Okay, so you have a company blog and you’ve been getting some traffic, but not enough to justify your blogging efforts. Well, you’re not the only ones, this is a common problem and it can be solved with a simple fix: proper promotion.

How can you promote your blog to effectively drive more traffic?

1. Use social media. Syndicating your blog’s content through social media is an important way to make sure that your content is getting spread as widely as possible. The more people who have access to your content, the more people that are likely to come back for more in the future.
2. Get some great guest bloggers. This isn’t always the easiest thing to do, but, getting some relevant or influential bloggers in your space to write a post for you and then promote their post on their own blog is one of the best ways to drive relevant traffic to your blog. 
3. Submit your blog’s RSS feed to feed directories. Many people who read blogs through RSS feeds will search for relevant blogs in RSS feed directories. If you submit your RSS feed to as many as you can (some are free, some are paid, and some have fairly strict submission rules) then you increase the pool of people who will find your blog. 
4. Create posts that people want to link to. Ever heard of link baiting? Well, it’s an essential tactic for promoting your blog and driving targeted traffic. Link baiting is when you create content that readers like to link to because it is highly quality, interesting, entertaining, and relevant. If you want to learn more about how you can get more inbound links to your blog read our post on, “7 Types of Blog Content Readers Love to Link To.”
5. Make sure your blog is visible on your website. If you don’t promote your blog on your own website, that is the biggest mistake you can make. Make sure you blog is clearly visible from your homepage and easy to access.

Image by Thomas Hawk on Flickr

This is a guest post written by Randa Codron, a Marketing and Communications Specialist for WaterTrax, one of Marqui's SaaS partner companies.

First of all, congratulations! Getting a business blog up and running is a notable achievement. Working at it consistently to get a core group of readers is something 95% blogs out there will never have. If you’re running a blog as a marketing program for your company though, you’re likely still short of your overall objective, which is to get sales leads. If that’s the case, you’re probably nailing some of the leading indicators, like unique visitors, reader interaction, subscriptions, and maybe even trackbacks or tweets.

But for most people in your organization they want to know how many leads you’re generating. It’s at this point that we want to be very clear about two things:

1. You have built a successful blog. Anything that happens now is separate from what you’ve already done.
2. The challenge now is to convert your readers into leads

Depending on a number of different factors, converting these readers to actual leads may not be important to you at all. Maybe that’s not what your blog is for. Or maybe leads matter, but you’ve decided to embrace the new thinking that your readers will become leads through osmosis rather than conversion. For a number of reasons, I happen to think that’s the most efficient way to operate. But for some of you, that won’t matter.

Many people who start a corporate blog have to sell it internally. One of the easiest ways to do that is to promise leads! If that’s the case for you, waiting for these unique visitors to qualify themselves and send you an email when they’re ready to buy is just too slow of a process. Your company will expect people to register themselves as a lead whether they’re ready to buy or not. This means that having a successful blog gets you only halfway there. You now need to successfully convert.

Challenges like this a result of a “happiness problem”; like having tons of customers come into your store at once.

Stay tuned for the second part of this blog post about converting your readers to leads.

Image by Inju on Flickr.

When it comes to writing engaging blog posts, having optimized carefully selected images can be a good way to engage your readers and encourage interest in your posts. Images are also an important aspect of a business blog's SEO strategy and can help bring in readers based on organic search. There are several ways to optimize your images and this post will hopefully help give you some tips on how you can find the best images you can and then how you can optimize them.

First things first, why are images important?

1. Images add visual interest to your posts and can help illustrate your point
2. Images are one of the  first things people look at when they come to your blog post and can help draw a reader in 
3. An intriguing image can help create curiosity about the content of your post
4. Interesting images are easy to remember and can help your readers memorize the subject or key point in your post
5. Having optimized images is essential for helping you get found in Google Image Search

Where can you find the best (free) images?

1. Flickr. We're sure that most of your have heard of Flickr, one of the most popular video and photo sharing sites on the internet today. Flickr can be a great place to find interesting blog images. By choosing the "Only search Creative Commons-Licensed Content" under the "Advanced Search" section, you can search thousands of photos licensed specifically for shared use.
2. Webshots. Webshots is another popular video and photo sharing site. The site has free account sign up, similar to Flickr, but it doesn't have a Creative Commons search option so to use images you need to send a message to the user who owns the photo and request permission to use the image. This might seem like a little bit more work, but if it's the right image, it's worth it!  
3. Stock.xchange. This is a photo sharing database, where you can search and download free stock photos uploaded by other users.
4. PhotoXpress. Is also a stock photo database with a free option. After setting up your free account, and filling in the information requested you can earn a certain number of free photo downloads a day from their free photo database.
5. Every Stock Photo. This site is a license-specific photo search engine that indexes millions of freely-licensed stock photos from around the web and then presents them in an integrated search.
6. PicFindr. PicFindr is similar to Every Stock Photo in that it is a search engine that indexes freely-licensed images from around the web for users to search. 

How can you optimize your images?

1. Ensure that your Alt Text and Image Title are optimized. The Alt Text of an image is essential for both website usability and accessibility because it is designed to describe an image when the image itself isn't available to be viewed. Good Alt Text includes a clear description of your image including keywords. On the other hand, an Image Title is meant to provide additional information about an image and is the text that pops up when you hover over an image in some browsers. A good Image Title should describe the image, be catchy and should also include your keywords. You can read more about this from Search Engine Journal here.
2. Be conscious of width and height. Specifying the height and width of an image, rather than scaling an image using HTML, allows for faster rendering by eliminating the need for unnecessary repaints and reflows. You can read more about this from Google and Yahoo!.
   
3. Watch out for file names. Using descriptive file names is a quick way to increase your search engine traffic. Make sure that when you upload your images you change the file name to something descriptive of the image itself rather than allowing a default name.
4. Know which image format is best. For large images it's best to use JPGs, and when images are low or flat-color, PNGs or GIFs are preferable. You can read the reasoning behind this in a great post from WebsiteOptimization.com.

These are by no means the only ways you can optimize an image, or the only places that you can find free images, these are just a few of our favorites! Hopefully you found these tips helpful and good luck optimizing your images!

Image by Capt Kodak on Flickr.

Getting people to link back to your website's content, should be an essential aspect of your organization's SEO strategy, and one of the best ways to encourage your blog readers to take the time to link to your blog or website, is to create engaging content that people like to read and want to share. While creating appealing content is never and easy task, you can make the task of getting back links a little easier by creating content that is popular with a wide range of readers.

What are some of the favorite types of content for readers to link back to?

1. Statistics, graphs and infographics. Readers love industry statistics, especially if they are surprising, useful for benchmarking and even better, if they're presented in an appealing graphic format.
2. A collection of links and resources. This is a good way for your readers to get all the educational information they need on a topic in one easily accessible place. Rather than having to find the individual links themselves, you've published them all in one location, established yourself as an educational resource. Posts like this a two for one deal, since the reader only has to provide one link, but ends up linking to multiple resources at once.
3. Reviews of design elements. These posts are often easy for your readers to absorb and share. Commenting on visual and design elements of different websites or social media profiles, for instance,  and providing examples of these elements create posts with excellent visual appeal and ease-of-consumption.
4. "Top" numbered lists. These lists don't actually have to be for the number 10. Any kind of list that purports to name the "top" factors for any given topic is often appealing to a wide range of readers. 
5. Videos. Videos are an interesting, engaging way to spice up your blog posts. Videos are a great alternative to written content, and whether the videos are your own creations, or selected by you from YouTube, Vimeo or another video sharing site for their educational or informative nature, people love to share this type of content with their friends, followers and business colleagues as a way to break up the written content the consume throughout the day. 
6. Special offers. People love free stuff. Whether your offer is for complementary content or resources or promotions of your products or services, often people are more than willing to link back to your content  if someone has an opportunity  to get a deal out of it.
7. Interviews with industry thought leaders. Every industry and company, whether B2B or B2C, has thought leaders, professionals who have innovative, maybe even groundbreaking ideas, and who share and promote these ideas for the betterment of their chosen industry. Interviewing the people recognized as thought leaders in your space is a great way to encourage linking, as well as to increase the credibility of the rest of your content, which can encourage linking in the future.

Image by rubybgold on Flickr

We recently wrote a post on how you can get started with small business blogging and it gave you our tips on how you can start a company blog successfully, but where do you go from there?  You’ve got a company blog in place successfully, it’s been launched and you’re ready to celebrate your success, but what are the next steps? Well, without an engaged group of subscribers following your blog it’s not going to be optimized for success, so the next stage of the blogging process is to get more subscribers for your blog.

How do you get more blog subscribers?

1. Make it easy for them to subscribe to your RSS feed. There are several ways you can make it simple for readers to subscribe: offer email subscriptions, display the RSS icon where people will see it, include a call-to-action like “sign up now.”
2. Submit your blog’s RSS feed to feed directories. This will help you reach out to potential subscribers who use these directories to locate feeds they’re interested in and would like to follow. 
3. Talk to your readers not at  your readers. Posing questions to your readers, or requesting their opinions, can be a great way to interact with your audience and increase your following. Another way to do this is by making sure that when people comment on your posts, you respond quickly. If people think they are being listened to they are more likely to subscribe and return as loyal followers. 
4. Make sure you promote your posts. If you already have a loyal following on different social media sites or newsletter recipients, these are a great resource for new blog subscribers. Make sure that they have a chance to read your posts in the medium that they originally chose to follow you in (post links to them in social media accounts, or keep them updated in your e-newsletter) and then make it easy for them to convert into blog subscribers by providing links to your blog and RSS feed. 
5. Offer consistent quality.  Don’t underestimate the power of providing your readers with great content. This may not be the fastest method of garnering more subscribers but it is certainly one of the best ways to create a relevant and loyal following.

Just because there are tools available for just about everyone to set up a blog, doesn’t mean that blogging is something every organization should just jump into. Many companies make the mistake of starting a blog without really taking the time to understand how it fits into their overall marketing strategy or plan.

Here are a few reasons why we think business blogging can be a good idea for small business:

• It helps with your SEO strategy
• Blogging helps differentiate and build your brand
• It can position you as a thought leader in your industry
• You can educate your potential customers
• It can be an excellent lead generation tool 
• Blogs can create communities and conversations

How to get started

1. Determine the reasons why you want to publish a blog. Before you get started it might be a good idea to ask yourself these questions: What is the purpose of your blog? What are the goals your blog is meant to accomplish? Do those goals relate to your overall business objectives?
2. Figure out what businesses in your niche are already doing a good job. Researching successful blogs in your space can be a great way to help you figure out where to get started with your own blog. It’s a good idea when undertaking any new business initiative to see who your competition is and how they are performing and it also helps you get an idea what you can write about once your own blog is up and running.  
3. Decide who your target audience is. Who will you be writing for? Understanding your audience can help you get a grip on their concerns, challenges and what they’re looking for from a blog in your industry. 
4. Establish what you want your readers to do once they read your blog. This relates to the goals you set for your blog earlier. For example, If you want your blog to generate more leads for your business, then you need to have clear steps on how you’re going to guide your reader to subscribe to your blog updates or convert on your website’s other content. 
5. Set aside the time to make it a reality. The fact of the matter is, blogging is a big commitment. That isn’t to say you shouldn’t undertake it, but a successful blog needs frequent content updates and this requires dedicated time and resources. It’s a good idea to establish in advance how often you want to be blogging (at least once a week is really a minimum requirement for business blogs) and then establish ownership and workflow schedules if necessary.
6. Start writing! Now that you’ve done the research; you understand your objectives and your target audience; and you’ve set aside the resources, it’s time to get down to business and start actually writing posts. Take the research you’ve done and write posts that you think your readers want to read, about information you think they need to know and remember, no blog is successful immediately. Like any business or marketing channel it takes time and effort to reach your goals.

Improving lead generation is one of the most important goals for any marketer and is often one of the key metrics through which marketers and sales measure a marketing team’s success.

So you know that getting more leads is important—but how exactly can you do that?

There are lots of ways you can increase the number of leads you get online and one of the best of these tactics is to use a business blog.  Unfortunately, we often find that many corporate bloggers aren’t taking advantage of this opportunity. We hate to see hard work not paying off, so to help you out, here some things you can do to help your blog start generating more leads.

• Create great content. This seems like a no-brainer, but it is the key aspect of your blog that will attract new visitors to your site and encourage them to return. By creating content that is educational and useful you can build an audience for your blog which will generate more leads.
• Answer your visitors’ questions in your posts. Many B2B organizations receive the same questions, at the same point in the buying process, from most of their prospects. Instead of waiting around until your visitors have questions, why not answer them in advance so that the information is already available to them? Providing the answers to common questions can increase a visitor’s trust in your company’s expertise and help them become a lead. 
• Track what your prospects comment on and how often they come back. Many marketing automation and blogging tools allow you to track your commenters and what they have said in response to your posts. This not only shows which topics in your blog are the most popular (allowing you to create more of the content your readers want) but also allows you to hone in on the subscribers that are most engaged for future conversations.
• Establish it as a “go-to” resource. On our blog we don’t just write posts with information we think our subscribers need to read. We also provide links to valuable resources from other sites that we think they should know about. Don’t be afraid that providing your subscribers with additional information from other locations will cause them to click away from your site. Establishing yourself as a resource for critical information, whether it is your own or not, keeps you front of mind as the place to go for your subscribers to educate themselves. 
• Promote your posts through social media. A lot of the leads we get through our blog have actually arrived at our site through social media. When we write posts, they are simultaneously posted on our social media accounts so that the content we provide can be found quickly and easily by a wider audience.
• Use it to increase your organic search rankings. Blogging is a great way to enhance your search engine optimization (SEO). Search engines love new content and giving this to them can help you rank higher in their search results. Getting found organically more easily is an important way to drive new leads to your website.