Know-How Exchange : Website Critique

Now Steve, as for your blog itself. First, the photo is fine, and a very nice touch that all the authors have a photo. This is often overlooked, but readers want to see who they are 'talking to'. And I noticed that your blogroll actually has NON-COMPANY LINKS! This is a great move, and most companies simply want to promote their own products and services on the sidebar.

I noticed you're not getting a lot of comments. Feedback from readers is the fuel that makes a company blog run. So if readers aren't commenting, it might simply be because they aren't aware that your blog exists (What? They didn't get the memo?).

Try doing this; every time a reader leaves a comment on your blog, go leave one on their's. Leave comments on Daily Fix (Marketing Profs' blog). Make a list of blogs that you think your readers would probably read, and leave comments there. This is a GREAT way to promote your blog, because when I am reading a blog's comments and I see an insightful and intelligent comment from someone, the first thing I will probably do is click on their name, and go back and check out their blog.

After you begin leaving comments on other blogs, you will begin to see visitor referrals from other blogs that you have commented on. Then you'll probably start to see some incoming links from readers that have checked out your blog, and are linking to one of your posts.

The bottom line is, don't be afraid to LEAVE your blog, in order to have reader come back to you. Yes I know it seems counter-intuitive to leave your blog in order to increase traffic, but it's all about being a good community member. If you take the time to leave insightful and intelligent comments on another person's blog, they will want to return to your blog, and do the same thing.

Steve I think you are doing a lot of things right with the SalesVision blog. I think at this point you need to concentrate on building awareness of the blog. Following the above steps should help you get where you want to be.

Mack

Hi Everyone

I've got a posting on the way which will thank everyone and close the question.

Sorry for my absence - all will be revealed!

Steve Alker

Dear Colleagues

I must apologise for failing to return to my own question for such an extended period. I’m afraid that a couple of personal family matters have taken my eye of all the balls I juggle and until yesterday I was, to say the least, a bit distracted.


As my daughter demonstrated just how to cope through such a time by sailing through her first ever dressage competition and gaining 4th prize, its time for me to put things right here!

I have been heartened and encouraged by the feedback and most importantly I have learned a great deal about the art, the purpose and the commercial ramifications of the blog. Here are some bits of detailed feedback, after which I will close the question.

Katie: (Info)

If I wrote as I speak, I’d be here all day! But your point about long sentences is very appropriate. When I’m writing PR or articles, unless my aim is to baffle, I have to make a conscious effort to keep things short.

Kathleen (KSA) Thanks for the reassurance about the picture. Actually some of my best photographs are be-suited but, oh dear, I has been such a long time. I’ll take Juliet’s advice from later on in that it does make me look a bit stuffy, though. As to the content – getting the anchor text issue sorted out is something I’ve asked Nesh (Neshinator on this site) to sort out. I will put in more questions – to date, feedback has come almost exclusively directly to me, and so I need to work on getting readers to contribute on the site itself. The challenges for topics are a great idea and one which I will expend on. I also need to increase the consistency of my writing, which, thanks to the fact that I’ve got the hang of the medium, will be a lot easier. As to the rest of your appraisal of what we were trying to do and the message we are attempting to get over – you summarised the issues brilliantly and in such a way that we will, with your permission use them in brief explanations of our intent. Thanks.

John (Skoobie99) Wow – I on the basis of the photo, I’ll go for that chairmanship of a fortune 500 company for which I’ve been asked to chuck my hat into the ring! That the blog does not and is not intended to sell anything by itself is reassuring. I spend a lot of time on carefully executed sales and marketing activities where my only intent is to sell or raise awareness, as I also spend time analysing reasons why clients fail to achieve these goals though their own activities. If I can bring humour and illumination to readers, then it should be mission accomplished.
Matteo (matteo la rosa) Nesh has seen your comments and they will be considered for our next web-review. The site is young and changing all the time, so constructive feedback is always welcome. We shied away from asking for a critique, because the companies experience from other websites was the provision of bitchy and unconstructive criticism. MarketingProfs is different, but once bitten, twice shy. Oh, and I’ll stick to the personal aspects. That’s horse riding, hunting, shooting, fishing, shooting people who won’t pay up and more recently, learning the last movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata (An antidote of nieces and nephews who put me through their mangled rendition of the first movement. I can then go, “Tried this bit?”)

Juliet (Juliet) I hope that you too go for a site and a blog! Yes, the picture does make me look rather ancient and professorial, but do remember, whilst you are only 15 years older since I used to be the only-bloke-in-a-suit-with-a-mobile-phone visiting Hilly and yourself at Stirling University, I have meanwhile aged about 100 years! As to what would happen if SalesVision didn’t have a blog? Well, initially, I didn’t understand this bit. The site would certainly be less interesting, but perhaps your colleagues have pointed out the real value and that it has a vital part to play in the whole internet-marketing scheme of things. It would take only one of my “Off Guard” comments in a posting to put me on the front page of “The Sun” Now there’s a thought!

As for responses – they have been off-site. I would love to get to the stage where people will respond with comments, but that might come with time. I’ve also avoided asking for people to add their comments via posting on other sites as I think that kind of promotion is wrong. I have asked a couple of MP members to contribute, but we are not yet ready to post initiating blog items from people outside the SV family. Perhaps when we do, we could add the feminine touch from you!?

Mack (Mack Collier) Thanks for the advice and pointers – I checked out your link and found it to be most informative. So-far, apart from in-house advice (Which has been excellent) and pointers arising from this question, the only other source of tuition has been from Yaro Starak, self proclaimed blog master, whose emails arrive along with the “Male Anatomy Enhancement Products” and the others which offer to “Un-enhance my waistline”. I looked up Starak who seemed to have a reasonably good press (Apart from his spamming) until I spotted him juxtaposed to an internet con-artist called Casey Serin who seems to go around getting himself declared bankrupt at other people’s expense. Pity about that, Yaro.

Tricky things these blogs!

However, back to your site, there’s a lot of wisdom there and I’ll be recommending it to others who ask about on-line sources for getting this new media right.

The non-company links was George and Nesh’s idea with the thinking being that as what we offer is unique (Unless you add an extra zero to the cost and then slash about 20% of the capabilities) we have little to fear from linking to other sites. We are not very advanced in the process, but we do intend to try to make the linking bi-lateral. I think that a vital point is that we must join up with other blogs which interest us. It’s rare that a job offers one the chance to be paid to pontificate. Unless you are a journalist, that is. Thanks again for a lot of pointers.

Natasha (NatashaChernyavskaya) I am actually very glad that I am not expected to sell through my blog and having that reaffirmed a few times here is reassuring. I’m one of these people who bristle at the phrase, “I’m not trying to sell you anything” because the caller or writer is usually lying. In any case, if I’m going to sell something, I tell the listener or the reader. The only fib I tell is that I’m no good at it.

Your own example of a Blog was really clear and accessible. I see what you mean about a sense of humour along with business and serious things. I’ll visit you again, but will have to interdict my daughter from your site, lest her taste in exquisite things busts my Amex card!

Jennifer (jpoyer) Thanks again for the comment – I’ll go for more grass roots stuff and keep up the humour. It harks back to University days, when I wasn’t the most eloquent or best informed debater, but I usually won the division at the end. Usually because I made the floor (The audience and those who cast their vote) laugh. They laughed with me and at the motion. I was feeling particularly horribly, I’d get them to laugh at my opponents. Humour won the day and all the way to getting me elected as Senior Vice President, which really is a laugh a minute!

I’ll keep the question open for another day in case there is any feedback or in case you want points for insulting me (!), but in the meanwhile, thanks again for all your insights and your time.

Steve Alker
SalesVision

Dear Colleagues

The time has come the walrus said--- well the time has come to close the question and again to thank the many contributors, between you, you have answered all my questions and calmed my misgivings about entering into a blog for the first time. I sincerely hope that I am able to put into practise the many tips and pieced of advice which I have been fortunate enough to receive.

Some final comments:

Enigma (Enigma007) your three questions are extremely useful. I’ve often felt that one of the best ways to proffer advice is to ask the supplicant for what they actually think about the ideas you put forward. After all, it is how structured selling works and personal advice which ends up coming out of my own mouth is far more likely to stick and be more appropriate than any amount of well argued instruction or direction from experts. That said, I have truly appreciated the advice already given.

Your last point about not selling or repeating a blatant sales message in my blog is also most welcome. I spend an awful lot of time visiting and talking to prospects with an un-hidden agenda to excite their interest in sales vision and to close them on a purchase. To carry on in like mode in the blog will be counter productive. Just as it is 10 times harder to sell to a seminar than it is to sell one-to-one (Out of those 10 people, 9 are likely to discover that I am addressing someone else’s concerns, so they switch off.)

I will therefore concentrate on the other aspects of blog content expounded by you and other MP fellows in order to produce stimulating and interesting material which has the chance of appealing to all. The readers can get the sales pitch when I come to discuss their forecasting methodology (Or lack of it) in face to face meetings.

Kathleen (KSA) Thanks for your concern about my family matters. I’m pleased to be able to tell you that the first indications put Hilary in the clear, so we are thanking God and our lucky stars that this is half way to resolving itself. She has furher hospital tests next Tuesday, so I will be hoping that they have an outcome which is equally successful and reassuring. Again many thanks for your contributions and your permission to utilise your concise description of what we are trying to achieve. I will try to keep you posted about the results as I have set myself a hefty target next week to explain our proposition to about 200 prospects!

It is now time now to close. The benefits of the information I’ve been offered here are undoubted, so I will attempt to let you know about the progress I make with developing sales from my semi-warmed up list.

Best wishes


Steve Alker
SalesVision