Thadz to Speak About Online Marketing at USJ-R

Cebu Teambuilding Services uses the blogging platform to leverage its online marketing efforts. More than 95% of deals closed by Cebu Teambuilding Services are sourced through the teambuildingph.net blog. Because of how successful he is in using blogging as an online marketing tool for Cebu Teambuilding Services, Thadz will talk about blogging for business in the USJ-R forum. His talk will cover topics on identifying blog keywords before starting, setting up the blog, search engine optimization, article writing standards, utilizing social media in optimizing the blog, other free online marketing tools, and blog maintenance. Below is the general outline of the talk.

We used the Keyword Planner tool at Google Adwords to find out which keyword relevant to our business will drive the most traffic. In our case we used the phrase team building as our primary keyword since it is very relevant to what we do as team development consultants. It also has a monthly search volume of 74,000 queries.

Cebu Teambuilding Services went through a very simple process in setting up its blog:

1. Log-in to Google Account or create Google Account.
2. Open blogger.com and follow instructions in setting up a new blog.
3. Purchased domain name at godaddy.com.
4. Synced domain name with blog.
5. Download free template at soratemplates.com and unzip downloaded file template.
6. Set-up free template with blog.

It was necessary to optimize our blog to make sure that they show up on top half of the first page of the search engine results pages. We added meta descriptions, created internal links within our posts, and did some tweaks on blog title, blog description, etc.

Blog articles at teambuildingph.net follow a set of standards. This is to ensure the quality of articles and the optimization of the blog for ranking in the search engine results pages. Articles must follow these guidelines:

1. Minimum article length is 300 words. We use wordcountertool.com to check on this.
2. Keyword density of optimized keyword must be between 1-4%.
3. Optimized keyword must be found in at least 1 heading.
4. Optimized keyword must be entered as one of the labels.
5. Permalink must contain optimized keyword.
6. Use the optimized keyword in the search description.
7. Article must contain at least one external link.
8. Article must contain at least one internal link.
9. Post must contain at least 1 image that has the optimized keyword as <alt> tag

Main keyword: team building (photo borrowed from actioncoach.com)

Social media is a helpful tool that helps optimize the reach of a blog. Following are the social media platforms that we use as part of our online marketing strategy at Cebu Teambuilding Services:

Like us on Facebook

Join our group

Follow us on twitter

Follow our Google Plus page

The premier online forum for Cebuano speakers. It is also among the top websites in the Philippines. We use this as a platform for advertising and brand awareness campaign. Istorya has also allowed us to build a good network in Cebu's online and digital community.

Istorya Forum

We use Google Docs for our online inquiry form. Responses to the form automatically opens up in a Google Spreadsheet. And all these are saved in Google Drive.

Google Drive

Our online communications with clients and colleagues depend heavily on Gmailthadzonline@gmail.com and Google Hangouts.

We use Photobucket as a photo storage. This is also the service we use when we want to post images on forums like Istorya.net.

Photobucket

Most of our facilitators have accounts at Linkedin to project a professional image. We have also created a company page at Linkedin.

Maintaining the blog is a challenge in itself. But it is necessary to create positive habits when maintaining a blog. Habits such as posting articles regularly, checking on site metrics, syncing with social media accounts, and a lot more.

Other Blogging Endeavors