1. Find a large enough group of people to talk to. Marketers are always looking for new segments to penetrate with their products and blogs are a great channel to communicate with them.  For example, if you sell executive suites to small businesses, you will probably want to target prospects based on geography and perhaps service firms. That will give you a large group of people to talk to but this group will probably be composed of several smaller groups with similar interest, so don’t stop there.
2. Learn what is unique about each smaller group. Within that larger segment you should create a variety of content that speaks to what is unique to each one do those smaller groups. Following the example above, it could be interesting to create content that talks about the importance of first impressions, the role of branding in finding new clients, the most successful stock investments strategies or the latest high-end entertainment events in the area.
3. Share with them and build trust. We all know that people like free samples, gifts, give away, free content, free research, extras or free trials. Use those to start building your brand and relationship with them.  Once you have built that trust and created that first impression, it is really hard to lose it – unless you really screw it. When blogging for sales you must honestly want to share knowledge and tips without expecting something back immediately, you must have patience.
4. Be patient and keep sharing. This is key as the game has changed for marketers and sales people, if you go aggressively for the sale without really knowing where the prospect is in the purchasing process, you will create a lot of enemies that could have been clients down the road. More than 95% of your blog’s visitors will not be ready to buy so you must be softer and broader with your message to appeal to a larger group that is most likely looking to simply educate themselves. However, make sure to make it easy for those that are shopping to contact you or purchase online.
5. Embrace your visitors and their networks. As people comment on your posts, bookmark them, share them on social networks and subscribe to your blog, make a task for you to develop each one of those relationships and ideally try to take them offline if appropriate. Don’t try to sell them until they are ready and ask more about your product or services. Developing those relationships will also help you reach a much larger audience than you can reach yourself.
6. Keep improving your sources. The content that you put in your blog is the fuel that will get your lead generation machine going, so make sure to create an editorial calendar and follow it religiously. If you have trouble coming up with your own thoughts or ideas, you can comment on research reports, studies, do book reviews, interview other experts, etc. Don’t ever run out of gas.

Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

Search Engine Optimization has been a cat & mouse game since its inception, marketer and web masters spent their time figuring out how to game search engine algorithms to only find out that these sites kept evolving and coming up with new criteria. The beauty of this game has been that it has evolved in the direction of making results more and more like what you would find on an offline search for a product or service. The difference though is that looking for an accountant offline could take you days or weeks to find a good one. You would probably look for one on the yellow pages, then ask your friends if they knew one, then interview several, than ask for references, to end up probably working with one that worked with someone you trust.  However, online you can do this in a matter of minutes or seconds. Product or service searches on Google (using their filters, social search features and Google buzz) or searches on Facebook (which can also be filtered for friends) will, if not already, complete the entire search and selection process.

So, the questions are: How do you optimize your web presence? How do you embrace word of mouth and user generated content around your brand? How do you grow a network built on trust and reputation? In a few words, and you can watch the presentation below to get more details, the answer is three-fold.

First, you want to establish an editorial calendar because it will help you increase content quantity, quality and your will get more subscribers. Do simple math, more content + better quality = better search engine ranking. Add a little of smart marketing and you will get more readership and that will drive more subscribers (or potential customers)

Second, become a publishing warehouse as it will help you get your target audience in the format and timing that they prefer the most. Take the topic for the day, week, month, whatever your reality is and put in your “content development process” to create blog posts, articles, presentations, tweets, white papers, questions, videos, podcasts, etc. or whatever your target audience respond best.

Third, leverage personal branding to distribute content to networks built on trust and reputation. As stated on a previous blog employees can become a great channel to distribute your content.

By Jose Guerra
Principal

Exito

I came upon such a holy grail recently that I couldn’t help but sharing. “The Art of SEO” by Eric Enge and bunch of other people. As passionate as I am about SEO, I usually approach anything that has to do with the topic with reluctancy, because lets face it, most people tell you the same crap so called SEO experts have been spewing since 1994 (the good ole days of Infoseek). Here is the crap I am talking about, the question of question that just gets under my skin, and usually asked about a brand new website… “Is the website Search Engine Optimized?”. Maybe someone forgot the definition of optimization, but correct me if I am wrong, and I very well may be, how can you optimize something you haven’t had the chance to test and tweak? The question should rather be, “have you chocked enough self important keywords into the website’s meta keyword and title tag? and doused the content full of sentences that don’t make any sense because we had to get the keywords in there?”. Not to mention the fact that SEO is no longer just an on-site affair. Please don’t get me started, back to the book.

Armed with the reviews of the smart and good intentioned folks on amazon, I embarked on my bathroom reading journey of this book. The authors did an incredible job outlining a lot of theories missed by most other examiners of the SEO topic. The book gives you more ammunition to fight with than Rambo-in- the-middle-of-the-jungle-with-his-never-ending-supply-of-bullets-and-sharp-pointy-objects-carved-from-his-knife. Moreover, they point out one very crucial thing many SEO firms fail to tell you, Every SEO campaign is almost as different as a finger print. Different brands, different goals, uneven playing field… GO figure. The thing that strikes me is that this book was actually written in 2009, but seems to be more current than some of my other SEO readings which make me think that Eric, Stephen, Rand and Jessie (I assume we are on a first name basis, even though I don’t know them) are what you call forward thinkers. I love forward thinkers.

To sum it up, your company needs to be relevant in organic search…It’s not a luxury, it’s a must. To push you in the right direction, go get this book. Nope, I am not getting paid for this post (not saying I don’t want to), so don’t get any ideas.

When I say “me” or “I”? I mean  Dwamian Mcleish .

Follow me on twitter at twitter.com/dwamianm.

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