49% of Internet users use a search engine (Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc.) every day***.
73% of Internet users read blogs**.
For companies that blog versus non-blogging companies****:
126% increase in monthly leads generated.
55% increase in visitors.
97% more inbound links.
434% more indexed pages in the search engines.
If these points, and especially the statistics, don’t convince you that you should be blogging, I give up. Let’s do it. Send me your blog address. If you do, I promise that I’ll put you in my Google Reader and keep up on your activities.
Below is the slidedeck from my presentation to the Williamsburg Internet Marketing group yesterday. We had a great couple of hours discussing blogging for business on many different levels.
Are you wondering aloud where I’m going with that title? I know, this could go in a thousand different directions.
Truth is, the title is about ‘titles that catch your attention’. Specifically, blog article titles that catch your attention. In the wonderful world of inbound marketing, strategically crafted titles are invaluable for SEO (search engine optimization), which leads to great organic search results, which leads to website / blog traffic, which leads to (we hope) lead generation from your efforts.
While scanning the RSS feeds in my Google Reader this morning, I ran across an article that Chris wrote titled, “How Do You Stack Up“. He wrote about just this topic. He wondered how his blog article titles stacked up against the world for attraction by scanning eyeballs. Chris’ list of most recent titles are below -
The Location Game – Over on OPENForum
Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX3 Review
How Social Media Can Power Your Business – Kitchen Table Talks
Points of Contact
The Social Media Pie – over on OPEN Forum
How I Use Mindmapping to Write
Cubicle Farming
New Job New You – a Book Review
The Writing Practice
Switch- A Book Review
The Beginning – Kitchen Table Talks
How NOT to Help Haiti
How Systems Thwart Service
Your Farmer List
Living In Google Wave
What is Your Pop-Up Store
Get Seen- Do It Now
Represented by the APB Speaker’s Bureau
More Fun Than Competition
Business Stripped Bare – Book Review
Do One Thing Very Well
How Heartfelt Marketing Delivers
The Future Is Evidently Blurry
A Customer Aware World
Experiment- 30 Days of Bing
Deepen Your Networks
New Sponsor – Search Engine Strategies NYC
Are You Ready for Fun
What do you think? Did his blog article titles catch your eye?
Well, now I need to go look at my last few blog article titles. I wonder how mine stack up?
February Schedule for Coffee with the CEO #cwtc
Weather in Hampton Roads is so jacked!
Our kids are connected - Are you?
God will give Wisdom, just ask
February IMG Session : Blogging for Business : You’re invited!
I’ll help, we’ll do it together.
Blogging gives you a Rockstar Voice. Use it!
Top 10 Posts of 2009
Social Media for Business comes to Norfolk
Local #hrva Live Jams at Starbucks
Agency’s Pitch requires the Right Brain and Left Brain
Testing of Your Faith Develops Perseverance
This is what I’m doing to you -
NPR says the Phonebook’s Days are Numbered. Do you?
What the heck is Inbound Marketing?
Late Night Chillin
Join Me at @gbvabeach at Town Center
Can you remember Doody Calls?
Prank Phone Call - Dublin School Demolition - Hilarious video!
Why blogging will (still) change the world
Twitter Updates for 2010-01-14
Hmm, I think I need work. Some are ideal for SEO. Some are ideal for eye-catching. But I need to get better. What about you? Do you stack up? Could you do better with your blog article titles?
I get this question quite a bit. What is inbound marketing and why should I care?
Simply, inbound marketing is the opposite of outbound marketing. Remember the old days of setting up outbound call centers (telemarketing), creating television and radio commercials, and pushing out email blasts to get your word out? Well, that inefficient and expensive method of advertising and marketing is no longer a necessity.
Think smart website design and development.
Think online call-to-actions.
Think strategic blog content.
Think SEO (search engine optimization).
Think social media marketing.
Think audio and video marketing.
Think efficient online lead generation.
All of these strategies and methods are important pieces of the concept, inbound marketing.
A group of professionals is meeting on Tuesday morning at Aromas in City Center in Newport News. Stop by and join us.
There’s no agenda and no sales - just sharing of information about our businesses. We’ll share ideas, processes, social media initiatives, lead generation through Internet marketing, how to make inbound marketing work for your business, how to efficiently use the tools that are available to us, and many other topics.
Our Coffee with the CEO session today covered quite a few topics with a focus on each of our businesses. I sat down with a few of Hampton Roads’ smart business minds and talked about privacy on the Internet, reputation management, WordPress, Moveable Type, blogging for business, brand management, link building, inbound marketing, making your business successful, lead generation, today’s economy, and social media tactics including video marketing.
Today’s attendees:
Bill Boyer, CEO Focus of Tidewater
Mike Key, the Entrepreneurial Ninja
Keith Parnell, JASE Group Marketing & New Media
Stephen Quick, Stephen Alexander Homes
Carolyn Sulcer, World Class Travel
Ruben Vera, Exit Realty Central
A group of professionals is meeting on Tuesday at Panera Bread on 21st street in Norfolk. Stop by.
There’s no agenda and no sales - just sharing of information about our businesses. We’ll share ideas, processes, social media initiatives, lead generation through Internet marketing, how to make inbound marketing work for your business, how to efficiently use the tools that are available to us, and many other topics.
A group of professionals will gather tomorrow at Panera Bread in Ghent, Norfolk, VA. We will talk social media, new media, inbound marketing, lead generation, brand quality. We can talk about your business. We can talk about my business. We can talk about whatever you want.
Join us for coffee!
Come out to Panera Bread on 21st street in Ghent, Norfolk, VA on Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM and have coffee with Keith Parnell, CEO of JASE Group Marketing & New Media, CLO of NeedLocalHelp.com, and Co-Principal of New Media Conventions.
No agenda. No sales. Just sharing.
Talk social media.
Talk new media.
Talk about your business.
Talk about how to grow your business.
A group of professionals will gather tomorrow at Panera Bread in Ghent, Norfolk, VA. We will talk social media, new media, inbound marketing, lead generation, brand quality. We can talk about your business. We can talk about my business. We can talk about whatever you want.
Join us for coffee!
Come out to Panera Bread on 21st street in Ghent, Norfolk, VA on Tuesday morning at 10:00 AM and have coffee with Keith Parnell, CEO of JASE Group Marketing & New Media, CLO of NeedLocalHelp.com, and Co-Principal of New Media Conventions.
No agenda. No sales. Just sharing.
Talk social media.
Talk new media.
Talk about your business.
Talk about how to grow your business.
I agree with Chris. Don’t take the holidays off from creating content for your blog.
Many companies do scale back on a lot of tasks during the Thanksgiving-to-Christmas-to-New Year holiday period. This is our opportunity to shine.
I equate this time period to the efforts we have preached about during this tough economic downturn in our country. While advertising dollars are scarce, be creative, come up with cool inbound marketing tactics to generate leads. Be smart and build your online marketing presence while your competitors are doing nothing.
What do you think? Have you increased your internet marketing activities? Have you increased your blogging?
A couple of years ago our company, JASE Group, decided that we were going to commit wholeheartedly to inbound marketing. The marketing and advertising strategies we had previously used for our company just were not working as effectively as we hoped.
Our process began as a test project around our blog material and extended out to a few of the social communities we were actively involved in. We began creating a massive amount of content then instigated, created and encouraged as many links back to this content as possible.
Guess what? It worked. And it still works. Every day.
Lead generation from our company website and blog has easily tripled in the volume of quality leads. We have essentially hired an additional sales member (our website) without the payroll of an additional person.
With inbound marketing we apply less efforts to traditional time consuming advertising campaigns - no more phone book ads, no more (offline) television commercials, no more radio advertising, no more trade show exhibits.
Our internet marketing initiatives have made us more effective towards the goals of our sales team. The leads we generate from our online web entities are more qualified than previous offline initiatives’ leads.
We are more efficient. Period. Time spent is more directly attributable to results.
Our current online marketing initiatives are much less expensive than traditional campaigns. Couple this with the points made above, and we have a winner.
Since we spend much less time worrying every single detail of outbound marketing items such as media buys and almost-impossible-to-measure-ROI, we have more time to work on our clients’ initiatives.
Let’s talk about an upcoming initiative where JASE will be working with a new client to establish an inbound marketing campaign with the direct purpose of lead generation from their online web portals. The key aspects of inbound marketing include inbound links, or links from other websites and blogs, to your website and keyword rich, fresh content on your website.
Is the strategy behind your marketing plan shooting for the right audience? Does each initiative, including your inbound marketing tactics, identify with your sales goals?
Make sure your marketing firm doesn’t leave you all alone with your ideas.
Photo taken of a house in the middle of the Nansemond River in Virginia
I’ve been working through several major topics the last few months with the goal of publishing them as eBooks on the web. A couple of the topics, including personal and corporate branding strategies, inbound marketing techniques, yes’s and no’s of blogging, and social media business strategies that work, have emerged at the forefront and should be published soon.
With the publication dates drawing near, I’m finding myself at another crossroads, or will be soon. Should I publish the eBooks as free downloads? I’m talking totally free - as in, don’t even collect email addresses prior to download.
I’m thinking in my minds eye that I should, if for no other reason than to increase the posibilities of viral distribution via email, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, LinkedIn, etc.
But being of a marketing frame of mind, I’m also hearing from the other shoulder that I should think lead generation and at least collect contact info at the time of download.
What do you think? Would a contact info gate before the eBook download prevent you from stepping further?
Ever ask yourself why you should blog? Ask no longer.
I know, this could go in a thousand different directions.
Truth is, the title is about ‘titles that catch your attention’. Specifically, blog article titles that catch your attention. In the wonderful world of 
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