There are a few plugins available, but the Website Optimizer plugin I’ve been using stands out because it allows you to apply the test code per page or per post. Other plugins are limited to one test per site – which would be like trying to run with your legs tied together, in my opinion.  Setting the plugin up is simple(ish):

• Create your Google Website Optimizer account.
• Download the plugin and save it to your Wordpress plugins folder.
• Activate the plugin.
• Start a Website Optimizer test for a single page or post and copy/paste the test code directly into the plugin-provided boxes in Wordpress.
  • A/B tests will require you to enter code into the “Original” page, “Test” page and “Confirmation” page.
  • Multivariate tests require you to enter code into the “Original” and “Confirmation” pages only – but you do have to manually add the “Section” code directly into the HTML.
• Wrap specific sections of your page or post that you want to test with the “Section” script in Wordpress; save your page or post.
• Validate your code placement and begin creating variations of your content.
• Launch your test!

In the Wordpress interface, you will see these boxes under each page and post:

One other note worth mentioning is that if you want to test variations of your headline or design/layout, you’ll have to get your hands dirty.  Changing headlines and page titles will require you to add generic “Section” script directly to your blog’s header.php and page.php files.  And any design changes will have to funnel through your template php files.  If you don’t know how to manage these files – find someone who does! You could seriously mess your blog up if you’re not careful!

Today’s takeaways – multivariate testing has never been easier thanks to Google’s Website Optimizer and if you’re using Wordpress, it’s made even more simple with handy-plugins. So no more excuses about letting your blog go stagnant because it’s too hard to test!

T-Shirt photo courtesy of Tamar Weinberg at Flickr.

11 Blog Topics for Small Business Owners

1. State and Discuss Your Tag Line or Mission Statement:

   Every business has (or should have) a descriptive tag line or more importantly – a mission statement. For most of us, this statement of purpose drives our actions and has special meaning. Share that with your readers! You will show them how much you care. If you have a multi-point mission statement, break it up over several days. Give yourself, and your readers, time to digest the meaning of each point individually (plus, it’s that much more blog fodder).

2. Write About What’s Going Well and Not So Well:

   Most of us don’t really consider the daily minutia of our business to be all that fascinating. The trials and tribulations are our own, we’ve learned from them and have grown/adapted accordingly. I would argue that those details, both the good and the bad, show the human side of you and your business. Giving them a peak behind the proverbial curtain will connect them to you in a meaningful, human way.

3. Developing a New Product or Service? Write About It:

   This topic requires something of a disclaimer. When developing a new product or service, there may be details that you can’t share – either legally or in an effort to keep your competitors away from that information. So, consider this topic carefully. If you can’t actively blog about the detailed experience of creating a new product, perhaps you can instead build anticipation for your new product in a more general fashion. Talk about what’s behind door #1 without opening the door, so to speak.

4. Explain How Your Product or Service Benefits Customers:

   Benefits make the world go ’round. At least that’s what I believe. A product or service is useless to any customer if they don’t understand how it will help or benefit them in some way. Without writing a page-long sales pitch, describe the benefits of your product. Depending on the number of benefits your product has (it could be many!), and the number of products you have – this topic alone could fill your blog post queue for some time.

5. Announce Sales, Promotions and Special Events:

   I love to state the obvious. Always have. And in keeping with personal traditions, this one is a no-brainer. If you’re having a sale, promotion or ANY type of special event – blog about it. I could write a post on this topic and the potential benefits, but I’ll save that for another day. Just suffice it to say, if something’s on sale, tell your readers.

6. Have Burning Questions? Solicit Comments or Conduct a Survey:

   I’ve never met anyone who was genuinely clairvoyant. None of us are mind readers, however much we wish we were. So, whenever you have questions that only your customers can answer – there’s only one way to get the answer. Ask your customers! This is really one of the greatest assets of a blog for small businesses: easy access to your customer base. This could be as simple as writing a brief post containing your question and soliciting feedback via comments. Or if you would like more quantitative data, set up a survey. Tools like Survey Gizmo (and others) make it super simple to create, launch and record results from surveys.

7. Utilize That Cache of Customer Testimonials and Post Away:

   This topic assumes that you’ve been gathering customer testimonials. If you haven’t, add that to your list of priorities! Customers are your most effective sales force. So, take the positive (or maybe not-so-positive, but constructive) testimonials and post them to your blog. The rest of your readers will appreciate the gesture and will like you even more.

8. Get Topical by Providing Commentary on Your Industry’s News:

   Your industry is changing. Seems simple enough, right? Write posts that share that news with your readers. Though don’t stop at merely repeating the news, add your own commentary – your 2 cents. If it’s good news, explain how that news will influence your products or services. If it’s bad news, explain how resilient you are and that you aren’t going anywhere!

9. Leverage Social Media to Capture Customer Response and Blog About It:

   Blogging is a great way to connect with your customer base. Social media is yet another. The environment within the various social networking sites makes it quite easy to participate or start conversations. If you’re in need of a quick topic – hop into Twitter or Facebook and ask a question. One of 2 things will happen: the responses will be so great you can just post them directly to your blog OR someone will say something that inspires your next post. Another topic checked off the list.

10. Post a Response to Another Blog Post in Agreement or Disagreement:

    There are likely several other business owners in your niche that are blogging, too. Read their blogs, participate on their blogs, etc. As you read those blogs, look for areas where you agree, disagree or just simply don’t understand their viewpoint. Write a response on your own blog that links back to the original article. Make sure that you extend the conversation with your own viewpoint – don’t merely re-publish. Be careful of disagreements, and remember to be respectful (unless you intend to burn bridges permanently): be prepared to back up your stance.

11. Make Lists: Best-Of, Who’s-Who, Favorite Products:

    I’ve added this as a bonus of sorts. If you get desperate and feel like maybe you’ve reached the bottom of the barrel, go for this type of topic. Create lists about the best blogs in your industry, the most notable people in your industry, the 5 biggest influences on your business or simply a list of your favorite products or services. Always remember that you should be adding value when writing a blog post. If you create a list, explain why those items are important to you so that your readers will find them important, too.

These 11 topics will get you and your small business out of the gate and running into the world of blogging. Let me reiterate, this will get you started. As you begin writing, you’ll find that topics will come to you – seemingly out of nowhere. This is the sign that you have officially caught the blogging bug. But if you resist the bug either out of a sincere lack of creativity or just plain stubbornness, have no fear. I would highly recommend that you check out the following resources to keep your creative juices flowing:

55 Post and Topic Ideas for Your Business Blog

50 Blog Post Ideas for Business Blogging

Where to Get Ideas From for Your Business Blog

How to Generate Post Ideas When You Are Stuck

With that, I’ll leave all of you to your writing. As you strike out on your new adventure, remember that blogging should be fun! Write as yourself, and be relatable. And a business blog can be a powerful marketing tool so long as you remain vigilant on writing blog posts that provide value to and engage your readers and potential customers. Good luck!

Photo courtesy of Kristina B at Flickr.

To get back on the blogging horse, today I’m going to give you a peek into the Bakedwheat Web RSS reader.  I’m currently subscribed to over 100 RSS feeds.  The vast majority are internet marketing related.  But I’ve got a few “fun” blogs thrown in (mostly musicians).  Out of those 100+ feeds, there are 18 that I automatically check first – in no particular order:

• SEOmoz
• Inside AdWords
• adCenter Community
• YSM Blog
• Search Engine Land
• Search Engine Roundtable
• Small Business SEM
• SEO Book
• PPC Hero
• SEO Boy
• Outspoken Media
• Copy Blogger
• ProBlogger
• Itty Biz Blog
• Yoast
• JohnOn
• Rimm-Kaufman
• Traffick

Maybe it’s because I’ve been a little out of the blog-reading loop the last few weeks, or perhaps the entire blogosphere decided to kick it up a notch – whatever the reason – reading has been good this week.  Here are just a few of the best this week has had to offer:

• Google AdWords and Local Extensions – Good Stuff
• There are no bad keywords in PPC.  Food for thought.
• 16 rules for social media optimization.
• How many PPC ads should you test? Not just an arbitrary number!

And with that, I’ll return to my non-blogging activities.  Going forward, you can keep tabs on some of my favorite blog posts by reviewing the Shared Items from Google Reader box in the sidebar >>>>.  Or if you’re really desperate, you can follow my shared items in a separate RSS feed.  ; )  Happy reading!

When submitting web pages to many social networks, page titles and/or meta descriptions are automatically included as the submission’s description.  This makes the social process quick and efficient.  However, I was shocked at how many blog posts did not contain customized page titles or meta descriptions.  Why is that a problem?  Some readers who submit that content may not know to check the auto-filled description to make sure it is relevant to the page in question.  And worse yet, there could be a reader who is just in too much of a hurry to bother – and you’ve lost that SMM vote.

So, without further ado I’d like to share 3 simple tips that any blog owner can implement to increase social networking interaction, and they begin with some SEO 101!

1. Write Custom Page Titles & Meta Descriptions:  I can’t stress how important this is.  Even if you take the social media factor out of the equation, you need to write custom, page-specific titles and descriptions.  Just to recap: Search engines use these to create that page’s snippet in the SERPs.  URL shortening services like bit.ly use the page title to format your Tweet.  Sites like Mixx pull the meta description.  When you write custom titles and descriptions you’ll improve your SEO, control how your content is described in social networking sites (including keywords – think anchor text!) and you’ll make the submission process simple for your readers.
2. Add Submission Links to Social Media Sites: This one has been talked about ad nauseum, but it still is worth mentioning.  If you want to encourage your readers to push your content into the social networking world, make it easy for them to do just that.  Include links to the submission pages at the major social sites.  The social networking sites all provide “submit this” URLs, and there are plugins like Sociable for the blogging platforms that do all of the work for you.  If you use FeedBurner, you can even add “Feed Flare” that will add those links not only on your posts but also in your feed (Sociable can do this, too).
3. Write Interesting Content & Catchy Headlines: OK, maybe this one is a bit of a stretch.  Regardless, if your blog posts are boring – the first 2 tips are worthless.  No readers, no point in worrying about social networking!  The key to finding SMM success with your blog’s content really starts with your writing.  Take the time to write descriptive, catchy headlines.  And publish content that your target audience cares about!

With that, I’ll leave you to writing your great content!  Once you’ve crossed that bridge, make sure you create custom page titles and meta descriptions for every post and page on your site.  And finally, include easy to find links to submit that content to the social networking sites.  Easy enough, right?

If your customers are going to be increasingly reading blogs and writing blogs themselves, how much longer can your business afford to not take part in online conversations that are happening around your company and your industry?

I most certainly echo Mack’s opinion here (from SEGuide).  If the number of readers and writers is only going to increase – no business owner can afford to idly stand by!  Here’s a break down of eMarketer’s stats:

Source: eMarketer, April 2009

Source: eMarketer, April 2009

96.6 million blog readers in 2009.  That’s a compelling stat – coming in just shy of HALF of all internet users in the United States!  Every business owner should consider the implications of not blogging.  Missed conversational opportunities (reputation management).  Missed customer opportunities.  Missed SEO rankings/traffic opportunities.

Blogging activity presents new opportunities for marketers to monitor and influence conversations relevant to their businesses…

Of course, no business should blindly jump into the “blogging game.”  To find success with business blogging, care needs to be taken in assessing the competitive landscape, types of content currently being written (as to set yourself apart) and how to integrate your blog with SEO, social media initiatives and your overall marketing objectives.  But when implemented properly, a business blog can quickly become one of your biggest online marketing assetts (and will continue to grow into the future!).

Wordpress can be a powerful weapon in your arsenal, especially when you’re blogging as part of your SEO strategy.  But for the uninitiated, Wordpress is full of pitfalls, SEO-unfriendly plugins/options and offers users a dizzying array of ways to go overboard (and potentially damage your blog’s overall success).  The 40 tips offered up at Yoast are broken down into specific areas like Analytics, social media, SEO and plugins.  Each section is important, and many of the elements compliment each other – so don’t dismiss any of them!

Here’s just a sampling of the overall list (my cherry-picked favorites):

• Page titles?  They should be listed as “post title – blog name” – in that order.
• Utilize Robots and Noindex directions to ensure the search engines properly crawl and index your blog’s content.
• Always write custom meta descriptions.  According to Joost, you should never let Wordpress plugins automate this process.
• Do you back up your blog’s files?  You should!  Not only that, but you should back up your files and your database(s).
• Encourage social media submission of your content.  Sphinn it, Tweet it, Digg it – there are plenty of flavors to share.
• Use Analytics, and use the Yoast Analytics plugin (trust me, it’s a sinch!).
• Oh – and a note on Goals in Google Analytics: track comments and RSS subscriptions.

Obviously, the full list is much more comprehensive, but these points popped out at me as being very relevant and very important.  If you find that you either didn’t know one of the points listed above or aren’t following them presently – there’s a GREAT chance that you’re well off the radar for the other 33 tips on the original list!  I’d highly suggest you review the slideshow, take notes and get to work optimizing your Wordpress blog.  Happy tweaking (and big thanks to Joost and his great advice)!