The Wax Blog

By Beth Graddon-Hodgson

If you’ve got a business blog, at some point, you’ve probably considered writing a guest post for another blog or online publication. Some bloggers are hesitant about doing this, thinking “why would I drive traffic to someone else’s site when I can focus on doing the same for my own?” Well, like many things these posts have addressed about blogging, that’s another misconception.

Here are some of the reasons why guest blogging for another blog will help you improve your own blog’s web traffic and help advance your business. So open yourself up to the idea, and it’ll be a good thing!

According to Free Dictionary the definition of karma is the total effect of a person’s actions and conduct during the successive phases of the person’s existence, regarded as determining the person’s destiny. Beth Hodgson’s last post about the boomerang effect – what happens when you get even more traffic by sending it to others from your blog -  stirred up some comments about how karma works in the blogosphere. (Thanks Jorgen for kicking that discussion off and I’d love to hear YOUR stories too!) It got me thinking about my clients, and how their attitudes and actions affect the kind of PR results they get. Read on to find out how MUCH karma affects results. (more…)

Not only did I win a free pass to the Integrated Marketing Summit in Minneapolis this week, I got a chance to meet and interview Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing. A veteran internet marketer, blogger and sought-after speaker in the industry, Lee has been recognized by multiple associations and media for his work including  being named one of the top Social Media Strategists to watch in 2010, ranked top ten in the Twitter Power 150 list and listed as one of the #15 of top 100 online marketers 2008. Lee’s blog gets more than 100,000 unique visitors a month and has over 30,000 subscribers. Lee subjected himself to my super-caffeinated shaky video operation  (and pronunciation issues – his last name is pronounced “oh-den”) and delivered some real pearls of wisdom in this short clip including:

• How to identify and connect with the right thought leaders to help your business
• Why strong personal relationships are not necessarily as important as relevant relationships when trying to pitch a blogger/social media influencer
• Steps to follow to help create relevant relationships
• Signals you can send to build your own credibility online
• Examples of pitches he pays attention to (and those he ignores)
• Advice on how to allocate your time pitching new media vs traditional media.

Thanks again Lee!

If you’d like to connect with Lee, you can find him:

Blog:  http://www.toprankblog.com
Twitter:  http://twitter.com/leeodden
LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/leeodden

By Beth Graddon- Hodgson

You might think that it’s only your actual blog content that is going to get people to stop by and read, but images play a big role, too. They can help make your blog posts appear more professional and attractive, but that’s really only a small portion of their benefits.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

For one thing, the images can drive traffic to your blog. People search for usable photos just about as often as they search for information online. When you post a photo and use your blogging tool to upload it with a title, relevant keywords and a caption, you’re creating another way for people to find you on search engines. This can encourage them to either read your blog content while they’re already found themselves on your site, or give you a link back if they decide to use your image on their own blog or site.

Of course, photo usage needs to be done carefully, or you might find yourself at the losing end of a lawsuit. Not all of the pictures you upload on your blog need to be yours, but these are the guidelines to follow before you put a picture on your post: (more…)

By Beth Graddon- Hodgson

All bloggers, whether business or casual use a statistics measuring tool with their blog, after all, it’s pretty cool to see just how many people are interested in what you’ve got to say, no? The complexity of the tools varies, with the most basic allowing you to simply see the number of page views for each blog post. The more complex ones can tell you everything from how readers came across your blog, to the countries that your readers live in. (more…)

By Beth Graddon- Hodgson

Once you have a focal point for your blog and have decided whether you’re going to focus on writing your blogs in a topical or personal style (or combination of the two, it’s time to actually sit down and start blogging. If you think making those decisions was a challenge, then you’re in for what’s the hardest and most essential part of creating an effective business blog. After all, some of those elements are decisions you only need to think about once; choosing a specific blog topic has to be on your mind whenever you sit down to write on a weekly or daily basis.

This is one topic that’s a bit harder for me to write about, because there are endless examples, so it’s hard to put a specific guide in place. What works for one company also won’t necessarily work for another even in the same industry either.  Since I can’t tell you WHAT you’ve got to write about, I will provide you the process I go through with my clients  determine which direction I should go with each of the posts. (more…)

By Beth Graddon-Hodgson

Once you’ve chosen a focal point for your blog – your vague subject area on what you’ll focus upon, the next step is to start making more specific decisions about the writing style. When writing each blog post you can make them personal or topical – or any combination of the two. In order to get a feel for what might work best for your blog, I’m going to provide you with some basic guidelines about what each of those categories mean. With this post, the focus will be upon personal business blogs. A second related article next week will discuss topical blog posts. (more…)

A decade ago I sat in meeting after meeting in Silicon Valley hearing about the new economy and how the ‘old school’ IT companies were dead. It’s so funny to me now, listening to all the social media experts and Web 2.0 pundits say that ‘traditional PR is dead.’ I venture to say that lazy people hope by saying traditional PR is dead, maybe they can make it so. After all it’s a whole lot easier to sit in your jammies and tweet and facebook the night away than it is to call Patty Neger at Good Morning America to find out if she likes the latest book you’ve sent her. Believe me, I would much rather be trading snarky barbs with folks like @CLE84 than getting rejected for yet another story idea by a crusty print reporter. (more…)

I am a huge fan of Problogger . The latest post has some of the best writing advice I’ve seen for blogs. Here’s a recap of the 8 tips, but be sure to read the entire article. (more…)

In honor of being incredibly lazy this week, here’s one of my fave 2009 posts – the last Friday of every month I’ll throw a repeat of one of the more popular posts, just in case you missed it!

A product, service or book is probably the greatest thing in the world – to its creator. But when an editor or producers says “pass” it’s the publicist who has to tell the client. Sometimes ZERO  media are interested. And for anyone who has written a book, started a business or provided a service, that can be a pretty personally hurtful message no matter how carefully it’s couched. For me, it’s the equivalent of having to tell clients “your baby is ugly” 95% of the time, without hurting their feelings. Nearly impossible. (more…)