8 simple tips to leverage email for your blog

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, small businesses, general public.

So you’ve finally decided to start blogging for your nonprofit.

You’ve done the research about different blogging platforms, and had even outlined a strategy for topics that are based on what your supporters want and how people search for you on Google.

But you’ve got one small problem: Who’s going to write all of these blog posts?

This is a question most nonprofits have when starting a blog, so you’re not alone.

The good news is that, hidden within in the thousands of emails you’ve sent over the past few years, exists fodder rich in blogging nutrients.

Blogging fodder in your sent folder

If you go back to your blog strategy, you realize that your main objective for blogging is to answer the most common questions in ways that are very specific and useful. The more specific the question, the more useful the answer will be, which means more readers and higher rankings in search.

Chances are you’ve already answered these questions over and over and over again in email.

Here are eight steps to converting these emails into blog posts:

Select your fodder

1Find the emails that contain answers that would be useful to anyone, and not just the recipient. For example an email answering a question from a breast cancer patient about what to eat during chemotherapy.

Write the title

2Writing the title first helps you focus on the specific topic throughout the writing process. You’re not locked into it, but it gives you a starting point.

Carve out the leftovers

3You might realize that more than one blog post resides within a given email. If this is the case, simply save the rest of the email for another blog post.

Trim the fat

4Cut the flab. A good target is to cut down the word count down by 50 percent. You can do this.

Add subheadings

5For the most part, people scan the Web – they don’t read it. Make sure you break up your blog posts with subheadings every two paragraphs (as in this example).

Add an image

6I’ve done a lot of A/B testing around images at the top of blog posts, and have generally found that images help readers stick around longer. Find an image that captures the essence of your article and place it just under the title. They’ll also make your post more sharable.

Optimize your meta-tags

7A title tag is the main title of a webpage that search engines index. It’s visible in the title bar of a browser and in the headings of search engine results (as shown below).

Get another pair of eyes

8Have a friend or another staff member read your blog post and ask them what to cut or add. Time how long it takes for them to read your post.

Done beats perfect

At some point, you will need to hit the Publish button. Don’t go for perfect. Perfect never gets done. Instead get your blog post to about 70 percent of where you want it. In other words, get it to where it’s a little better than “good enough.” Then hit publish.

What do you think?

The post How to turn email content into blog posts appeared first on Socialbrite.

Bring authority & visibility to your site’s search results

Target audience: Nonprofits, cause organizations, foundations, NGOs, social enterprises, businesses, educators — anyone with a website.

If your nonprofit team creates content on the Web, then your biggest challenge is to have people find you in search. And, let’s get super obvious here: That means you want them to literally click your link and arrive on your site, right?

Now, the first challenge to overcome is showing up on the first page of Google search results, given that about 97 percent of people never click through to the second page of results. (To dig deeper into search engine optimization for your site, see our articles on SEO.)

But the challenges don’t end there. If you create original content, someone, somewhere, at some point has ripped off your material and republished it as their own. Or perhaps they’re a partner site that has your permission to republish your content. Google, Bing and the other search engines often have a hard time determining who published it first and who’s the rightful owner. In other words, whose link should appear higher in the search results? Let’s call that the authentication challenge.

A third and final barrier for you to overcome is the differentiation challenge. Why should a user click on your link vs. the one right above or below it?

Claiming authorship to increase exposure & authority

The smarties at Google have come up with some solutions that you should be employing on your own website or blog, if you haven’t done so already. They’ve laid out a fairly simple process that you can follow to basically claim ownership of your own digital stuff. It begins with Google Authorship, also called Authorship Markup. Let me explain.

Google Authorship sounds daunting, but it’s simply a way for you to verify with Google that the content across the Web that you created is yours. Google will then show your content — and your authorship — in its “author rich snippet search results.” See the image at top for how this looks. Claiming your content will not only help you in the short run with better click-through rates for your content, but it will also help you to build AuthorRank with Google.

As social marketer Mark Traphagen writes: “All that content begins to contribute to a score that Google maintains for you that is their assessment of your trustworthiness, relevance, and popularity in your key topics. Once AuthorRank kicks in as a ranking factor, it will serve as an additional signal to Google that your highly-trusted content should rank higher in search.”

Now, this process is fairly straightforward when you’re the sole content creator at your site or blog. But what if you run a multi-author site or blog, like Socialbrite?

4 steps to tie Google Authorship to your Google Plus account

Google has outlined how this process works in only the sketchiest terms — and in a somewhat misleading way. (For instance, you don’t need a byline.)

Here are the four simple steps we took to claim Google Authorship on our multi-user blog:

1The first step involved gathering up all the Google Plus profile page urls of all my partners. It turned out everyone was already on G+. Here, for example, is my Google Plus profile page. It’s not a friendly url — you’re a number, not a name — so just copy and paste the whole thing. If you don’t have a G+ profile, go to http://profiles.google.com and click “Create my profile.”

2On your website or blog, you have to map each of your authors to their individual G+ profile page. For us, the simplest way to do that was to go into each writer’s user page in the WordPress dashboard and add this link to the Author tagline field:

Follow her on Google Plus

A few things to note:

• Author tagline is not the same across all WordPress themes, so there may be a different field that works instead, like Biographical bio, for instance. Test it out and see what works for you. (You can see how the author tagline displays at the bottom of this article.)

• Once you’ve gotten this working, you’re done — it’s a one-time task rather than something you have to insert with each post.

• Don’t forget to add ?rel=author to the end of the url (some people say that ?rel=me also works).

• The name you use on your site or blog (in the fields on your User page) should exactly match the name you use in your G+ profile.

3Instruct your contributors to go to their G+ profile page. Click on the blue Edit profile button, then scroll down until you see Contributor to. It’s easy to miss: Look for it between Other profiles and Links (see image at right). Click the Contributor to area, then Add custom link, and type in the name of the site and the url of the overall site, not your profile page on the site. For us, it was simply: Socialbrite and http://socialbrite.org/. Click Save, and you’re done. However, Mark Traphagen recommends that you add a + sign to the blog name and link specifically to the author bio page on your site. Our pointing to our home page may have worked because of the WordPress theme we use.

Optional plug-in step (if you need it): While our Twenty Eleven theme (and similar themes) is already configured for AuthorSure, making the use of an Author plug-in unnecessary, most WordPress themes out there will probably require the use of a plug-in. Options include Google authorship for multiple authors and WP Google Authorship plug-in.

4The final step is to test to make sure all of this worked. Go to the Structured Data Testing Tool (also called the Rich Snippets Testing Tool) and enter the url of one of your blog posts or articles. Examine the results to see if your author photo shows up.

Here is how Deltina tested one of her articles on our sister site, Socialmedia.biz:

A few final tips to optimize your content for Google search

Within a couple of days, when Google next indexes your site or blog, you should start seeing your author image appearing in search results on topics you’ve written about. This four-step process solves both challenges I mentioned at the top:

• Authentication: Google now knows, “Oh, you wrote this and it appeared on your blog, so we’ll display this post instead of a different post with the same content.”

• Differentiaion: Multiple studies have shown that users’ eyes are drawn to imagery, so your article will now attract more attention in search results. (See How optimizing my ugly Google+ pic increased free traffic 35%.)

Google Webmaster Tools outlines a series of steps to claim Authorship, as well as G+ author guidelines (thanks for the pointers, Kevin Marks!), but we think our 4-step process above is simpler, especially if you have a multi-user blog.

A few final tips:

• Thumbnail: Make sure you have a good close-up mugshot of yourself as the main image on your Google Plus profile page. This will be the image that Google pulls to insert into search results next to your blog post or article. Make sure it’s a photo, not a drawing, and one that shows your face, not a bucolic landscape or your pet. We read articles suggesting that your G+ profile image should be the same as your author image on your blog or website (if you use one), but that’s not true — at least, not for us.

• Public +1: On your G+ page, Google recommends adjusting your settings to make the +1 page of your profile public. That page displays anything that you have publicly “+1ed” on the Web.

• Results: Google doesn’t guarantee that your author photo will always show in results. Results may vary depending on a wide range of factors.

• Guest posts: Deltina suggests: “If you do a guest post on another blog, it is best to use the rel-author in your link back to your G+ account, and link from your G+ account directly to the article.”

• Other rel tags: You may want to dive deeper and learn how to create “rel=publisher” tags as well on your site. Here’s another pointer on how to add rel-publisher tags.

Make sense? Helpful or confusing? Let us know if you’re started using rel-author tags for your blog.

Cross-posted to Socialmedia.biz.

The post Why you should add author tags to your nonprofit’s blog appeared first on Socialbrite.

Target audience: Nonprofits, NGOs, cause organizations, social enterprises, businesses, Web publishers, bloggers, individuals

4 Blog conference sessions. The surest way to attract a community is to be part of the community when events and conferences are happening. Live-blog sessions you attend, or ask others to do so and post to the blog. Use the session’s Twitter hashtag and tweet that you are live-blogging certain sessions. Those following the conference online will refer to your blog as a source of session content, expanding your organization’s usual reach.

5 Remember you ABCs: Always Be Commenting. Reply to (almost) every blog comment. Readers comment on your blog post because they want to be recognized, add to the conversation, and be considered. Replying to comments can lead to other interesting discussions within the blog posts’ comments, and deepening a reader’s engagement with your blog and its content. No need to reply to every person who writes, “great post!” Instead, comment after a few of these types of comments are up.

6 Ask for blog comments. Don’t be afraid to ask for comments. Send a DM on Twitter to people you know would be interested in a certain blog post. Ask Twitter and Facebook followers and fans to comment as you share the post. If there is a great discussion happening in the blog comments, tweet that out and ask for even more comments!

7 Friend and acknowledge your commenters. Once you begin to see regular readers commenting on the blog, seek them out and friend them in your social spaces. Follow them on Twitter, connect on Linkedin, comment on their blogs. Periodically send a public shout out to those who comment. You could even recognize them in a tweet such as this: “Great comment from @username on today’s blog. Thanks!”

8 Install an easy-to-use social commenting system. Disqus and Facebook comments are two very easy-to-use commenting systems that are inherently social. Once users are logged into Facebook or Disqus, the comments are publicly shown either on Facebook feeds or the Disqus network.

9 Include a “recent comments” widget on the sidebar of your blog. Highlighting recent comments sends the message that your blog already has a blog community. I’ve installed the Disqus “recent comments” widget within Community Organizer 2.0’s sidebar for that very reason.

10 Post the latest blog posts to your organization’s social spaces. A recent case study implied that autoposting to Facebook may decrease views, so be sure to post manually the latest from your blog to Facebook and Twitter. Consider also posting great blog comments to your Facebook Wall and other social spaces.

11 Show blog post retweets on the sidebar of your blog. Consider creating a Twitter feed that pulls in all the blog post retweets as a way to show that your blog already has a community of readers.

12 Give out some link love. Though linking out a lot is not always recommended as a good SEO practice, linking will get your blog noticed. Especially when your blog is relatively new or unknown, don’t be afraid to create links to other blogs your readers will recognize. When you link to others, the blog owner is usually notified of the link and will often take a look at your blog. This is a simple way to get your organization’s blog onto the radar of other industry blog owners.

The post 12 ways to develop a loyal community for your blog appeared first on Socialbrite.

Starting a blog for your nonprofit is not something you should take lightly.

Based on my conversations with nonprofits, I’ve found a number of pros and cons.

The pros of starting a blog for your nonprofit

1. Blogs are much less expensive to host and manage than traditional websites – and most hosting companies feature one-click installation of WordPress.
2. WordPress is so incredibly flexible that you can build an entire website on WordPress – especially if you add on a premium theme like Headway.
3. Updating content and functionality with WordPress requires almost no knowledge of code, so you’ll save money on IT.
4. This ease of maintenance adds to the sustainability of your organization.
5. Having a WordPress blog includes access to thousands of free software tools (plug-ins and widgets).
6. These plug-ins and widgets are easy to activate and deactivate. This means that you can try out functionality on your site without wasting time and money on custom web development.
7. Instead of waiting for your IT intern to return your call, you’ll be empowered to communicate urgent news very fast with your blog.
8. You’ll empower your board members to talk about why they love your cause and what it means to them personally. Donors tend to trust organizations that exhibit this sort of honest transparency.
9. You will experience a spike in the number of visits and depth of engagement from your fans.
10. An increase in donations generally correlates with increased engagement.
11. A blog is usually a good steppingstone to developing a private online community.
12. Your blog will enable you to deepen relationships with your fans. They’ll find fresh, relevant content that is useful to them – and have a place where they feel heard.
13. You can trash your marketing theory in exchange for real insight into why donors give you money.
14. Your blog will become a powerful way to attract new visitors – especially as the blog attracts more subscribers and commenters.
15. You can more effectively enable content for the sharing web with sites like Posterous and Facebook.
16. Your blog can be a tool to enhance valuable partnerships with other nonprofits.
17. A blog can enhance SEO with fresh content and inbound links.
18. You’ll be able to refine your nonprofit’s story over time through regular blogging.
19. Asking staff to share their thoughts on the blog is a tangible way to enhance retention.
20. A blog will help you refresh and refine your passion – which is the whole point. Right?
21. A blog uses RSS technology, which makes syndication of your content really simple.

The cons of starting a blog for your nonprofit

1. Updating versions, plug-ins and themes is extremely easy but still requires someone to complete these tasks on a regular basis.
2. Even though measuring engagement is relatively easy, you’ll need to have someone consistently measure the effectiveness of your blog posts.
3. You’ll need to make a commitment to regularly update content on the blog. Even if you post only once a week, it’s still a task that will have to be completed – consistently.
4. Blogging requires focusing on specific goals – getting found in search, engaging with constituents – for the long term.
5. Even though there are plenty of great sources, blogging requires understanding and keeping up with best practices.
6. You have to constantly come up with creative ways of producing fresh, engaging content.
7. You’ll have to be willing to respond to and manage comments on the blog. As with content creation, responding to comments on a blog takes up staff time and resources.
8. There may be difficult questions that require transparency. Once you start a blog, you’ll notice that in addition connecting better with supporters, you’ll also find a few critics.
9. Blogging can mean a steep learning curve. Managing a WordPress blog and writing quality content may take time, particularly if you have SEO goals.

What pros and cons can you share?

Cross-posted from JohnHaydon.com.

The post Should you start a blog for your nonprofit? appeared first on Socialbrite.