As a Denver Marketing company we work to market companies in the most efficient ways possible.  A key part of marketing online is done through Search Engine Optimization.  We talk a lot about SEO here at our company because we believe in it, we blog about it, and we use it.  SEO can never be minimized and there are constantly being new ways added in which online marketers can increase SEO for their clients.  This week we will look at SEO inside of blog articles specifically.

Links

If you travel back and read our series on Search Engine Optimization (or simply download the e-book at the bottom of the page) you will see some great information about links.  The short of it is, it’s extremely helpful to have at least one, if not multiple links inside a blog post.  Typically we only link to other articles on our site.  Though this doesn’t quite increase the rankings like an inbound link to from site would, it still increases the overall SEO because search engines are searching out and reading each individual post to determine the inter-related aspects.

Categories

The automatic default post category for articles built in WordPress is to be “Uncategorized.” Creating a keyword specific category 0r categories for your blog posts not only help keep it organized but it also gives a category for search engines to place your post under.  Though it may not weigh heavily as a single SEO aspect, using the categories function is one of a many options within WordPress to help increase the visibility of a post, thus making it easier to be picked up by a search engine.

Tags

It is beneficial within WordPress to tag your posts (this is different from the myth of meta tags, which we discuss in our e-book below).  We have pulled in an image of our most-used tags from one of our personal blogs.  It is key when branding a blog to make sure that you are using tags and keywords that are relevant to your brand.  Even though these tags carry very little SEO rankings, they do help search engines determine what categories to place the posts in.  They also do carry weight in how WordPress presents the blog through their site.  It is definitely worth the time it takes to lay out the tags.

Keywords

Most of the time a meta tag denotes a keyword.  This is something that is key for building SEO into a blog post.  The more a keyword is presented in a blog post the higher a search engine will rank that post related to the keyword.  So making use of keywords should be top priority for any blog post.

Excerpt Function

A script is used to write a small synopsis about the blog post.  This is what will appear when the link is shared on Facebook and other social media platforms.  This is another place to type keywords to help catch the eye of both readers and the search engines.  An image of the script box has been attached below.

Image SEO

Finally, Preparing your images for SEO is extremely helpful.  Whenever someone goes to search for images, due to the lack of SEO built into the images of many sites right now, your site could be the one the person finds.  All that you have to do is enter some text related to the subject of the image as the alternate text of the image.  The other benefit for a blog of placing images in the post is that people are more likely to click through and read a blog post that has an image than they are one without.

Learn about SEO

We told you we’d offer it. Here it is.  Our e-book about SEO Fundamentals.  This is key for any company looking to build their Search Engine reach.

Download Now

As a Denver Marketing company we are blogging every week.  Many of the reasons why we blog coincides well with the public relations side of a company.  This week we will conclude our look at Public Relations Principles for Small Businesses Online.  We have looked at what we feel are the key aspects of public relations online for any small business.  If you want take the time to read about how public relations relates to: Digital Press Releases, PR 2.0, Micro Media & VNR and Community Management.

If a person takes the time to think about it, public relations and blogging go hand in hand.  A blog can act as the front line through which all information about the company can be released in a cyber mode making easier access for both consumers and media.  There are many facets of a traditional public relations practitioners job that can be carried out through a blog.  It’s truly up to the business on how far they go in using a blog for public relations purposes.

A company wanting to engage in public relations practices will use a blog as a way to engage clients.  This is the main aspect of using a blog for public relations purposes and has many different modes.  A company can use the blog to simply harbor conversation (something we covered in depth last week when we talked about community management).  A company can also use the blog to post new information about company changes or new products.  This can come in the form of a press release or in-depth article lining out specific outcomes, plans, and product specifications.  Blogs can also be used as an opinion research tool, using the companies followers to determine areas of improvement and potential growth.

The web site implications for a blog should be covered but are always secondary when looking at public relations.  There are Search Engine Optimization implications that always come with a blog.  This is compounded for public relations because if a company has major news that they are releasing, if they are up to date on their SEO when they release their information, people searching for it will be automatically directed to the host site instead of any secondary sites.  This ensures that the company’s information is being received straight from their mouths.  This should go without mentioning but a blog should be professional looking.  It should carry over any theme that the company has on their web site and should be appealing to the eye.  When a consumer comes to the site and sees this, the credibility of the company is boosted.

Most of this stuff is very simple for companies to embrace.  Some may already be implemented.  However, it is a great reminder that things can come together to do wonders for a company in the field of public relations.  If you have any thoughts about how public relations relates to blogs feel free to leave them in a comment below!

Why not add typography?

Really looking to take it up to the next level? Add some typography to your blog.  Our e-book will show you how web fonts make for great typography.

Download Now

As a Denver Marketing company we understand what it means to manage community.  We don’t talk about it often but it is definitely a key to both the marketing and public relations side of a business.  Typically though this is something that a public relations specialist monitors.

This week we will look at what community management entails, how it should be handled, and why it is key for a businesses PR persona.

What is Community Management?

From a public relations and marketing perspective, managing a community is simply interacting with people.  This entails being online and ready for anything that could happen.  Typically managing a community involves keeping social media sites and blogs updated about what is happening with the company.  Answering questions posed by community members is a regular occurrence as well. This can also involve thinking of creative ways to get community members to engage the company in conversation.  The key to remember is that there is never a time where a company can take a break from community management.  The internet is a 24/7 job.  

How to handle Community Management

This seems like a simple thing to do, it has management in the title so just get someone to manage the community right?  The issue is that we aren’t simply managing conversation at this point.  We are engaging and creating conversation.  So community management can be designated to one person or multiple people but the key is to keep the conversation flowing.  Good community management has people interacting on a weekly basis.  It’s not about the quantity of people coming to the community but the quality of the conversation.  The better quality conversation the more likely community members are to stick around.  Another key is to make sure that every part of the company is on the same page when it comes to what it wants to post and have conversations about.  This will avoid any confusion down the road.  Finally don’t wait for conversation to come to the company, engage people in conversation.  This is not a place where no news is good news, an active community is good news.  Having an active community shows people joining the community multiple things that relate to the public relations part of the business.

How proper Community Management builds a company’s PR

Obviously simply having a face within a company’s community will build positive PR, but there is more than that.  When people see an active community they know that the company is personable.  People relate an active community to an educated and respectable business.  They are able to see that being involved with a company that has an active community will have strong customer service as well.  Having strong community management gives a positive face to a company that would have little to no face if they had no community or a despondent community.

This is just the beginning of what community management can do for a company.  If you have other thoughts or questions on community management please leave them in the comments below!

Back to the Fundamentals

If your company is looking for some simply online public relations help then maybe you’d like some Website Fundamentals as well.  We have compiled an e-book just for that!

Download Now!

Lately, we’ve been talking about SAAS, also known as “software as a service,” or on-demand software.  We helped you see how useful SAAS can be for your Denver online marketing needs.   Today, we are here to conclude our series of SAAS hints, tips and tricks with a list of resources.  We hope these resources will encourage you to use SAAS for your business, whether you are making use of SAAS software that is already in existence, or creating your own new SAAS software.

Guide to SAAS Architecture – This helpful online guide demonstrates to users how to best format SAAS software, and how to implement it correctly as well.  This is a resource that could definitely help you out if you are interested in developing your own SAAS platform to further your Denver online marketing tactics.

Guide to SAAS Integration – If making business more simple, condensed, and efficient isn’t motivation enough, this guide to integrating SAAS software with other business tactics can help you to see how important integration is.

SAAS Showplace Marketplace - An online hub dedicated to informing prospective customers about various SAAS software that is available, where customers can trial and subscribe to a wide selection of SAAS programs.  The SAAS Showplace Marketplace provides everything from comprehensive information on pricing strategies and features of individual SAAS software to customer reviews.

List of Successful SAAS Model Start-Ups - A list (via short blog article and respondants’ comments) of successful SAAS programs.  Notice, you have probably seen, heard of, and/or used many of them before!

An Executive’s Guide to CRM Software -  We mentioned previously that SAAS is great for customer resource management.  This guide provides a great overview of how SAAS can be utilized for customer relationship management.

CRM Software Reviews – A great way to see what programs are out there to help you with customer relationship management, and to weight the pros and cons of each!

A Different Use for SAAS: Legal Technology - Maybe this is not quite what you are looking for…however, it is interesting to see how the SAAS platform can be used in a whole different industry.  It seems to us that lawyers can benefit just as much from SAAS platforms as those of us operating in the world of marketing!

SAAS Start-Up Growth Metrics (a brief version)- Once you have implemented SAAS software for the benefit of your business and its customers, these metrics are helpful to let you keep an eye on (what we hope will be) company growth.

SAAS Growth Metrics (an extended version) - Again, to help you keep an eye on company growth, this resource provides an in-depth look at SAAS growth metrics, as well as how to increase them.

In conclusion, we hope that these resources help you design and grow your own SAAS software, or help you find an already established SAAS program that is suitable for your business.  Either way, we have given you some tools to help you, let’s see what you make of them!

Free e-Book: Search Engine Optimization Fundamentals

You have a website, but is it getting found? Find out what you need to know about search engine optimization in our free e-book.

Download Now

“The cloud” has become a vogue topic these days. Apple has their iCloud, Amazon has their new Amazon Cloud Drive, and “cloud computing” is all the rage in business circles. But what exactly is “the cloud” and “cloud computing”?

Basically, “cloud computing” basically means doing your computer work through web-based software than runs on an internet server, rather than your own computer. For instance, rather than writing this blog post using Microsoft Word and saving it to my computer hard drive, I’m currently writing it in Google Docs, which is an online writing program that I use through my internet browser. After I have written it in Google Docs, we will use another piece of cloud computing software — WordPress — to publish it on our company blog. The entire process runs online, and I access it all through my web browser.

So what are the advantages of cloud computing? There are several:

Accessible anywhere

Gone is the need to be tied to your desktop PC to get your work done. When all you need to do all your work is an internet browser and an internet connection, you can literally do your work anywhere. You can start a project on your office computer, make some edits to it on your mobile phone while you’re out and about, and finish it up on your laptop at home. Don’t want to sit inside on a nice summer day? Take your laptop out to the park and finish up your work with the summer breeze blowing through your hair.

No tech support needed

We’ve all been there: the software program we need to get a project out the door in a hurry suddenly crashes, and you’re suddenly set back by several hours. Incompatible software drivers, buggy software patches and a myriad of other things have the potential to wreak havoc on your computer. But when you’re working “in the cloud,” all your software tools are on one centralized server system, with its own dedicated team of professionals watching over it constantly. They do all their software updates and debugging automatically and behind the scenes, so you can continue to go about your work without being slowed down by buggy and inconsistent software configurations.

Automatic saves and backups

You know the feeling: you’ve been working on your report for an hour, only to have the power go out and you lose everything. Or you save it to a USB drive only to have it fall of your pocket on the way to the client meeting. Or your hard drive suddenly goes bad and half of your work files have become corrupted and require an expensive restoration specialist to be saved. But when you’re doing your work in the cloud, everything is saved and backed up automatically. If your power goes out, just turn your computer back on afterwards and pick up right where you left off. If you lose your USB drive, it’s no problem because the file is accessible online anyways. You don’t have to worry about losing your data on any one of your devices again.

Getting started

“Well that all sounds great, Chris,” you might ask, “but how can I get started using some of these tools? Great question. Here are some of my favorite cloud computing tools:

• Google Docs
  This is a fantastic alternative to Microsoft Office and other traditional office tools. You can write and edit documents, calendars, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and more. Additionally, you can share documents so that multiple people can edit them — even simultaneously!
  Price: free for individuals and small organizations
• Remember The Milk
  Tired of carrying around your grocery list, your to-do list, and your miscellaneous notes on wrinkled scraps of paper shoved in your pocket? Switch them out for this handy online task list software. Create multiple lists of tasks and reminders, set due dates on them, and check them off when finished. Remember The Milk can also send you daily email reminders of your tasks for the day so that you’ll never forget.
  Price: free for the basic version
• WordPress
  Over the past several years, WordPress has become one of the most popular tools in the world for building and managing websites. And it’s no surprise why: it’s super-easy for new people to pick it up and learn how to use it, but peek under the hood and there’s a lot of power for more advanced developers to tap into. It’s the tool that powers my own company blog, for example.
  Price: free

These are just some starting suggestions to help you dip your foot in the water of cloud computing. As time goes on, you can start experimenting with other cloud-based tools to use — pretty soon you’ll start finding a good collection of them that you like, and they’ll become an indispensable part of your workflow. So come on and give cloud computing a try! You might just find that your bloated, buggy desktop software starts to become little more than a distant memory.

Free Resource: Website Fundamentals

With more and more of our software tools running as web-based services, it’s essential that you know the fundamentals of how a website works. Come find out what you need to know in our free e-book.

Download Now