A few weeks back I blogged some advice here for business bloggers who might want to consider text link advertising as part of their blog marketing mix.

Well, there’s been a lot of controversy as of late about buying text links. Blogger Phil Ringnalder published a scathing post accusing publishing house O’Reilly of being a search engine spammer. O’Reilly’s founder, Tim O’Reilly, responded to the accusations on his own blog. Google engineer Matt Cutts posted a comment to Tim’s post admitting that Google has decreased the voting power of sites like perl.com and xml.com and downgraded the reputation of some of their outbound links. Ouch!

Matt’s (and presumably Google’s) position was loud and clear:

If you don’t want your own site to suffer the same fate as O’Reilly, you better tag your link ads with a rel=nofollow attribute so that you don’t pass any PageRank score to your advertisers.

In my mind, that doesn’t seem quite fair. Website owners and bloggers work hard to build a content-rich site with good PageRank score. Google’s black-or-white stance on this equates to a diminished earning ability for these websites by insisting webmasters cut off the flow of PageRank to their advertisers. This of course decreases the value of the link ads to those advertisers, and consequently the revenue likely to be realized from them. Granted, no savvy advertiser is going to buy a text link ad solely based on PageRank score, but PageRank does factor into the equation.

This makes me wonder what Google’s position is on BlogAds.com is, which is part banner ad, part text link ad. A good blog ad contains useful content. Why shouldn’t the blogger be allowed to “vouch for” (by not tagging the link with nofollow) the links contained within that ad if they so choose?

Most “white hat” SEOs such as Christine Churchill believe text link advertising is a legitimate practice. I agree with her.

I wonder what Google would do if all the websites across the Internet decided to take all their banner ad inventory they have and bypass the click-tracker redirect that counts all the clickthroughs. Suddenly all these new votes would start counting all over the Internet for commercial advertisers and sponsors. Wouldn’t that throw Google for a loop!

So what is the bottom line here for bloggers who are looking to advertise? It’s basically this: be discriminating in your link buying. Text link advertisements are not inherently evil. Just don’t buy ads on sites where any of the other advertisers on the site are misleading, deceptive or misrepresentative. By that, I mean things like the following:

1. Setting the ad’s link text to some keyword-rich phrase that doesn’t accurately reflect the page that is linked to.
   e.g. An ad on SeacoastOnline.com proclaims “The North Face” but that isn’t The North Face!
2. Linking the ad text to a landing page that is built for search engines and not for people.
   e.g. the “Discount Vacations” ad on DailyItem.com points to one of Orbitz’s many “doorway pages”.
3. Hiding or obscuring the link so human visitors can’t see it, only search engines.
   e.g. Doing a “View Source” on the home page of PRNewswire.com reveals these hidden links:
   
</noframes>
<a href="http://www.icrossing.com">Search Engine Marketing</a>
<a href="http://sev.prnewswire.com">Search Engine News Release Optimization</a>
</frameset>


And it goes without saying that you should refrain from such practices yourself when you advertise.

This post is based on material taken from on my own blog across three separate posts: Link buying – ethical or unethical?, Buying links – Google’s perspective, and Buying link ads – the ethical debate rages.

If it wasn’t enough trouble to come up with the right string of words to describe your brand, now you gotta worry about what your brand sounds like. That’s right. You need an audio logo for your podcast. What’s your cue music, your sign off… and those little bits in between, like NPR radio uses between segments? MarketingSherpa writes here and here about what’s involved in developing their theme song for podcasting.

Check out Podcastinglogos.com to hear snippets of music used by the New England Journal of Medicine, the Baseball Network and other organizations for their podcasts. The site was just launched by independent film score composer Michael Whalen.

Whalen helpfully poses 10 key questions you should consider before commissioning an audio logo. Here are the first five:

1. How is your company perceived in the marketplace? (big, small, cool, traditional, fun, forward thinking, etc.)
2. How do YOU perceive your company? Is it the same as your answer to #1?
3. Do you think your audio ID should support or work against this impression(s)?
4. Who is your ‘typical’ audience member or customer? (demographically, sense of their tastes, etc.)
5. Should the audio ID appeal to your audience’s taste or should it only support your company’s image? (see question #1)

Follow this link and click on Pricing and Suggestions in the left-hand column to get the rest. (This site is designed in frames… bad idea as I can’t give you a direct link!)

 

I cannot disagree that the Web log, or blog, is definitely the   Flavor of the Month. But even when chocolate is the Flavor of the Month, that   doesn’t make it any less tasty. Sometimes trendy is OK, and this is one of   those times.

• strengthening relationships;
• building your brand;
• improving customer service;
• increasing employee awareness;
• building a reputation;
• benefiting search engine rank; and
•   making money through advertising.

With that much upside, the article should sway many to consider the use of the blog in their small business.  Be trendy, why not order both chocolate and vanilla?

The Free Money Finance site (Is there really such a thing as “free” money?) has an essay on how to build traffic to your blog via blog carnivals. It’s based on the blogger’s extensive research into the subject over the past few months.

This isn’t directly about business blogging, but it’s the kind of posting that begs the question: if you were a blogger at Merck, how would you respond to a blog article of this nature? Also, there’s another observation that some of my fellow business bloggers can make about the dissemination fo infomration in the blogosphere versus the mainstream media, perhaps? In any case, this is just the teaser for the article itself… there’s a lot in the media today about this Merck settlement. How long until it’s got the blogosphere abuzz?

A staggering verdict was found in Angleton, Texas against pharmaceutical conglomerate Merck & Co. when the jury today handed back $24 million in actual damages plus an additional $229 million in exemplary, punitive damages for the widow of former Vioxx patient Robert Ernst.

The background story is that triathlete Robert Ernst had been on the prescription heart drug Vioxx and then died of what the coroner later described as “arrhythmia” or an irregular heartbeat. Ernst’s widow’s attorney argued that Vioxx had led to a heart attack that had caused the arrhythmia, not the direct death.

While Merck voluntarily removed Vioxx from the marketplace last September after studies linked Vioxx to a higher rate of heart attacks and strokes after taking the drug for 18 months, it was too late for thousands of potential victims. Ernst is the first of over 4000 lawsuits alleging injuries from Vioxx.

If this one case produces a verdict of almost $255 million, then even if only 10% of the 4000 cases already filed were settled in favor of the plaintiff, not Merck, it could theoretically cost upwards of…

End of the afternoon and, surprisingly, the audience at the Blog Business Summit is beginning to perk up and ask more questions.Someone asks Robert Scoble: “So how much time does blogging take?” He laughs. His one-word answer: “Starbucks.” Expanded: “I spend almost every waking hour doing something related to blogging.”

The “time” question is key and of huge concern to prospective corporate bloggers.

The anti-blogging blogs (or the reality-check blogs–take your pick) continue. This one is from Jim Logan and his post The Temptation and Reality of Business Blogs.

Jim rightly points out that blogs are probably not the tool a small business and solopreneurs should use to immediately grow your revenue. He also gives a list of some marketing endeavors that might have a more immediate impact on your company.

However, I would argue that business blogging should fall into Stephen Covey’s second quadrant: important but not urgent.

I don’t think many people would argue that a business blog alone is
enough marketing for any company…even a business blog consultant.
However, it can be a great, long-term investment for companies and
businesses looking to have a conversation with their prospects and
clients.

Where do you rank business blogs in importance when it comes to your company’s marketing?

 

Certainly
the dangers are massive, for both blogging and the companies concerned.
One hopes that blogging is developed and entrenched enough to withstand
an assault from corporates looking to exploit another ‘open source’
medium? But the market is powerful and I have a feeling it will be the
corporates who do it badly that will, in the end, feel the pain. “Don’t
go toward fake blogs. Don’t launch character blogs. Use a blog for what
it’s for, transparency,� said Steve Rubel, vice president of client
services at CooperKatz & Co., a New York PR firm.

This morning I sat in on the Search Engine Strategies session on “Earning from Search and Contextual Ads”. Great session. It was fun to hear Jason Calacanis of Weblogs Inc. proclaim his love for Google (he wasn’t very complementary of Yahoo!). And Jen of JenSense.com gave a plethora of useful tips and advice on optimizing your revenue from AdSense, YPN, etc. Will Johnson of Yahoo! and Gokul Rajaram of Google gave their view from the ad network side. And Scott Meyer, CEO of about.com shared some of their experiences as a high-earning publisher too.

I’ve blogged a recap of the session. So have a read if you’re looking for some contextual advertising tips to make money from your blog.

Any search engine optimization consultant will tell you that links are the currency of the Web. They’re also the currency of the blogosphere. Without any inbound links, you’re just blogging to yourself. In Mike Grehan’s seminal piece “Filthy Linking Rich“, he explains how those rich with links just keep getting richer.

So how can new business bloggers get a jump start in the search engines? Simple: just whip out your wallet. The business of text link ad buying has matured, and it’s on the up-and-up. We’re not talking about “buying PageRank”… what we’re talking about is a totally legitimate business practice of buying text ads where you choose your hyperlinked words carefully based on keyword research and your advertisement appears on a reputable, relevant website. And of course, it links directly to your website, sans click tracking, so the ‘search engine juice’ flows unhindered. If the practice weren’t legit, would you see such well-respected link-building pundits as Eric Ward on the board of the link broker Text-Link-Ads.com?

Buying links is not quite as simple as I make it out. Yes, you can use a broker and they’ll happily take your money. Caveat emptor! In order to make an informed purchase, you’ll need to evaluate the quality of the links using a number of criteria. Here’s such a list of criteria, courtesy of the ABAKUS SEO Blog:

1. Inbound site traffic and page traffic.
2. Inbound dot gov and dot edu links.
3. Click though traffic you get from the page.
4. Site in DMOZ and Yahoo directory.
5. Age of domain and time of domain being used (longer the better).
6. Inbound links shown to that page on Yahoo (link:http:www.domain.ext/page/).
7. Ranking of page for the keywords it is optimized for.
8. Relevance of theme of site and page to your site and page.
9. Alexa ranking (lower is better).
10. Deep link compared to home page links.
11. Location of link.
12. Length of allowed description text.
13. PR of page (still matters a bit).

Personally, I’d also add to the list:

1. Appearance of any link advertisers on the page that would attract the attention (negatively) of the search engines (e.g.: casinos, Texas Hold’em, Viagra, pharmaceuticals, insurance, Rolex, etc.)
2. Quality of the landing pages of the existing link advertisers (if you find any are spammy-looking, turn and run!)
3. Placement of the link. (i.e.: being relegated to the bottom of the page as footer links is not ideal)

"So I heard you were the guy that could tell me about a Blog? So what is the big deal anyway?".

I have been fielding these questions over and over since I began discussing with business owners and executives how blogs can be used as a tool for business promotion,  marketing, and as a communication tool for customers, employees, and prospective consumers.  I am amazed at the number of executives in companies that know nothing about the online environment.  They are stuck in the old school of business and cannot jump into the deep end of the pool.  They want to know a lot of basic information that as bloggers we take for granted. 

I think back to my first days blogging, and the deer in the headlights look I would have the minute that they began to discuss what publishing platform I was using or the latest in site meters, or spam and the tools used to combat against it.  HTML as far as I was concerned was the latest rock band like BTO or ELO or it might have been that new law firm that had opened its doors downtown.

When speaking to clients about the business of blogging, I first try to get a feel for their knowledge of the industry itself.  If I say, "What is the URL of your business site?", and I get that glazed over look, I know this will turn out to be a long meeting.  Sometimes we take for granted that this phenomena we call blogging is known by the world.  We assume the person sitting across from the table has an idea what RSS feeds are, what a podcast is, and how using cpanel to track stats is a decent way to watch over your blog.  If I have already lost you perhaps its time for your own education.

My point is to make sure that you don’t assume that the person sitting across the table from you is as passionate about blogging, and has the same education level as you do on your subject.  Many of the clients I speak to don’t want to appear uneducated about the internet, they are the leader of their business they need to appear to be knowledgeable about all aspects of the business world.  They certainly cannot admit to being ignorant about this thing called a blog.  I try to take a little time for education.  If they feel comfortable about what a blog is, they are more likely to, as I like to say, "Drink the Blog Kool-Aid".

In the most recent issue of Fast Company (August, 2005) Jory Des Jardins interviews Elizabeth Albrycht and Andy Lark in a small piece called Business Blogging for Beginners.

The conceit is that creating a business blog is like hosting a cocktail party. Based on the amount of navel gazing that goes on in the blogosphere, the metaphor is helpful.

The advice isn’t about what platform to use, or pinging, or marketing your blog, but rather good, basic advice on how to improve your blog, all couched in the cocktail party metaphor: "a good hosts connects guests…be authentic…dress business casual…."

I also liked Lark’s term "blinking": posts of snippets of commentary with links. Hadn’t heard that one before.

I get this question several times a week these days so I thought I would address it here.

The answer to this question is part advice, part marketing 101 soapbox speech.

So, what will a blog do for your business?

In most cases, little to nothing.

Now, before you fire off an email to ask if I’ve gone crazy, read on.

Most business folks will approach blogging like they approach every other form of marketing. Put up a blog, make a few entries and wonder why it didn’t work.

Blogs are not THE marketing tool, they are simply another marketing tool, but a very powerful one if used correctly.

Using a blog correctly for most small businesses means these things at a minimum

• Post almost daily – keep at it for months
• Answer the questions your clients ask you in your posts
• Promote the heck out of your blog online and offline
• Build a network of users and connectors around your blog
• Read and participate in other blogs almost daily
• Integrate your blog into your web site, ezine and marketing materials
• Update the non-post elements of your blog frequently

If you’ve read this far then maybe you have come to the conclusion that a blog can be a powerful part of your marketing mix and know that I unflinchingly recommend a blog for every business but, like all marketing strategies, unless you commit to using it long term to build momentum, it will be just another distraction.

It seems that the higher your profile in the blogosphere, the more prone you are to attracting nasty, raw and outright rude comments, as evidenced by Robert Scoble’s recent back-and-forth with ‘Arnold’.  The profile of this has received a number of links, but angry, rude
communication is not the way to win your case (doubly so in the blogosphere). In fact, for the most
part, people will turn away and won’t even hear what you’re saying. Not something you’re shooting for on your first foray as a corporate blogger.

I think that there’s a lesson here that political candidates have already learned about bloggers and their ability to launch nasty screeds from the launchpads of their keyboards. What they’ve found in some recent face-to-face interactions with bloggers is that they’re not so mean once they come out from behind the keyboard.  In fact, they can be downright docile, and even helpful, once you’ve got them in a room together.  A once raging blogger can become an advocate and a cheeky writer can become an inquisitive, thoughtful interpreter of your message.

As ever more companies launch their own blogs into the market, the determined digital detractors and on-screen vigilantes will grow in proportion to your popularity, as evidenced by the history of high-profile blogs.  If a customer complaint is a mere gift, as purported by some, then a raging blogger vigilante could be a virtual endowment of opportunity to engage ‘the other side’ and see what your company has been missing.

Good article in Inc.com last week runs down the "Top Ten" things you should know before starting a small business blog. Author Carole Matthews did her homework. I had a great conversation with her and she also quotes Paul Chaney (now contributing to this blog) and Anita Campbell. She lists the usual cautions:

– Understand that a blog is a two-way conversation
– Know what topics are off limits
– Use keywords in your titles and posts so your blog will get found by the search engines

She also mentions a pet peeve of mine: "Yes, you do need to be able to write." That’s not to say you need to be a published author before starting a blog. Far from it. But you do need to write coherently, succinctly, interestingly. And that’s a skill you can learn by blogging, er writing, a lot. Your thoughts?? Leave us a comment below.

P.S. I learned from Carole that Inc.com has maintained a blog, Fresh Inc., since August 2003. Funny… I had never run across it.

I realized that I should probably note that fellow site poster Todd S. and I are both speaking on a blog panel at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association‘s debut conference next week (Tues. & Wed.) in Chicago, in case any of you faithful readers were planning on attending. Should be fun. We just had a productive call about it. Deborah Schultz, marketing director for Six Apart, will also be on the panel. We’re actually planning to blog a bunch of resources here just before our panel on Wednesday morning, so stay tuned.

Here’s a clue that WOMMA "gets it": the site has a Press Pass Policy page that reads, in part:

This event is being held in a small venue with limited seating. We have
reserved 20 seats for press and bloggers. Priority will be given to
reporters with media credentials and full-time bloggers who are coming
as journalists primarily to learn and cover the event.

I suspect they’ve long ago since given out those few passes, but don’t you like that the policy applies equally to bloggers? Except, "full-time bloggers" pretty much narrows the field. I mean, Jeff Jarvis and Steve Rubel and Glenn Reynolds and Markos Moulitsas Zúniga and most of the rest of us aside from Jason Kottke have full-time jobs. I presume it’s more a polite way of saying, "Sorry, you don’t get enough traffic" to all the wannabees. Fair enough.

I can’t believe this is my first post about the Business Blog Awards. I could almost pretend that this post was timely, as the awards were just announced yesterday, but the pathetic truth is I just stumbled across the site for the first time now. That despite the fact that Jeremy Wright, one of the masterminds behind the site (along with Daron Barefoot, his partner in crime at Inside Blogging) emailed me about it a couple of months ago. (Awful confession: I barely ever look at the email sent to the Gmail account I set up specifically for this site.) Have I mentioned that I’m really busy with a new job?

Needless to say, I didn’t win an award.

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Blog consulting has apparently gone big-time. ClickZ reports:

Interpublic-owned PR firm MWW Group today launched a Web log marketing practice. Blog 360 will advise clients on strategies to create, participate in, monitor, and advertise in blogs.

"We’ve formed a specialty practice area around blogs, but we really believe they are an important part of any communications plan," said Alissa Blate, MWW Group’s EVP and director of consumer marketing.

Blog 360 will be a component of MWW’s Marketing-360 approach, which supports brands through multiple audience contact points. Depending on a client’s needs, MWW’s plan might include creating a CEO blog for reputation and branding benefits, or a tech blog for information, Blate said. Blog monitoring will likely be a part of any plan, she added.

Ironically, I can’t find anything about it on MWW’s own site, which like so many agency sites is all in Flash and hence very hard to navigate. I can’t even find anything about their "Marketing-360 approach" referred to in the story. Dare I suggest, their site could use a <cough> blog </cough>?

ClickZ: MWW Debuts Blog Marketing Practice

Anil Dash, VP of Six Apart (makers of Movable Type and TypePad blog publishing software), and Jim Coudal, of Coudal Partners (designers and entrepreneurial upstarts), recently gave a free online seminar about the benefits of blogging for business. Anil links to where you can listen to the audio for free. I’m not entirely clear who organized it exactly, but I listened to most of it, and it was interesting and informed. Anil plugged it in advance thusly:

Topics we expect to cover include marketing content vs. editorial content, how weblogs compare to other CMS systems, chat rooms, and discussion boards, the personal/professional balance, and syndication. If you’re already familiar with blogs, but want to get your co-workers, clients, or peers up to date on the medium, this might be a good place to start.

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I think we can safely let this pass without comment.

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