The Marketing Technology Blog

Kudos to Indy Confluence for putting on a great networking event here in Indianapolis yesterday. Unlike most networking events, Indy Confluence led by Brett Healey and Erik Deckers, brought in a panel of folks here in the region to provide some value-added advice to all of its members. This month’s topic was Why is Corporate Blogging Critical to a Company’s Success and I was invited to be on the panel.

The panel was comprised of Chris Baggott, Rhoda Israelov, Rodger Johnson, Kyle Lacy and me.

It was a great discussion but one topic stuck in my craw: How many words should a blog post have?.

The conversation went throughout the table and most of the speakers pushed for pithy posts and the number 250 words was put out there as optimal. As the one ‘long copy’ blogger, I was outvoted by the panel.

For readers of my blog, you know I can’t even set up a blog post in 250 words (this post is a great example). I’ve got a ton of readers, great search engine placement, and a growing number of subscribers - and I’m never pithy! I analyzed the number of words per post and compared it to post popularity on my own blog and never found a correlation.

This time, I decided to look at some other blogs. Not just any blogs, though. I selected the top 5 results on Google when searching for Blogging for SEO. I figure anyone at the top end of that battle will have some consistency to their posts that could provide me with some insight. The five blogs analyzed were SEOmoz, SEO for Google, Online Marketing Blog, Hittail Blog, and the Daily SEO Blog.

Since these blogs are in a high volume search result, I’m assuming that they are both popular and relevant. I pulled the last 10 blog posts per blog for a total of 50 blog posts. This is, in no way, scientific but I believe the results reiterate what I argued during the panel.

Words Per Post Results:

• SEOmoz had an average of 832.3 words per post with a median of 512.5 words per post.
• SEO for Google had an average of 349.7 words per post with a median of 315 words per post.
• Top Rank Blogs had an average of 742.5 words per post with a median of 744 words per post.
• Hit Tail Blog had an average of 255 words per post with a median of 233 words per post.
• Daily SEO Blog had an average of 450.8 words per post with a median of 507 words per post.

The final results are an average of 526 words per post and a median of 447 words per post. Of the 50 posts measured (10 per blog), only 6 of them were less than 250 words. In the past, I’ve proven that the size of the post has not impacted my blog’s readership. Now I’ll say it again, the advice I have for Words per Post is this:

The number of words you write per post should be the number of words it takes to complete the post’s key purpose. I’d add that the number of words per post should be somewhat consistent to meet the expectations of current readers. I don’t count the number of words - I make sure that if someone found my blog post from a search engine result that they get what they came for.

This week I just finished reading Righting the Mother Tongue: From Olde English to Email, the Tangled Story of English Spelling by David Wolman.

You may not know what orthography and etymology are and that’s okay. I know I’m a butcher of grammar and spelling, but this book made me feel quite a bit better about my skills. There are millions of words in the English language, but the average high school graduate knows about 60,000. The fact is that most of us don’t have a clue what the majority of words are in our own language!

Ours is a language that is phonetically incorrect and a near impossible language to learn. Some folks believe that misspelling is a sign of ignorance, but Shakespeare himself used to both invent and misspell words as he saw fit. He felt letters and words were like clay to a sculptor. Imagine if I made up my own redunculous words on this blog, folks would belittle me (right before leaving).

As we move into a new millennium, we find ourselves speaking words with respect to technology that will probably never find themselves in any formalized dictionary… and even the dictionary publishers can’t agree on what makes it and what doesn’t.

If you don’t believe that we’re inventing new words as we go, you simply need to take a look back in time to OK…. or is that Okay… or is that oll korrect or ole kurreck. Just think, your grandchildren may have a part of their daily conversations, rofl, lmao, asap, lol, ttfn.

Don’t believe it? How about the word Scuba, which used to be an acronym for Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. How about Blog, which less than a decade ago was Web log! With the word has come blogger, blogged, blogging and blogware. It’s a fairly exciting time as well because many of the words, acronyms or short codes that are being generated online today are used internationally.

As well, it’s interesting how advertising and marketing need not follow the rules of orthography. We’ve got companies like Google, things like the iPhone and products like Seesmic that are all fully acceptable - yet we have very little tolerance for accidental misspellings in our own content. I think it’s fascinating.

Thank goodness we still can rely on spellcheck!

Eye have a spelling chequer,
It came with my Pea Sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss Steaks I can knot sea.
Eye strike the quays and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am write oar wrong
It tells me straight a weigh.

I’d encourage you to pick up a copy of the book, it’s a fascinating walk through history. David keeps the reading very light. Even more entertaining is that he narrates all of the origins of English as he, himself, visits the places that they were transformed. It’s a great read!

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A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

On Veterans Day, we pay tribute to the service and sacrifice of the men and women who in defense of our freedom have bravely worn the uniform of the United States.

From the fields and forests of war-torn Europe to the jungles of Southeast Asia, from the deserts of Iraq to the mountains of Afghanistan, brave patriots have protected our Nation’s ideals, rescued millions from tyranny, and helped spread freedom around the globe. America’s veterans answered the call when asked to protect our Nation from some of the most brutal and ruthless tyrants, terrorists, and militaries the world has ever known. They stood tall in the face of grave danger and enabled our Nation to become the greatest force for freedom in human history. Members of the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard have answered a high calling to serve and have helped secure America at every turn.

Our country is forever indebted to our veterans for their quiet courage and exemplary service. We also remember and honor those who laid down their lives in freedom’s defense. These brave men and women made the ultimate sacrifice for our benefit. On Veterans Day, we remember these heroes for their valor, their loyalty, and their dedication. Their selfless sacrifices continue to inspire us today as we work to advance peace and extend freedom around the world.

With respect for and in recognition of the contributions our service members have made to the cause of peace and freedom around the world, the Congress has provided (5 U.S.C. 6103(a)) that November 11 of each year shall be set aside as a legal public holiday to honor America’s veterans.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim November 11, 2008, as Veterans Day and urge all Americans to observe November 9 through November 15, 2008, as National Veterans Awareness Week. I encourage all Americans to recognize the bravery and sacrifice of our veterans through ceremonies and prayers. I call upon Federal, State, and local officials to display the flag of the United States and to support and participate in patriotic activities in their communities. I invite civic and fraternal organizations, places of worship, schools, businesses, unions, and the media to support this national observance with commemorative expressions and programs.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirty-first day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-third.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Having worked in Software as a Service over the last decade, much of its popularity comes from a company not having to work through its IT department. “As long as you don’t have to talk to our IT guys!“, is a mantra that I hear often, “They’re busy!“.

Each request is made through the internal process and subsequently met with 482 reasons why it can’t be done. Ironically, these are the same guys that really get annoyed when you look external for the solution!

It begs the question, is your IT department enabling your marketing efforts or is it disabling it? If you’re an IT Director, do you work each day to help your customers or do you simply deny them?

If either answer is the latter, it’s a disturbing trend that I believe is growing. More and more marketers I know are fed up with their IT department. At one business I worked at (which hosted dozens of web servers), we actually went out and purchased an external hosting package.

It’s time to change! Your IT department should be work with you to enable the technology necessary to run your business.

Hat tip to McGee’s Musings where I found the failure video. Thanks for inspiring this post!

Rarely do I meet a successful person that hasn’t had some disastrous failures behind them. Over the years, I’ve learned to measure my success differently than most. I’m successful because I’ve got 2 fantastic children who I’m incredibly proud of and who are already showing potential well beyond my achievements at half my age.

Looking back at my life, though, I believe my success has come because of my failures - not despite them. I’ve got a pretty colorful history and made many bad decisions, but it wasn’t until about 5 years ago that I stopped concentrating and trying to improve what I was bad at and started to figure out what I was great at. I began surrounding myself with folks who judged me for and helped me fine-tune my skills rather than criticize my weaknesses.

In my wake, I’ve was transferred from a high school, busted in rank in the US Navy, had a divorce, started a couple of companies, lost a home and relocated my kids (twice). On the other hand, I held honors-level grades in college, was a decorated and honorably discharged Gulf War Vet, was responsible for growing many successful businesses, had a hand in selling a company internationally, and have had a secure home as a single father with 2 honest and hard-working children.

I’m now fortunate enough to help run a growing company that I helped to build the original business plans for. I’m still not wealthy, nor do I care about being so. My family still lives in an apartment. Any money that I have left over each payday goes to my son’s tuition or is reinvested in new ventures. As long as I have a happy family and a roof over my head, I’m one happy guy!

If you were to ask me the single largest events that changed my life, I have two:

1. My divorce. I was a loving father but never did I show it until I was faced with the possibility of losing my children. My divorce put my entire life into perspective.
2. My resignation from a company. After building up revenues at a local company that were off the chart, I was placed under new management that thought I was a threat and I was ushered out the door. I came home, sat on the couch, and called friend Darren Gray and Pat Coyle.

   Pat put me to work immediately and I’ve never looked back. I also changed my attitude about myself and my worth to a business. I was never an employee again, and continue to work with and for companies that would enrich my life while I worked to enrich theirs.

My advice to any young person is that the sooner you figure out what your strengths are and how to avoid positions or opportunities that don’t capitalize on them, the sooner you’ll find happiness. With happiness comes success.