Previously in this series we published:
1) Lessons 1 – 4: Starting your blogging off on the right foot (2009-06-03)
2) Lessons 5 – 7: Setting the stage – ready – go (2009-06-03)
3) Lessons 8 – 11: Whatever domain, home you choose – beware (2009-07-08)
4) Lessons 12 – 13: Getting the basic SEO issues right (2009-07-08)

Today we release the last two installments of these tips and lessons, the fifth of which can be read here:
5) Lessons 14 – 17: Authenticity and quality are key

In this final post, the focus is on continuous improvement and exceeding good practice.

Lesson 18: No improvement without measurement
It is smart to benchmark but you should not begin until at least six months after the launch of the blog. For instance, we learned about changing our plugins the hard – and smart – way, as outlined in this post: WordPress plugins.

Improvements will only show over time and the first few months following the lessons we outlined in previous posts will bring more traffic. Nevertheless, mistakes happen and your team should learn from each one of them.

To see how well your blog strategy works register your blog here:
My.ComMetrics.com – benchmarking your blog – improve your score - sign-up for FREE

Lesson 19: Benchmark smartly
Some people suggest that regular benchmarking against others provides encouragement – a sort of benevolent peer pressure. While this helps, one of the smartest ways to benchmark is to benchmark against yourself. All things being equal, how much improvement occurred in your blogging between Q1 and Q2 of 2009 will tell you a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Answering this question will provide information that helps adjust and improve performance.

Comparing one’s blog against another similar blog (e.g., company of similar size, same country and industry) is an effective way to benchmark, gain insight and subsequently improve performance (see also social media – benchmarking the smart way – FAQ #2). We will start a new series on this topic next month: Benchmark smartly (first post in September 2009).

Lesson 20: Continuous improvement is key
Our work preparing the FT ComMetrics Blog Index (KISS the blog-bride) has taught us that successful corporate blogs try to continuously improve, which should be a great deal easier if you have addressed the issues covered by Lessons 3 and 4.

By its second year, a corporate blog should be posting regardless of vacations or holidays (see Lesson 14), and the authors should preferably have settled into their stride, yielding more interesting posts for the target-audience.

Improvements might also include new useful features or things that increase the blog’s user-friendliness. For instance, we decided to improve the content by getting professional editorial help – the result is before you: more concise and straight-talking posts …

P.S. – Don’t believe those that try to tell you that a corporate blog will help you make money quickly, since that is almost never the case for businesses (see why social media does not work this way). Nevertheless, remember that blogging is a very important channel for distributing information of value to stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers and investors.

Takeaways

Without measurement improvement is difficult – but make sure you pick smart benchmarks that yield actionable metrics.
Comparing against one’s own and similar blogs makes sense – compare apples to apples.
Improvement takes continuing and diligent efforts – don’t expect wonders in a month but budget at least a quarter and then check your trends.

I will keep it brief, love to dialogue more in the comments. What is your take? Please share.

Previously in this series we published:
1) Lessons 1 – 4: Starting your blogging off on the right foot (2009-06-03)
2) Lessons 5 – 7: Setting the stage – ready – go (2009-06-03)

Today we release the next two installments of these tips and lessons, the fourth of which can be read here:
3) Lessons 8 – 11: Whatever domain, home you choose – beware

The final set will come your way August 12:
5) Lessons 14 – 17: Authenticity and quality are key
6) Lessons 18 – 20: Improving blogging effectiveness

Corporate bloggers should follow these lessons to save on resources, money and improve blogging effectiveness. It actually takes little effort but the results are astonishing if you correct r completely avoid these mistakes.

To make sure that you don’t miss any of these upcoming posts, just leave your e-mail here:

Lesson 12: Manage your permalinks as effectively as possible
Make the permanent link to the blog post as informative as possible.

For example, the title of the post at
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/blog/2009/05/20/56072/dutch-courage-commodities-trading-edition/
is Dutch Courage Commodities Trading Edition.

For several reasons, we suggest using something more like
http://blogs.ft.com/alphaville/article/David Redmond-vs-FSA/
instead.

Our rationale for choosing the above is:

1. Using blog.FT.com indicates that this blog is hosted as a blog on the Financial Times’ homepage,
2. The blog’s name is Alphaville,
3. The word ‘article’ in the URL indicates that this is not a webpage, but a blog post; and
4. Using Redmond-vs-FSA at the end of the blog post’s permalink provides search engines with additional information beyond the title of the post, specifically that the post addresses an issue about somebody or someplace called Redmond and the financial regulator FSA.

Just a little adjustment that makes it that much easier for users and, as importantly, search engines to make more sense out of post titles with the help of the link itself. In turn, more interested readers visiting. That simple.

P.S. – Yes, some WordPress plugins are needed to do this.

To see how well your blog strategy works register your blog here:
My.ComMetrics.com – benchmark your blog – improve your score – sign up for FREE

Lesson 13: Using the right URLs
Besides being careful about the permalink structure (see above), linking pages and then changing the page structure on your blog can wreak havoc. For instance, pages detailing how to contact the company or its privacy policy are generally a permanent feature on your main blog page (in our case all pages are in the far right column).

With WordPress it is important to remember that its database assigns a number to any page, article or post. Hence, linking to a permanent page using a number for the blog post has some advantages.

The highlighted link to the right is shown as a nested link or sub-sub category to ‘10 – Rankings and trends’, which has the following link:
http://howto.commetrics.com/watch-the-direction/

Subsequent categories are FT ComMetrics Blog Index, which we abbreviated FTCBI, and then comes 2009 for the 2009 rankings:
http://howto.commetrics.com/watch-the-direction/ftcbi/2009/

We named the ComMetrics Footprint page ’standard’ and kept Google Blog Search to get the following deep link: http://howto.commetrics.com/watch-the-direction/ftcbi/2009/standard/google-blog-search/

However, if we change anything in our structure of how we list pages (e.g., shift Google Blog Search to be listed under ‘9 – Methodology’), the long URL no longer works.

Accordingly, since you might need to change the structure at a later date, using the ID number of the page as provided by WordPress decreases 404 error message occurrences.

If you go to the blog’s admin page –> pages –> choose any page –> click edit, the address bar will show a link like this:
http://howto.commetrics.com/wp-admin/page.php?action=edit&post=780

Grab the number and one gets
http://howto.commetrics.com/?page_id=780

Using this method of hyperlinking avoids problems in cases where you rearrange the structure, as occurred during recent spring cleaning on HowTo.ComMetrics.com.

This type of deep link will always bring up the page, regardless of where it may live within the structure.

Okay, now it’s your turn. What techniques you have used to improve your blogging effectiveness? What was your most successful “let’s do this and move on” tactic? If you have come close to resolving these challenges smartly, what did you do? Which of the above four strategies is your favorite? Which one do you think is just baloney? It’s okay – be honest. We can take it. Thanks much.

P.S. – You may find our next set of ropes to skip of interest as well: 5) Lessons 14 – 17: Authenticity and quality are key (2009-08-12).

After publishing the 2009 FT ComMetrics Blog Index, which ranks FT Global 500 and Fortune 500 companies’ corporate blogs, some readers came forward asking for some tips on how to improve one’s ranking and statistics.

Can we help? Definitely! We have developed some best practices, as outlined below in a series of posts.

Today we release the first two installments of these tips and lessons, the first of which can be read here:

1) Lessons 1 – 4: Starting your blogging off on the right foot (2009-06-03)

The next set will be published July 8:
3) Lessons  8 – 11: Whatever domain, home you choose – beware
4) Lessons 12 – 13: Getting the basic SEO issues right

The final set will come your way August 12:
5) Lessons 14 – 17: Authenticity and quality are key
6) Lessons 18 – 20: Improving blogging effectiveness

To make sure that you don’t miss any of these upcoming posts, just leave your e-mail here:

Lesson 5: Describe the value-potential for your proposed target audience
Defining the type of blog one is after (Lesson 2),  target audience one is aiming for (Lesson 3), as well as the focus of two-thirds of the content on your blog (Lesson 4) are all crucial first steps.

Here the focus is on why anybody would want to read your blog, instead of going to the beach or getting another customer to sign on the dotted line.

Google may have a blog I need to read because it provides 80 percent of my webpage’s search traffic – if it changes something in its technology that will affect my blog’s traffic I need to know right away.

The issue is also whether one reads the blog for entertainment value (e.g., a blog about one’s favorite online game, gossip blog about sitcom TV show, etc.), professional purposes (e.g., keeping abreast of the latest developments in one’s industry) or some other reason. A corporate blog can probably serve either group. Nevertheless, the key question is how it will help you sell more product or build the corporation’s reputation, visibility, brand and trust. Jot down a few sentences and see if your thoughts make sense to other team members.

Lesson 6 – define which strategic objectives can be supported by the blog
Make clear whether the blog is supposed to support sales or help build greater visibility for the brand.

GM is trying to make sure that no unsubstantiated rumors make the news, which serves the sole purpose of defusing rumors and correcting misstated facts as quickly as possible.

GM’s ‘tell it straight’ blog was intended to make sure that the world, including customers, taxpayers and investors, got the facts about its business negotiations before filing for bankruptcy protection in the US. Its primary focus is helping the firm survive in one form or another by getting the company’s viewpoint across. Most people would agree it has succeeded.

Lesson 7: Define which actionable metrics will be applied based on rules 1-6

To see how well your blog measures with these actionable metrics register your blog here:

My.ComMetrics.com – benchmarking your blog – sign up for FREE

An example of actionable metrics is when getting information that triggers a decision or action, such as finding out that one train to Point B departs at 8:05 and the next at 9:05. Depending on which train is chosen, one must leave home at a certain time to get to the station in time. The information is the basis on which the user makes a decision and takes action based on that decision. In business, failing to meet sales figures this quarter may result in the company deciding to put its workforce on a shorter work week for next quarter.

Besides following the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle, for a blog this means one needs SMART (Specific, Manageable, Actionable, Relevant, Trending) metrics for web and blog analytics. Accordingly, unless a drop in unique visitors last month results in some action to counter this effect why use this metric (Unique visitors come in many guises)? In fact, less traffic on a blog could be worth more in the end – if it’s the right kind of traffic (e.g., people feeling okay to buy product).

These days we tend to have too many metrics that are not used to make choices or decisions that result in actions to remedy the problem (see also Social media – metrics to know and metrics to skip – FAQ #2). Instead, it is smarter to focus on a  few indicators that result in actions, depending on the data one gets. Examples are:

the ComMetrics Footprint (see 2009 FT ComMetrics Blog Index),
the ComMetrics Health Check, and
the ComMetrics Return on Connection.

Composite indicators have their weaknesses but they are widely used for various reasons including, but not limited to, simplifying complex issues.

Okay, now it’s your turn. What techniques you have used in improving blogging effectiveness? What was your most successful “let’s do this and move on” tactic? If you have come close to resolving these challenges smartly, what did you do? Which of the above four strategies is your favorite? Which one do you think is just baloney? It’s okay – be honest. We can take it. Thanks much.

P.S. – Of interest to you would be our next set of ropes to skip: 3) Lessons 8 – 11: Whatever domain or home you choose – beware (2009-07-08).