advanced blogging strategies
DESCRIPTION
30 + Tips, tricks and takeaways: 15 minutesPanel discussion with RJ Hilgers and Joe Roberts: 20 minutesQ/A: 15 minutesAgenda, About & Intros.Developing Your Site, Content and ProfessionalismManaging Your Site and Social MediaWriting ContentUnderstanding Trends and Growing Your SiteFinal Thoughts Beyond Tips and toolsTRANSCRIPT
Advanced Wine Blogging Strategies
06.25.10
RJ Hilgers, Jeff Lefevere, Joe Roberts
Agenda, About & Intros.
• 30 + Tips, tricks and takeaways: 15 minutes
• Panel discussion with RJ Hilgers and Joe Roberts: 20 minutes
• Q/A: 15 minutes
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Agenda & About (cont.)• What we won’t be covering:– How to make money– Ethics– Blogging v. Mainstream Media (MSM)
• What we will cover:– Working on your writing– Working on your brand– Being smarter about the management of
your writing and your brand
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Today’s Goals
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Your Panel• RJ Hilgers: RJ Hilgers is a digital marketer who works for Microsoft after spending
over 10 years in Sr. leadership positions at Avenue A / Razorfish, one of the premiere digital agencies in the country. RJ's Wine Blog has been in existence for two years, started after being convinced by Jason, at Jason's Wine Blog, to start writing. Two months and 50-some posts later, RJ was off and running. RJ has been a wine enthusiast for the last 20 years, inspired by a bottle of Barnard Griffin Cab / Merlot that changed the way he thought about wine. http://www.rjswineblog.com/
• Jeff Lefevere: A digital marketer by day and a wine blogger at night, Jeff has been blogging since January of 2006. His site, goodgrape.com, is a winner and four-time finalist in the American Wine Blog Awards and a lot of people have said some really nice things about his writing at: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/praise/
• Joe Roberts: Joe is a musician, consultant, and IT refugee. His site, 1WineDude.com, has been around since early 2007, and despite Joe's best efforts has been successful. Most recently, 1WineDude.com won Best Wine Blog in the 2009 FoodBuzz.com blog awards, was a finalist for Best Overall Blog in the 2010 Wine Blog Awards, and has been mentioned at SteveHeimoff.com approximately 4,732 times in the last 12 months (which ought to count for something, right?). http://www.1winedude.com
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Developing Your Site, Content & Professionalism• You don’t have a brand until you have a
domain name– www.yourbrand.com– Godaddy.com– Every blog platform has instructions for “domain
mapping”– Don’t make my mistake
• www.goodgrape.net / www.goodgrapes.com
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Developing Your Site, Content & Professionalism• Ensure your carpet matches the curtains
– Quick rule of thumb: 0 + 0 = 0– The best book in the world can underperform if it
has an ugly cover– www.99designs.com
• Inexpensive, high-quality customized blog headers and logo design
– www.vistaprint.com• Inexpensive, high-quality professionally printed
business cards
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Developing Your Site, Content & Professionalism• Visual appeal in the form of custom
imagery can significantly increase your site professionalism– Learn the basics of an image editor
• www.paint.net – FREE!
– Move beyond Google image search for images• Flickr Advanced Search / Creative Commons /
Open Source– http://www.flickr.com/search/advanced/
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Developing Your Site, Content & Professionalism• Speaking of Creative Commons
– Ensure your blog identifies your content rights• www.creativecommons.org
• While we’re on the subject of covering bases– Ensure your blog has a disclosure policy
• www.disclosurepolicy.org
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Managing Your Site and Social Media
• Cross-link within popular posts– Understand your popular posts by seeing what keywords
are driving traffic and then cross-link
• www.semrush.com
• Measure your site against others• www.compete.com
• Automated analysis of your site for improvement
• http://www.websitegrader.com
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Managing Your Site and Social Media
• Serious about earning advertising revenue?– Should have 3rd party verified stats
• www.quantcast.com
• Want to know who links to you?• http://www.iwebtool.com/backlink_checker
• Want to be more productive as a browser?– FireFox plugins
• PageRank Checker, others
– Google Chrome Extensions• Evernote
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Managing Your Site and Social Media
• Overwhelmed by social communication?– www.digsby.com
• IM• Email• Facebook• Twitter• LinkedIN
• Want to monitor site mentions beyond Google Alerts?
• http://addictomatic.com
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Writing Content
• The best book on writing non-fiction– On Writing Well by William K. Zinsser
• The best book on grammar and style– The Elements of Style by Strunk & White
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Writing Content
• Go beyond Google for Secondary Research– www.highbeam.com
• Check your articles for grammatical correctness– www.grammarly.com
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Writing Content
• Maximize the use of Microsoft Word
– Grammar check– Reading Ease– Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level– Post straight to Wordpress, Blogger, TypePad, others …
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Writing Content
• Join LinkedIN Wine Groups for member contact, story ideas and networking
• http://www.linkedin.com/groupsDirectory
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Writing Content
• Brainstorm Creatively– Creative Whack Pack• http://www.creativewhack.com/
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
Trend #1: MOBILE
• Mobile Compatibility– Wordpress plug-inOr
• Mobile site conversion– Appmakr (www.appmakr.com)– MotherApp (www.motherapp.com– Mobile App Loader
(www.mobileapploader.com)
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
Trend #2: LIFESTREAMING
Lifestreaming
Too busy to blog
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
• Trend #3: Social Graph and Facebook Fan Pages– NutshellMail (
http://www.facebook.com/NutshellMail)
– DivShare (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2225214147)
– Sprout http://sproutinc.com/showcase/facebook-fan-pages/)
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
• Trend #3: Social Graph and Facebook Fan Pages– NutshellMail (
http://www.facebook.com/NutshellMail)
– DivShare (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2225214147)
– Sprout http://sproutinc.com/showcase/facebook-fan-pages/)
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
• Trend #4: Your Personal brand– VisualCV (www.visualcv.com)
– Wix (www.wix.com)
– Weebly (www.weebly.com)
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
• Understand the world of online PR
– Vocus (www.vocus.com)– Cision (www.cision)– Burrellesluce
(www.burrellesluce.com)
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
• Odds and Ends– Sell something
• Vendr (www.vendr.com)
– Join the Palate Press Ad Network– Syndicate your site
• Blogburst (www.blogburst.com)
• Ensure your site follows the Webmaster tools provided by Google and Bing– www.google.com/webmasters/tools/– http://www.bing.com/webmaster
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools
Summary
• Work Smarter, Not Harder –Automate, Automate, Automate
• Work on your writing!• Develop your blog brand– Develop your personal brand
• Capitalize on trends
I. Agenda, About & Intros.
II. Developing Your Site, Content and Professionalism
III. Managing Your Site and Social Media
IV. Writing Content
V. Understanding Trends and Growing Your Site
VI. Final Thoughts Beyond Tips and tools