Lots of companies benefit from having a blog. For some, it’s a friendly, accessible way to say hi to devoted fans, curious onlookers and likely a few haters and skeptics. For others, it’s simply the way they communicate important messages. The role of public relations professionals in this chatty puzzle is to help companies build, shape and fine-tune their public voice. In fact, many PR campaigns aren’t complete without a blog strategy. But building a client blog from the ground up can be daunting. So where do you begin?

Start, With Help

When it comes to picking out a blog platform, there are certainly plenty to choose from, but Jeff Davis, who runs the content services team at San Francisco-based PR firm LaunchSquad, generally points clients towards WordPress, a mostly-free, open-source platform. Davis also makes another point: When you’re just starting out, don’t go DIY. “If you’re building something strategic for a client, even if it’s small scale, hire a WordPress developer to handle set up, find the right plugins and design a nice UI. It can be fairly inexpensive and is critical to building a blog that will work the way you need it to quickly and effectively.”

With a bit of help, WordPress’ initial set up process is simple and fast, and yet it offers a huge range of customization and configuration options. And with thousands of plugins, there is one that will satisfy any need that you can think of, often for free. For those who are coordinating blogs for multiple clients, WordPress also offers admin features for easy management across the board.

Optimize, But Not Too Much

According to Rich Brooks, President and “Chief Blogging Officer” at Flyte New Media, your SEO practices should have a very simple goal: rank high in search results for the things that your client’s customers are looking for. He recommends starting with a keyword analysis service like Raventools, WordTracker or Google Adwords’ keyword tool.

You want to pick one keyword topic per post, mentioning it once in the post title and once in the body of the post. Be sure to link important words to past posts as well, but keep it to one or two internal links at most. Beyond that, make sure you’ve got the WordPress SEO plugin installed and place the rest of your focus on working with your client to create engaging content.

Make It Worth Sharing

The company and product news that grace the vast majority of corporate blogs can certainly be both useful and good, but it’s just a tiny snippet of what is possible and inspiring. Arik Hanson, principal at ACH Communications, recommends considering content that is less about your client’s product, and more about the “culture that surrounds” your client’s product.

Hubspot, a company that offers inbound Internet marketing software, is a prime example. Its blog offers up creatively packaged, practical information that appeals to its very own target audience. Readers will find witty, educational posts, videos, guest contributions and even cartoons that cover everything from SEO and lead generation to Charles Darwin and cupcakes.

As you work together with your client to determine the content and focus of the blog, you should ask two key questions:

• Who is going to read it?
• What kinds of topics and issues do they care the most about?

There are tons of ways to develop an ongoing flow of engaging blog content, especially if your client is willing to talk about something other than the company. Don’t be afraid to pull in experts for Q&As, give spots to guest authors, respond to news and timely topics, share the spotlight with partners and customers and provide educational how-tos. And of course, we all love lists.

Think Like a Media Property

Davis says that there are times when a company blog can fill a pretty significant informational void. In 2009, Boston-based PR agency March Communications launched a blog for client TuneUp, which makes PC utilities for consumers. After conducting some market research, the company learned that when faced with PC problems, many people turned to forums and blogs to end up finding unverified and even potentially harmful solutions. The goal of the TuneUp blog was to become a reliable source of information for PC users who want to improve performance. The team brought on an external, experienced editor-in-chief to ensure editorial quality, and it placed the majority of the blog’s focus on helping users solve real problems. Since launch, more than 170,000 people have visited the TuneUp company blog to find answers to their PC questions and concerns.

Build Your Own Newswire

Traditionally, when a company has news to share, the official statement comes in the form of a press release. However, a carefully-written, information-rich blog post can play a similar role. Andrew Sinkov, VP of marketing at Evernote, explains that “your blog can be your own newswire.” A pre-published draft of a blog post, shared with reporters under embargo, is a legitimate source for news. Last month, Evernote used a blog post as the “news announcement” for the launch of its redesigned web app, with an embargo set for the time the post was to be published. Instead of having the information live on a wire somewhere, the Evernote blog is the ultimate source for Evernote news. The announcement post has since been viewed over 17,000 times.

The benefit of incorporating blog posts into your news announcement strategy is that it’s an opportunity to share the news in the client’s voice. “You write a blog post like it’s coming from you. You’re telling a story, you’re talking to someone. If you’re excited about something, that personal excitement comes through,” says Sinkov. This doesn’t mean that blog posts should replace press releases, it simply means that they should not be overlooked. So if you’ve got a press announcement and a blog post all drafted up and set for a big launch, make sure the reporters who cover your news get to see them both.

Turn Your Readers Into Viewers

Some of us and/or our clients might have the luxury of a video-savvy person on staff — but many do not yet. Not having a dedicated video pro doesn’t mean you can’t post videos, which are a great way to engage an audience. Whether it’s a user offering her own how-to, a customer waxing poetic about how great your client’s product is, an employee explaining why people should want to work there, or the CEO talking about his favorite kind of ice cream (or his company vision, for that matter), video tells a story in a way that text often cannot match.

Steve Garfield, author of Get Seen: Online Video Secrets and the first-ever video blogger, explains that video is easier than ever to capture. Any smartphone will do as a start. For example, capture a video on an iPhone, pull it into the iMovie app to trim the clips and layer in photos and sound, upload it to YouTube directly from the app and embed it in a blog post. Keep it short and sweet — 30 to 60 seconds at most. Garfield also recommends the Kodak Playfull, a simple camera with built-in editing and sharing features.

The best advice here is to be ready to experiment. Blogs can be casual, and captured video can be real, authentic and less-than-perfect. Companies are made of people, after all, and all of these same characteristics apply. Pick your device and take it with you when your client is speaking, out at an event, or excited about a new product, and encourage your client to capture video around the office, too.

Some Parting Advice

• Create an editorial calendar that outlines both the types of posts that you would like to see on your client’s blog (video, text, photo), and the post topics. Make sure you’ve got at least two months of blogging covered at any given time, and that there is clear delineation of responsibilities, including someone who is actively maintaining the calendar. And don’t be surprised when the topic pipeline changes, because it inevitably does.
• Come up with a realistic posting schedule. One post per week is a good starting point, and it can go up from there based on time and resources. It is good to be consistent, and it is okay to for some posts to be relatively brief in order to keep things going.
• Determine who your writers are and what amount of time and resources you’ll have at your disposal. Get them to commit to a certain number of posts per month or quarter — and start conservatively.
• Make it as easy as possible for readers to spread your content around and be sure your blog is decked out with all the key sharing plugins.
• Make a list of the top 10 or 15 most influential bloggers in your client’s space. Then, make a habit of sending them a friendly note when a great, relevant post goes up. And be sure to give back to your blogger community by setting up a blogroll and offering “link love” and retweets of great posts that you come across.
• Think like a reporter. Whether you are the main writer of your client’s blog or are working with a handful of people on the client side who do the posting, pay attention to timely topics that come through and share your ideas.

What do you think of blogging for PR? Let us know in the comments below. Share your blogs, as well as your advice for PR professionals who use blogs.

Disclosure: The author works for Launchsquad, and Evernote is one of her clients. Hubspot is a Mashable sponsor.

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Boy…does this suck! I can see getting slapped by Google…who hasn’t had that happen…right? But suspended from ezinearticles.com. WTH. I have since been reinstated and I will show you what I did to get my account suspended in just a minute but let me vent a bit first.

Who here writes ALL there articles for ALL their blogs… raise your hands. OK….three out of three hundred people raise their hands. (oh come on…you saw those hands didn’t you?) And we could go on forever about duplicate content and what is ACTUALLY considered duplicate content.

Now I am not trying to skirt the issue here and I am very aware of what Ezine Articles is trying to accomplish….it just friggin bugs me to the point that I need to write about it.

There…I feel better. So on to how this happened.

I purchased some PLR, put it in a spinner, read it over and gave it a few tweeks, and submitted it (actually it was for a client I am helping out…which is even worse) and wahla! Everything came out good and the content was submitted successfully (if you haven’t submitted and article there… they have a pop-up that says it was successfully submitted)

A day or two latter, here comes a notice that my account has been suspended from further content submission until my account is brought back to good standing.

ARRGGGG. Five articles, with precious back-links, gone from my account because EzineArticles says it was duplicate content. Well we can be honest here right….. someone else just purchased it and submitted it faster than I did. But what really pisses me off is that I genuinely did rewrite a good bit of the content.

Moral of the story… write your own friggin content…or have someone write it for you. Kind-a-like wearing a condom…better safe than sorry.

I’m sure you have a story too so let’s here it below……

I have just tested Daniel Tan’s SEOPressor WordPress Plugin and I can only say, it is a revolutionary! Not only revolutionary,but MANDATORY! If you are serious about making money with your WordPress Websites by scoring high GOOGLE Ranking, you need this plugin, period. I am using it on this website and implementing it on all my other sites as well.

The title “for dummies” is my attempt at self-deprecating humor because I had a lot to learn when I first started and if I can do it I know you can too. This may sound surprising but SEO experts find that getting links from other websites is just as important (if not more) as on page factors such as actual content.

Imagine that, inbound links more powerful or meaningful than actual content. What this means is that the links pointing TO your website from others may be more important than the text on your actual site. As crazy as this might sound, here is the rationale behind it.

In Google’s eyes (they are the largest search engine so we will use them for this example) inbound links are as valuable, if not more so, than content due to the meaning behind the inbound link. The inbound link serves as a “vote of confidence” or “validation” that the content on the page is valuable.

So valuable in fact, that another website chose to link to it and offer it as a reference in their content. This is very strong in the search engines eyes and can move your site up many spots just due to this factor alone.

If you don’t have very many backlinks to your website you may want to get more. The more you have the better so start getting as many as you can. Here are some fast ways to get some inbound links to your site.

• Article marketing.
• Guest blogging.
• Writing and submitting press releases.
• Podcasting.
• Submitting Videos to video sites.
• Commenting on other blogs
• Blog directories
• Link directories
• Interviews on other sites
• Setting up an affiliate program

This can boost your rankings in the search engines and increase your visitors fast. By getting more web traffic, you will earn bigger affiliate checks without having to change anything on your page (other than what you are currently testing) and it won’t cost you anything but your time.

It’s one thing to create great content; it is a totally different thing to create buzz or interaction. If you want to take your business to the next level and “really” drive traffic to your site you need to interact with your customers. Provoke discussion if you have to but make them interact. Once you unveil this super ninja technique its lights out, “bolt the door Katie” cause here comes the flood of traffic!

Seriously, you can really increase the interest level and engagement of your visitors or email list when you ask for their opinions or input and involve them in conversation. This conversation, or feedback, can even be used to guide, tweak, or even create your product or marketing.

It is amazing what people will tell you when you ask them their opinion. It just opens the door to many different areas of information sharing and gathering. Using this information in your marketing can make it seem like shooting fish in a barrel.

Many times we think of the time we take to interact as “wasted”. Nothing could be further from the truth! Interaction does three things, at minimum.

They are:

• Creates Trust
• Builds Credibility
• Makes Price Less Relevant

People trust people they know more about and talk with on a regular basis. The more you have a two way conversation rather than a one way conversation the better off you will be.

Credibility is something you earn and you can’t earn it unless you are engaged. Every email, video, letter, and ad builds your credibility so take it seriously.

Another benefit of interaction is you reduce the relevance of price. People are willing to pay more for a product if they know you and are comfortable with you.

Some of the interactive tools you can use are polls, blogs or a forum. These are the most common but use your imagination to create interactive tools. You can use a whole host of other ideas to get people to interact with you. The key takeaway, interaction creates trust and credibility which in turn boosts sales. People would much rather buy from someone they have talked with (or emailed) and trust than a complete stranger.

Mobile Marketing is being touted as “the next big thing” and the only validation you need is your own quick count of how many people you encounter during the day with mobile devices or a mobile phone. The numbers are staggering.

According to the Mobile Marketing Association a wave of mobile advertising is about to explode, and with good reason. In the past it has been difficult to advertise due to the fragmentation of platforms and carriers. They are finally starting to consolidate and this will make advertising much easier for you and me.

Go anywhere and just admire the mobile community at work. Everyone you pass while driving is talking on a cell phone and look at the numbers while walking through a grocery store or restaurant. Do you think there is potential to reach an audience with your message? Damn right there is.

With all this “hoopla” surrounding mobile marketing and people starting to look for information in earnest  I thought I’d throw together the top 5 blog articles on the subject so you could check them out and see what all the chatter is about.

Here they are as list in Google:

http://www.mobile-marketing-blog.net

http://blog.mobivity.com

http://www.mobilemarketingwatch.com

http://www.punchkickinteractive.com/blog

http://blogs.forrester.com/marketing/mobile_marketing

Part of promoting your website business is getting in front of as many people as possible. While you are there, give them something interesting the read, listen to or watch that will direct them to your website through a link. One of the ways that people like to hear about new sites is through podcasts.

What is a Podcast?

A podcast is a multimedia tool that people can follow. Think of it as audio or video information that you can listen to or view on your computer, your iPod or any other multimedia enabled device. It’s like having your own radio show on your website.

Podcasts can be syndicated using RSS (really simple syndication). This is the same process that people use to keep up with blogs and websites. The RSS feed allows them to receive updates when changes are made on the site so they don’t have to visit every day.

Creating your Podcast

There is software available to help you create your audio and video files. You can embed code for them on your website so others can view them. Beyond the technical aspects, the purpose of the podcast is to present interesting information to your readers in a new and unique way. People browse the Internet to find useful items. They like to read, but would admittedly like to watch or listen as it is a more convenient way to get the same information.

So what will make your podcast stand out? Use engaging dialogue, present relevant topics and use visually appealing props and sets for video casts.

Going Viral

For one, don’t forget the keywords. You want people to be able to find your podcasts when they use their search engines. Even if you are using mainly audio, include keyword optimized titles, tags and links in your podcasts.

Submit your podcasts to directories. Use every avenue to get yourself in front of the public. That includes creating press releases to announce your podcasts if you are introducing them for the first time. Optimizing your press releases and submitting them to free press release sites keeps people finding them even after you are through using them.

Let your existing customers in on the new podcast. Use your email list to keep them in the loop as you unroll your podcast project. Give them links directly to the podcast so they can view it and hopefully pass the link on to others.

Your podcast can be turned into a radio show with regular guest spots. Interview other business owners in your niche and notable online personalities who would be of interest to your readers. A recurring show can increase your traffic and your following.

Want to get people to your website? Create a podcast. Turn it into a radio show or recurring video cast to create a following and gain more traffic to your business.

(Legally Create) Free Email Content for Your Subscriber List!

One of the least known and least used features of Aweber is the Blog Broadcast feature. This feature enables you to plug in your blogs RSS feed into your email list and when you generate a certain number of blog posts it automatically send the article feed to your email subscribers.

This could generate good traffic from your email back to your blog plus keep your subscribers up-to-date on the topics you are writing about.

Recommended Resources: Aweber