Business Blogging Pros

Bluetrain Number 6

Number 6 of 85.

If you are interested in marketing and you don't follow Hugh MacLeod's blog Gapingvoid, you should.  I consider Hugh to be one of the thought leaders in marketing and social media.  A couple of years ago Hugh coined the term Global Microbrand and I've been using it ever since.

Hugh is probably most famous for his cartoons drawn on the back of business cards, later evolving into a line of blogcards/streetcards.  When I saw Wolf vs Sheep for the first time it resonated with me and I have kept a supply of Wolf vs Sheep blog cards on hand ever since. (I also have the Wolf vs Sheep signed numbered print but framing will have to wait).

When Hugh announced that he would be offering Bluetrain as the first in a series of numbered, signed, fine-art lithographs, I had to have one.  I've finally managed to get a custom frame made for it with museum glass.

It hangs on the wall in my office facing me.  All I have to do is to lift my eyes from the monitor a few degrees and there it is, reminding me:

The market for something to believe in is infinite

Apex National Decorators

Business Blogging Pros welcomes our newest client, APEX National Decorators.

APEX National focuses on the needs of general contractors and property managers, but they also have many high-end residential clients.

The thing that sets APEX National apart is how tuned in they are to the needs of their clients.  If you are a general contractor or property manager, I'll bet APEX National can help you in ways that you've never thought of.

Paul Schween

Business Blogging Pros welcomes our newest Client, Paul Schween Seminars.

Paul is a sales trainer who turns average performers into top performers.  He recently spoke at a networking function I attended and can say that he is also a dynamic and entertaining speaker.

Use Your Blog to Create Landing Pages

Almost everyone needs to create a Landing Page now and then. 

If you are using Wordpress, most themes contain a 'No Sidebar' template and you can use that. For this client we created a special template that removed the theme's extraneous background colors. 

Typepad users may be frustrated because they can't select the template on a page-by-page basis and don't have a way to eliminate the sidebar. Here's the trick but it requires a PRO level Typepad account: Create another blog in the same account. Select the same theme and give it all the same stylesheet customizations. Then select a Layout that contains no sidebars. 

The final thing you should do is to give the landing page it's own short memorable domain name. GoDaddy makes it very easy to forward a domain name to a specific page on your blog.

The Alexander K Group

It looks like a website, doesn't it?  A couple of weeks ago, Karroll K. Alexander of the Alexander K Group asked me to provide him with a proposal for replacing his existing website with a Typepad-based blogsite.  The result is what you see here.

More and more, small business owners are opting to use a high-end blogging platform as their sole web presence, taking advantage of the platform's content-management features to provide them with an easy-to-maintain site.

If I Twitter do I still need a Blog?

Yes!

Pamela Slim (@pamslim on Twitter) and I were having a conversation via Twitter today about the frequency of our blog posts since the advent of Twitter.  The truth is that the combination of your blog and Twitter is very powerful.

For example, I've discovered that the same half-dozen questions about blogging ('Which is better: Typepad or Wordpress?') get asked over and over on Twitter.  I've written blog posts answering those questions.  I continually search - using TweetDeck - for terms like 'Typepad'.  WHen I see one of those common questions come up I send the person an @reply containig a link to the specific post on my blog that answers their question.  They get their question answered and they explore, learning more about me and about blogging.  Many times I not only gain a new Twitter follower and blog reader, I gain a client too.

There are lot's more ways that Twitter and your blog make a powerful conversation.

If you want to attend a webinar about leveraging Twitter in your business click here.

Captivated Customers

Business Blogging Pros welcomes our newest client, Norma Huibregtse and Captivated Customers. Norma's company is dedicated to helping your increase sales through improved customer service.

Norma's blog is another great example of something we're creating a lot of lately: A single combined website and blog that is the client's entire web presence. The best part of one of these blogsites is that the owner can maintain it herself. We are teaching Norma how to maintain the site, create new pages, add them to the menubar, etc. It's really pretty easy, and it's very empowering for Norma.

Candy Fun News Episode III

Candy Fun News Episode II

It's a little long (over three minutes) but the footage of our Official Taste-Tester is worth it:

Joanna O'Neal

Business Blogging pros welcomes one of our newest clients, Joanna O'Neal. This is Joanna's personal blog, chronicling her experiences as she settles in to a new community and a new life. This is the first blog I've built using Typepad's new Journal theme. Journal has some oddities and inconsistencies but he managed to overcome them.