing industry reading, you’ve heard (and might be tired of) the phrase “content marketing.” There’s a reason content marketing has become such a marketing mantra; as I pointed out in the last section, content is king. If your website is the engine driving your marketing strategy, content is the fuel that makes that engine run—it’s the core resource for your social media and email campaigns.

      Content comes in many forms:

       • Blog posts

       • White papers

       • E-books

       • Photographs

       • Infographics

       • Videos

       • Webinar replays

       • Slideshows (such as webinar slidedecks)

       • Animated GIFs

       • Podcasts

       • Customer reviews and testimonials

       • And more!

      Creative output of an almost limitless range of media can, and should, be part of your content marketing strategy; however, special attention should be paid to one of the most effective types of content—the blog.

       The Million-Dollar Question: Do I Need a Blog?

      You don’t need a blog, but you do need fresh content on an ongoing basis. The best place to put this content is in a blog. Can you choose just to post this information on a webpage? Yes, but it isn’t nearly as efficient because readers can’t subscribe, and you can’t keep up with your consumers to turn them into clients.

       Blogsites

      You can add a blog to an existing website, but you can also build a website around a blog. I am a huge fan of hybrid websites, or blogsites, where the entire website is built on a blogging platform. There are many blog publishing platforms out there, but the one we use most often is WordPress. It is the most robust platform, and many business websites are now using it as a content management system (CMS). A CMS allows you to manage your entire website like you would a blog. You get an admin console from which you can edit your site, allowing you to maintain your website and make regular changes without much technical knowledge. If you don’t have a technical background or a webmaster who can make your updates, you should consider getting a content management system.

      Now, let’s say you have an excellent website in place with lots of wonderful fresh content. How do you drive traffic to it? Keep reading . . .

      I started my blog four years ago and always had it separate from my business website. Right before my book launched this year, I decided to move to an integrated “blogsite” platform on WordPress for the following reasons:

       • Effort and resources: It was taking too much time to update both a blog and website with relevant information. And without changing information on the website, why would people come back after an initial visit? By having an integrated site, people come back over and over to read new content.

       • SEO: I realized that I was not being efficient by driving people to two sites. It became confusing to know which link to provide when sharing my bio, and I was diluting the SEO for both sites. Now every road leads to one site, which has increased traffic and Google ranking.

       • Client conversion: I had many people visit my blog who loved my posts but who did not have a complete picture of what I did professionally. Many did not click the link in my “About” section to my main website to find out about my products and services. Since converting to one site, I have had a twofold increase in individual coaching clients, as well as strong sales in my live workshops and membership site.

      Pamela Slim,

      author of Escape from Cubicle Nation

       Tips for an “Optimal” Blog

      There is a strategy to blogging. Here are a few guidelines to follow when creating blog posts to get the biggest bang for your buck:

       • Ideally, you should blog at least two times per week, especially when starting out.

       • Each blog post should be a bare minimum of 500 words, but the longer, the better. Posts of 2000 to 5000 words are the most effective.

       • Be sure to use keywords in your blog. For example, if you’re a manufacturer of baked goods, you want to write posts that are relevant to baking—how to bake a cake, best desserts, and so forth. (You will learn more about keywords in the following chapter covering SEO.)

      WordPress is the ultimate publishing platform because it’s easy to use, it’s not overly complicated, and it’s infinitely flexible. Sure, it’s great for blogs, and that is its forte, but it’s also great for non-blog websites and even ecommerce sites. Because of plug-ins and themes (especially Headway, which includes visual blog design tools), WordPress can be extended into anything you can imagine. Creating and publishing content in WordPress really is about as easy as writing an email, only instead of clicking “Send,” you click “Publish.” That’s such a satisfying button to click on, too, because whenever you do it, you know that hundreds or even thousands of people are going to read what you wrote.

      Michael Martine,

       Remarkablogger (remarkablogger.com)

       • Interlink when appropriate. When you have a keyword or phrase in your blog, link it back to the page on your site that talks about that particular product or service. For instance, if you are blogging about tips for ordering a wedding cake, link the words “wedding cake” with the page on your site that talks about wedding cakes. This is a great tip for aiding in your organic search rankings.

       • Use a picture in every blog post. You’ll be syndicating your blog posts into your different social networks, and when the blog posts feed into Facebook, as an example, the picture will show up. People are much more likely to read a blog post with a captivating picture than one without a picture. Don’t have a relevant image of your own? You can get royalty-free images on flickr.com (just be sure to search within the box for Creative Commons for images available “for commercial use”).

       • If using WordPress, be sure to add tags—keywords or phrases for subjects you discussed in your blog. Again, this is a great search engine optimization tool.

      Solid content is really at the heart of any good online marketing campaign, and these guidelines can help you optimize your blog content