I’ve had this blog for 3 years as of next month. I’m passionate about writing and love the idea of making connection with your market and readers through blogs. I rely heavily on blogs and online communities for many things in my life, including:

Updates about search engine and online marketing from Search Engine Landd and Mashable

Recommendations for wine and wine tasting from Snooth and Cork’d

Gardening design and planting advice from A Way to Garden

Insights into being a parent of college age children at CollegeParents.org (blog is called “Hoverings”;)

I’ve encouraged my clients (and friends) to use blogs as a way to communicate with clients and potential clients in a way that helps brand, creates relationship, fosters interest and raises awareness.

Our Hood River real estate client, Copper West Properties, has a wonderful blog called “The View from Here”. Maui Meyer is a business owner, county commissioner and world-class windsurfer who believes his contribution to helping with your Hood River real estate transaction is second to the value he and his team bring in being trusted negotiators and local expert advisors to the real estate process. The blog includes helpful insider real estate trending and projecting information which includes text and video.

The site we built for our client Sue Gaulke at SuccessworksUSA.com included a blog which was initially meant to be updated twice a month for her clients, including Fortune 500 companies such as Nike, Intel, NBC, Lowe’s and Proctor & Gamble. She has recently completed a wonderful series called “Presentation Olympics” which she updated almost daily and she’s preparing to do a video series called the “No Choke Zone”.

My friends the Irwin’s, who recently purchased and renovated the beautiful Balch Hotel in Dufur, Oregon just started blogging about their experiences as hotel owners, sharing staff experiences and giving advice for brides on planning their weddings.

These business owners have leveraged blogs as a way to share their unique value proposition and they’re doing it really well.

As my blog has evolved, so has blogging. When I started “Search Forte” the goal was to help my clients and potential clients understand SEO/SEM well enough to engage in the conversation.

Now there are hundreds of thousands of blogs on SEO/SEM and my clients don’t just look to me for updating. They know where to go for the latest on search marketing as well as social marketing or digital asset management.

So in order to follow my own advice (Physician-Heal Thyself) I will begin posting for the MEDIA forte marketing blog with a new title “The Morsel of the Story”.

If we’ve ever met you know I love food (and cooking and gardening and wine) and I’ll be sharing insights into the art of SEO/SEM as it relates to food. I’ll have my first post later this month.
Let me know what you think!

I’ve been attending Search Engine Strategies San Jose since 2001, but this is my first time live blogging for Aim Clear Blog and friend and mentor Marty Weintraub.

Long time search marketer, also first-time live blogger, Derek Edmond and I will be providing coverage for this week’s sessions including, “Search: Where to Next?”, “Landing Page Testing and Tuning” and “Social Media: Managing Conversations and Reputations When the User Is In Control”.

The “Future of Search” Track looks really interesting and SES Advisory Board Member Anne Kennedy said they’ve put a great deal of energy into these panels so be sure to read coverage of those sessions.

Thanks again to Marty and his team for the opportunity to provide SES San Jose coverage, for those of you here, we hope to add insight and for those unable to attend, we aim to share the depth and quality of this week’s search engine sessions.

Okay, when I choose the following tagline for my blog “Search Marketing Blog for Regular Folks” the intention was to relate that this search marketing blog was for learning foundational SEO + SEM. Turns out, nobody wants to be “regular”. My marketing bad.

So instead of changing my tagline to “Search Marketing Blog for Exceptional Folks” I’d like any suggestions you have for a new tagline that captures that MEDIA forte marketing blog is for the business community in need of understanding search engine optimization and search engine marketing to leverage awareness and increase market share and revenue (I’d use that, but not so catchy and wouldn’t look great on a coffee mug;)

So we’re offering an SEO Site Review to the individual or company who gives us our much improved tagline that doesn’t insult people or make them feel like they’re the SEO equivalent of the kids on the little yellow bus wearing helmets.

Feel free to twitter suggestions to @mediafortemktg

Cheers

WordTracker SEO Blogger

There are many tools to make implementing SEO an easier task. The WordTracker SEO Blogger tool is one of my favs, especially for beginners.

Blogs are a great way to share information about your product or service for many reasons. Blogs are easy to publish, they are quickly indexed by the engines, if you have great content, they can help establish you as an expert in your industry, they’re a great way to generate comments, interest, awareness and the ever-coveted links to your site.

Problem is, copy writers rarely understand the importance of sharing your products and services via keywords in your blog posts. For example, if you sells shoes, building content around the keyword “shoes” will not likely help your placement in the engines. It’s a very competitive word, there are many companies engaging in a multitude of strategies and tactics to garner ranking for that word, don’t count on it just because you wrote a blog post about “shoes”.

But if you write a blog post about “red high heels” or “red stilleto shoes” (which you sell), and it’s interesting, engaging, fresh content and it includes the words “red high heels” and “red stilleto shoes” in the title and in the post and in the anchor text from other sites to your post, and the keywords “red high heels” and “red stilleto shoes” are part of your on page and off page search optimization efforts and social marketing efforts, a well SEO’d blog post can help you gain traction for that keyword. That’s where WordTracker SEO Blogger comes in. You can optimize for that word, but it also recommends “red stilletos” and “red stilleto heels” and “patent leather red high heels “.

One of the biggest failures for copy writers when implementing SEO best practices is that they think that there’s one silver bullet, rarely is that true. Choose a product, choose a set of keywords and then run with making that product and those keywords relevant on your site, run with giving the engines the SEO signals that you want to be found for those words, run with sharing your message on social media sites, run like you stole something…and don’t give up until you see success.

Get the WordTracker SEO Blogger tool today and get in the habit of writing your blog posts to share value, give signal, create rankings and generate revenue. It’s more persistence than magic;)

When we engage with a new client, one of first content strategies we recommend, regardless of online objectives, is implementing a blog.

In the wise words of my best friend, “Why wouldn’t ya?”. If you have reasons you think would prohibit you from starting a blog, leave me a comment and I’ll see if we can dispel your fear.

Top 10 Reasons & Strategies for Starting a Blog:

1.
Reason
It is the easiest way to publish content.

Strategy
Use WordPress to host your blog (or blogger, or typepad) Inexpensive or free tools.

2.
Reason
Its the easiest way to communicate one on one with your customers.

Strategy
Create a mission statement for your blog so you have a purpose.

3.
Reason
If youre content is good, your content will go viral.

Strategy
Get involved with your online community so its easier to make your content viral

4
Reason
Its great to be known in your online community as an expert.

Strategy
Spend time on other blogs within your online community so youre known for being a respectful, contributing member.

5
Reason
It’s a great way to understand your customers’ needs.

Strategy
Read all comments and incorporate feedback into your business goals.

6
Reason
It’s a great link development strategy.

Strategy
Create an interesting, entertaining or funny blog that will generate buzz for your blog (and brand).

7
Reason
It’s a smart way to get your team involved in your brand.

Strategy
Have a regular post where other authors can contribute. (SEOmoz does Whiteboard Friday, great video content that I watch religeously).

8
Reason
It’s a great way to syndicate your content.

Strategy
Optimize and publicize your content with Feedburner (use the email subscriptions widget for folks who aren’t comfortable with RSS readers).

9
Reason
It’s a great way to grow your house list.

Strategy
Once visitors have signed up for your blog, ask them if they’d like to receive other content (newsletters, white papers, etc). Just be sure you do it at the right time and after you’ve created value for them.

10
Reason
It’s a lot of fun!

Strategy
Have fun and be creative when you’re writing your blog posts, your enthusiasm and love for your brand will be contagious;)

Speaking of enthusiasm and love for blogging, read this great post 17 Habits of Highly Popular Bloggers.