As every business and their grandmothers are haphazardly hurling themselves onto the social media websites, the neglected corporate initiatives of yesteryear patiently lurk in the dark annals of the World Wide Web anticipating the time when high ranking execs will again begin to realize the power of the corporate blog. Just about 5 minutes after businesses began to wake up to the idea of adding a blog to their online presence, Facebook and Twitter hit the scenes, and most companies plans of improving their blogs went from being on top of the CEO’s desk to being ‘filed away somewhere.’ The result- a wealth of business websites, which possess attractively developed blogs that utterly lack any semblance of marketing strategy.

As is true with any form of marketing or content production, the best way to determine an effective presentation method is to consider the audience first and foremost. In many niches, the personal flavor, that only a blog can offer, creates a viral effect due to their friendly and likeable content. Admittedly, applying the personal touch is not the only effective method of corporate blogging, but the personal blogging method does have viral potential for connecting with former and future customers. Continue reading

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If you’re a blogger, there are many issues to consider when creating content, promoting it, and designing the aesthetic of your blog. Whether you work for a marketing agency like Quick Sprout with a number of different online clients or are launching your own blog, ask yourself these six questions in order to get yourself on the fast track to success:

What is your niche? Don’t blog in a vacuum. Decide who your blog is for and actively write for that audience. If your blog is about graphic design, specify what medium of graphic design—online, advertising, manufacturing, etc. Any general category you think of can be drilled down into at least a half dozen other sub-categories. Honing in on the most lucrative sub-category and niche audience will allow you to focus your content, marketing, and publishing outreach. Continue reading

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There is so much more to finding employment and creating a career today than many people realize at the get go. While many people no doubt find positions by sending out their resumes and custom tailoring their cover letters, today’s tech centric-society lends itself well to new and more appropriate forms of self-promotion. Blogging has become a hobby, career, and tool for thousands and thousands of individuals around the world. Using a personal blog to essentially brand yourself and market your skills to the professional world has fast become the approach in today’s harsh job market. Follow these four blogging tips and self-marketing basics to create a personal blog that sells your best professional qualities and helps potential employers gain special insight into your abilities.

Simplicity and Clarity

The key to a successful website of any sort is simplicity and clarity. This is true for most things, including marketing. You want to be clear and direct with your intent and purpose. With your personal blog, you should create something that carefully communicates what you wish to tell. Your writing style should be clear and to the point. Tell your readers up front what your interests are, what the purpose of your blog is, what your accomplishments are, and what you wish to gain from them reading your material. There’s no point in using fluff language or fillers. Just tell people exactly who you are and what you are doing and see how they respond. Of course, I mean all of this directness to be done in a professional manner. You must sell yourself through your blog. Be clear and simple in your intent.  Continue reading

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Guest blogging is one of the best ways to get a blog or website known and target new audiences, we all agree with that. Welcoming guest posters is also a great way to provide fresh content to your readers and target the crowds the invited author already appealed to. By analyzing these two sides of the guest blogging scene, you can easily tell this is a win-win promotion practice.

No wonder it has spread throughout the blogosphere and it has created a need for the proper tools! A while back I wrote about the launch of My Blog Guest, a place where guest posters and blog owners could meet, connect and see how they could help each other out. It looked promising and I decided to try out Ann Smarty’s project and see for myself how it worked. Continue reading

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Guest post by Jayson Jones

Of the many blogs that pop into existence (at the rate, in fact, of one blog per second), the vast majority are a form of “personal space.” These intentionally personal blogs are a sort of online journal, more about having a sense of territory than of really developing a following. However, for those who care about having a truly successful blog, the focus must shift to accommodate one group, and one group only: the users.

There are plenty of things you can do to make your site better for visitors; you can get an online web design degree, look up everything you can find on successful blog designing, or better yet follow these five simple tips that will help improve user experience on your blog.

1. Streamline Everything

On most blogs, there are links, pictures, design elements, advertisements, and just about everything else you could imagine, all littering the site haphazardly. Not only is this unattractive, but it’s nearly impossible to navigate through. Continue reading

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