Creating an image based RSS feed of your blog

Adding a visual feed to your email or article footer

RSS can look so boring, but can it be made more interesting?

I have been asked how I put the “ticker” in my footer on emails and on some article sites I post to.

It looks like:

Each time an article is added to the blog so the graphic is updated.

How to create this graphic

To get this just go to
http://www.rss-image.com

Add your RSS feed
you will be presented with an image address like:

http://www.rss-image.com/img/404614dbc1681494efe7bf98ab3804fa.gif

To make this image “clickable

Simply create some simple HTML code around this image address:
<a href=”http://rapidbi.com/blog“> – where the address is your blog

Then add    “><img src=” – followed by your image address

and close off with:
” /></a><br />

So together it looks like:

<a href=”http://rapidbi.com/blog”><img src=”http://www.rss-image.com/img/404614dbc1681494efe7bf98ab3804fa.gif” /></a><br />

This can then be added to many blogs, article sites and of course your email footer….And the best news is it stays up to date.

Simples

What is a business blog? A marketing tool?

What is a Blog?

Lets look at the background behind this technology, so we can understand where it is coming from.

Research into the history behind blogs suggests that it was Pyra Labs is the company that adopted the word Blogger, and made the service a big success (now known as Google blogger/ blogspot).

The people that were the co-founders of Pyra Labs were Evan Williams and Meg Hourihan. “Pyra” was also the name of the company’s first product. It was a web based application which combined a simple project manager, contact manager, and to-do list.

In 1999 the product, while still in beta, were re-engineered (changed) to become an in-house tool which eventually became known as Blogger. The service was launched to the public in August of 1999.

It is believed that the term is actually weblogs was originally coined by Jorn Barger in 1997.

The rapid adoption of weblogs started in 1999 when several companies & developers made easy to use blogging software and tools. Since that time, the number of blogs on the Internet has exploded.

Blogs or weblogs are usually one of two forms:.

Personal Blogs: a mixture of a personal diary, opinion posts and research links.

Business Blogs: a corporate tool for communicating with customers, potential customers or employees to share knowledge and expertise. Blogs that are internally available are increasingly being used as knowledge management ‘pots’.

For a blog to be an effective tool to small businesses we need to understand the nature of weblogs, a definition if you like. Here are almost as many definitions as there are commentators on social media. For a weblog or blog is a social media – it is used by people for people. An effective blog article encourages interactions and collaboration, even if at a basic level.

There are many features which make one blog distinctive from another (apart from the basic design)

• Personality – people write blogs – formal, informal, facts or opinion biased?– not the corporate engine
• Voice – each contributor will have their own style
• Links – what are the nature of the links – internal, external mixed?
• Conversations – are the contributions tell or engaging, do the authors encourage discussion?
• Frequency – how often there is new content, is it from the ‘personality or owner’ or is it a collection of personality-less rss feed provide data

The only real difference between an individual and business based blog is the goal. The purpose of the business blog is to support the goals , aspirations and business plan of the host organisation.

Blog at your web domain or not?
It’s a difficult one – the new and varied content is valuable to your visitors and to the search engines, but it will limit what you can say as you will need to protect the ‘brand image’.

Some business have several blogs – the main one on the site is more about “giving value”, off site blogs may be the personal views of key insiders, views on the industry. This can then link to your site. One advantage of this is that because it is not seen as “your site” you reduce the risk of people perceptions if they dislike or disagree with the content of an individual post. – It is also valuable for search engines if you point your blog at the company site every now and again!

Summary

So a blog is a less formal vehicle for communicating information – facts and opinions to your current and potential customer base, as well as being a key part in your marketing strategy and a vehicle for increasing web traffic.

This is part of a mini-series on Blogs for small business, trainers and freelancers

Don’t let SEO burst your budget

SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is specialist, expensive and you need to know what you are doing… don’t you?

Right?... wrong!

The current commercial and financial climate that we are operating in is causing most of us to tighten our belts and think twice about spending. This especially true for Training, HR and other small consultancies and entrepreneurs. SEO has always been seen as a “technical” area and only for the specialists.

Few people have said that you can do it yourself with extraordinary results.

The challenge for new startup firms and those that are trading but need a change of strategy to keep the work coming is:

“How are we going to get seen on the web in order to market ourselves effectively?”

Who can do this for us – it’s hard to get seen on the web isn’t it?

Your web designer will say that they can offer SEO and indeed a search on the web will give you 1000s of people and firms promising to get you on page one of Google. And all for £500-£1000 … per month… ouch!

In good trading times this may be hard to justify – but in tough times?

The reality is that it is easy to get seen on page one of Google or other search engines – the ‘con’ a lot of providers will do is to help you find a “key word phrase” that is almost unique to you, and get that on page one of Google – easy. Times have moved on and it is no-longer a technical solution that is required – but marketing and PR effort.

Take a look at the phrase “squarespace template design” if I search for the term without quotes I get:

(See the current results yourself here squarespace template design - http://bit.ly/ASXKQ )

And with the quotes we get:

(See the current results yourself here “squarespace template design”- http://bit.ly/B4dRS )

This is a great ‘trick’ with the first search term (squarespace template design) Google only shows 6,730 results, getting to the top of only 6000 pages is not that difficult.

On the second example where the search is for the exact phrase (“squarespace template design”), there are only 4 results. Now after this blog is published the results will be very different. So using some simple techniques (that I will share with you) watch the results change over time. (this article is being written on 10/10/09). – update in less than 2 hrs This page is listed for the exact phrase – the second search) and on page 8. This is a one off post. getting higher in the 6000+ results will take a little time.

The real test of SEO is getting to the first page for a popular search term- one with 10,000s or millions of results.

I say this is a ‘con’ as who would look for a product name? very few in the business world – our customers are looking for solutions to their problems. They wont be looking for “ABC Inc” – they will be looking for “train the trainer provider” or “train the trainer provider in London”. You need to think like your clients and find key words and phrases that they will be looking for.

So what are the secrets to doing SEO for yourself?

1) Research your customers and find out what they are looking for – you need to discover key words and phrases. (if it is things like “leadership development” “management development” or “train the trainer” then good luck for there are millions of sites with these words and while it is possible, it is very tough and time consuming.  One way of making the achievable is to have a specialism i.e.:

• Management development in the care sector
• Train the trainer in Berkshire
• Leadership development for women

The more specialist you can be the more likely your success at getting seen on the web .

2) Get your web developer to add your keywords to your site – in the title, in the description and in the other meta-tag areas of your pages – have different key words and phrases for each page

3) Write copy for those pages which make use of your keywords – repeat the phrase 3-5 times (each page MUST be very different)

4) Write a blog(off your site and free WordPress or blogger), ensure that the content is supportive of your key words and include these in some of your articles – then have these articles link to your site (relevant pages) – yes put the links in the article, not just links on the blog itself

5) Promote your blog – on forums, on other blogs and on twitter. The ‘trick’ or secret is content and links. One powerful and low cost strategy is:

Where you use tools like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Ning and forums to promote content that you have written on your blog. These are articles that are of interest to your audience. Your goal is to build a ‘name’ in your potential clients heads that you:

a) can be trusted

b) that you know what you are taking about

c) that you can solve their problems

d) you are confident enough that you ‘give away’ valuable material

As Robin Elliot said “Enthusiasm is contagious. When you are absolutely convinced, sold, passionate, enthusiastic and confident about what you’re offering, it’s hard NOT to sell.”

 

Have compelling reasons in your blog for readers to explore your site.

 

6) Encourage others to promote your blog, use Linkedin and other vehicles - with great content people will link to your blog – I recently (yesterday!) had a major US training provider send a link to a blog post to over 14000 of their clients – wonderful

7) Have good value material on your site, answer the questions purchasers want to ask, make sure your contact details are easily found – keep the site up to date. the site does not need to be large – but it must be kept fresh.

In SEO content is king.

The more you specialise the easier it is to write unique content, the more niche the content the greater the opportunity you have of attracting visitors, the more visitors the greater conversions you will have. SEO is no longer about the technical “stuff” that developers do – its is all about content and people valuing your content

The ultimate goal is to have people buy you and your service not you having to pitch and sell.

Purchasing SEO

Before you pay anyone for SEO work on your site check out their site. If they advocate using a blog – what is their blog look like? If they claim to be able to get you on page 1 of Google for your search terms – look and see if they have done it for themselves (use view source in your browser and Google the text they are using under “keywords”) – make sure they walk their talk – if they don’t – walk away!

Summary

Wow this is a lot of content for you to get your head around.

In follow-up articles I will share:

Step by step HOW to do each of the above (not the meta-tag – best left to the programmers)

I’ve already told you all you need to know – i.e. the WHAT

Then WHERE and WHEN will also feature.

SEO is best done by yourself, or in the very least as a partnership – don’t outsource this core part of your business – your Internet reputation.

PS if you want to check out these techniques for yourself, I have a ‘secret’ project running. For 3 weeks I have been trying to get “train the trainer” with and without the quotes ranked in Google. This is a difficult one to break, I tried once before using old techniques and failed.

I am now hovering between pages 1 & 2 with over 3m results! Watch my progress http://bit.ly/sXDXE (staying on page 1 is my goal – not being at the top)

You do not need to do ALL the things I have talked about, but do link your strategies together.

Attracting clients in a freelance market space – lessons from MLM

How do we attract and retain clients when we are working as a freelancer?

As trainers or consultants we get a meeting booked, we have a successful meeting and we are asked to submit a proposal. Often after submission of a proposal we are disappointed when we are not successful, thinking that it was a ‘done deal’ when we left the initial meeting. But how do we get the initial meetings? the more meetings, the more proposals, the more proposals the greater opportunity of a contract being awarded.

This morning I was reading a blog article about MLM (Multi Level Marketing), now while I am not a fan of this sector, like franchising, MLM does offer some insights into patterns of behaviour which can lead to success. Not to take notice of successful strategies and follow them (as appropriate for our business) is just plain silly.

In franchising the key is consistency – so how can we show our clients that we are consistent at the right things (for them). In the MLM world the lessons are a little different.

 

Success in MLM – Amway example

“You may have heard of Bill Britt, one of the most successful distributors in Amway. Some years ago, 20/20 (US TV show) did a feature story on Amway. They spent 19 minutes interviewing whiners and complainers – several distributors who had failed and showed the garages full of products they couldn’t sell. During the last minute of the show, Mr. Britt was interviewed in front of his palatial home. He was asked, “Mr. Britt, this business has obviously worked for you. What’s your secret?”

He replied, “There is no secret. I simply showed the plan to 1200 people. 900 said, ‘No’ and only 300 signed up. Out of those 300, only 85 did anything at all. Out of those 85 only 35 were serious, and out of those 35, 11 made me a millionaire.” 

Copy from MLM Leadership Course http://bit.ly/wzicH

The article give other examples, but the key learning point for those of us in the freelance world is that it is a numbers game, or in the very least a variant on it. Rejection is a key part of the game and we have to keep going. The term ‘working through the numbers’ is used and in many ways they are correct. You cannot always expect to be successful with each proposal. It is a bit like having a website and expecting every visitor to buy your product or call you. It just does not work that way. Create the contact, build the relationship, make a proposal, get the work.. at each stage there is a loss or attrition of some kind.

In the article they identify four ‘enemies’ that need to be overcome:

1. ENEMY #1: Rejection – inviting 200 friends over to his house to watch a marketing video. 80 said “No, not interested”
2. ENEMY #2: Deception – He thought, “No problem. My sponsor warned me about that. I’ve got 120 people still coming over.” Guess what?
3. ENEMY #3: Apathy – Mark thought, “No problem. My sponsor warned me about that. I’ve got 70 people who watched the tape.” Guess what? 57 said “Not Interested”.
4. ENEMY #4: Attrition – Undaunted, Mark thought, “No problem. 13 people signed up.” Guess what? 12 of them dropped out of the business shortly thereafter.

The remaining one provided a substantial turnover for a significant number of years. Do you know what these factors look like in your potential clients? What strategies do you have for dealing with each one? Do you know when to ‘back off’ from a client as you will not get work from them? Remember people change, but of you still have the job title and phone number you can always make contact with the next job holder. In many ways this is a people business, do not expect to get on with everyone. Or of course what you are offering may not be right for them ‘at this time’ and a level of regular contact may not them at the ‘right time’.

Sledge hammer or intelligence and ‘engine power’

Many freelance consultants have one approach (sledge hammer) to ‘rejection’ – lower the day rate… NO!!!!!

Generating new clients is much like professional job search, you need to put your CV out to a number of agencies, each with several clients and one may strike it ‘lucky’. We need to market and promote our business so that we increase our success odds, not lower prices. Once a price is lowered, it is almost impossible to raise those prices with that client. It is not a sustainable approach.

Using a combination of ‘intelligence’ (where and when) combined with horse power (frequency and energy) we can lay the seeds that we are the right provider for the role.

Marketing

So how do we raise our profile? How do we increase the number of people that know we exist?

The traditional approaches of networking is important, build relationships, get yourself known. Be a regular fixture at a number of key meetings that your potential clients will attend. Get yourself into the fabric of the meeting. Be active in regional groups, join appropriate networking groups. Don’t make the mistake of just ‘attending’, have a plan, participate, add value. use the ‘law’ of abundance – give first and you MAY get back later, but don’t expect a 1:1 return – it does not work like that. If you are me..me..me then you will not get the levels of engagement that you will if you help people find solutions from the best you know in a given area. Give first and you will get back in buckets later.

Publish. get your views and thoughts on key issues out into appropriate publications. And not just the supplier led ones, but the ones your potential clients will read. For example if a trainer, do you spend your time writing for training based journals or journals that your clients will read – i.e. industry specific ones?

Web 2.0is great but do not under estimate the time and effort required. This is not a one off approach it must be an investment. You need to get into peoples faces – be there every time they look for a particular search string relevant to your specialism. Yes you must specialise – there are 1000s of generalists – you will never beat them all, but you can be a big fish in a small pond. Using emails you can build a list of several hundred ‘luke warm’ potentials, you can add to this by purchasing pre-qualified lists.

Use all of the available tools, Blogs, video (YouTube), forums and communities,  micro-blogs: twitter, identi.ca, friendfeed etc. These are all great and highly effective vehicles for a long term strategy. Learn how to use them to help deliver and manage your marketing messages. They are less intrusive than email, but are also more likely to be re-sent on to others that recipients know.

Putting a good article on a blog or e-zine site can generate 100s of views per month. Using a tool like one of the micro-blogs can get your message in-front of 1000s. Get in the habit of writing one or two 800-1000 word articles a month. once you have written a couple it gets easier. before putting good content onto third party sites, ensure that you have considered the balance of good content pointing to your site, or using good content to draw in traffic.

Do you digg technorati?

Book marking and index sites like Technorati and Digg are great, ensure that any blog you have (inc micro-blog) is listed and registered with these services. Make it easier for people to add ‘Diggs’ to their account, this adds exposure to your writing and content.

Change is key

For any on-line based presence change is vital. The same words will lose impact over time. It is important to keep things ‘fresh’. That may be daily, weekly or monthly, based on your identified strategy or plan – but do have a plan and deliver to it. Ad Hoc just does not deliver in a sustainable way.

Pipeline

We need to have a pipeline of potential work, knowing that several will not ‘come off’. We also need to be prepared to say ‘no’ to clients if we have a heavy schedule. If they want us they will wait. When people are waiting for you we can look to increasing our rates.

The name of the game is numbers and frequency. How often do you make contact with clients? tell them what you are doing, new ideas, thoughts etc?

What is your plan for raising your profile?

From leadership to training & L&D

Your opportunity to request content on this site

Over the past 12 weeks I have been posting many short ‘nuggets’ on leadership, while I have a number of these to go I am now planning the next series – Training or Learning and Development.

So here is your opportunity to contribute – what would you like to see added? what do you want mini-blog entries on? I expect that many topics will be developed into full entries, but these mini blog pieces have proved very popular.

Just add your thoughts to the comments on this post (or twitter with RT of the post and #content)  and as I start researching over the coming weeks this will become my agenda.

Thanks in anticipation

Is Twitter a real business tool

At first look Twitter is a confusing tool, with amore rounded look it becomes obvious what the benefits are, however, and this is the big one, the more followers you have (essential for growth) the harder it is to follow key people and harder it is to get your message seen’

with upwards of 100 messages an hour it is almost impossible to read all your fav twitterers.
in time we will be able to filter by geography, however at the moment one of the few strategies seems to be to retweet key posts a few times a day or different times on different days. Currently there are no platforms which schedule key tweets on a regular basis, but am sure they will come.

For me the past few weeks have been an invaluable experiment with Twitter as a tool, however I now think that I will back off and use it more strategically. I do have a personal twitter account, I may well use that now. for inane and routine posts. Time will tell

Make the most of social media for marketing

Ok so you are one of those people (like me) that uses social marketing sites as part of your marketing strategy. Is your approached integrated or haphazard?

Did you know that you can feed your blog posts to your twitter account or face book etc? You have to be careful about content as each is a slightly different audience, however if you can have more activity with less effort all the better.

Tools like Twitterfeed help take your blog content and put it on Twitter - great to tell the world that you have updated your blog – just dont do it more than a couple of times a day! – you aim is to inform people not swamp them.

You can use #Hash codes to help filter in or out content – so that you dont publish personal material on a business feed for example.

There has been some debate about the percentage mix of business and personal tweeting. Many say 70% personal – while others say 20%. me I am in the camp of 20%. My blog and twitter name are clearly business, but you want to know a little about the human behind the business too … right?

Equally if a business twitter, you dont want a link to a blog for every post – that just looks like and may well be spam. here is my approach – cannot say if it is right – but it is my goal:

blog 100% business – either direct in my specialism or an adjunct (I have other learning based blogs I use when visiting conferences and exhibitions.

Twitter – 70% business: one a day tip on leadership and or training/ learning & development

Once a week a major link to a blog article or useful content on a site 3:1 mine or others

20% personal – more over weekends

10% random thoughts and opinions on what is happening

What is your approach? do you integrate these platforms or keep them separate? why? share your thoughts here or links to your blog with the answers

no spam though – I have a rather good capture tool for this!

Blogs do they work for you

Web 2.0 and all that it means… blogs, twitter, interaction etc but what does it mean?

Humans are social animals, we need to be part of a social group, a hierarchy. With the demise of the extended family, the nuclear family and more and more isolation perhaps it was inevitable that we will need to find a ‘new social group’.

It is curious that over the past 15 years membership of voluntary organisations has changed, we no longer go to the ‘clubs’ that we once did to feel part of some ‘collective’, isolation has been rife – maybe this has been the trigger of a lot of the stress in our society – that lack of connectedness?

These thoughts were sparked by an interesting piece on “why people stop blogging” and an interesting look at the 5 stages of a blogger life

Social networking sites ‘reward’ people through the use of points, stars, or other factors such as the psychology that the number of contacts you have is what make you. On others it is the number and diversity of the groups to which you belong. This clearly shows that as individuals we crave feedback, feedback that perhaps we don’t get at home or work? If it is recognition people want then why do we not give it to them? sure we ask them and often they will say “don’t make a fuss” what they are really saying (most of the time)  is YES!!! People like to be recognised and emotionally rewarded – so give them recognition that is in keeping with their needs and wants – but recognise success… often and publicly.

 

Sure in the world of social media many hide behind a nom de plume – that is fine – those that do may do so for a number of reasons

If the lack of feedback at work is a truism then we in the L&D and OD fields can contribute, through “Employee Engagement” or as I read this morning “talking to” or listening or getting involved as replacements for the jargon of engagement.. makes sense, we provide a ‘new label’ dress it up to be something special and important – but at the end of the day its about human relationships and communication. Simple really.

Looking at the stages of blogging we can predict that many will fall by the wayside – what can we learn from this in terms of using web 2.0 technologies within our business – be it for learning, knowledge management or marketing? Be in it for the long term it is not a quick fix

Mike
RapidBI

Journey to World of Learning 2008 – Birmingham

Last week I spent 3 days in Birmingham, 2 of which at the NEC for the World of Learning..

Blowout - ok more dramatic than mine... but not much!

But the journey did not quite go to plan. On Tuesday lunchtime I drove up to Birmingham for a meeting with a prospective client, potentially an interesting and leading edge piece of work… but on the M40, just after stopping to refuel at the motorway services I had a tyre blowout.. Not what I needed at all. I got me and the vehicle to the hard shoulder of the motorway and then realise that my spare had been stolen at the weekend and I was waiting to collect a replacement! (on my car it is stored underneath and is apparently easy to remove!)

So I called the breakdown service and awaited help. In the mean time I called my client – no answer so I left a message – at least the message was an hour ahead of our meeting.  With the breakdown guy with me I limped the car off the motorway and we went to get the tyre repaired – then come the call – “I thought we were meeting 1/2 hour ago”!… He had not got my message. I apologised and said that I did not know how much longer the repair would take and would call him to see if it was still convenient to meet when I had a confirmed potential arrival time.  We agreed to make contact at World of Learning and re-schedule!

Ok so I got to my hotel – very near the NEC and after settling down realised that the WIFI I had just paid for was not working… over an hour later on the phone to tech support and they realised there server at the hotel was down..”we will have it sorted overnight”.. great! missed meeting and no opportunity to work…

What a way to start a week!

I attended the conference as part of the TrainingZone team and blogged the event. My views and experiences can be read both on the Watercooler part of the TZ site and at my WOL blog

Overall a useful event with the focus on “informal learning”.

My Blogs

The RapidBI team operate a number of blogs each for a different purpose – check them out..

http://www.rapidbi.blogspot.com

http://www.rapidbusinessimprovement.blogspot.com

http://www.cipd2008.blogspot.com- this is a temporary blog which will highlight our experiences at the CIPD annual conference and exhibition 2008 in Harrogate