You know your industry.  You know your audience.  But, do you know how to make your B2B web site start making more money for you?  If you rely on affiliate programs or pay-per-click (PPC) advertising for all or part of your revenue stream, you already know that the hours and dollars you spend on content creation and SEO (search engine optimization) will be spent in vain if the traffic you drive to your site doesn’t purchase from your affiliate merchants, click on your banners, or follow the links in your contextual ads.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of white papers and web sites offer tips for optimizing your content and driving traffic to your B2B site or blog.  Here’s eight surefire strategies for monetizing your B2B web site:

1.  Give the people what they want: Back in the days of Web 1.0, web site operators learned that the key to repeat visitation (the “sticky” factor) is to give your users a compelling reason to come back.  Today’s web sites take those lessons to heart, building member communities, incorporating RSS feeds, and offering specialized, frequently updated content that visitors are hard-pressed to find anywhere else.  But, what if you could apply the “stickiness”  principle to the revenue generating portions of your site?  You know that users of B2B sites go there in search of reliable information that will help them in their jobs.  Why aren’t you charging for papers, case studies, lessons, training, etc.?

2.  Preserve your integrity: Generating revenue shouldn’t mean compromising the user experience.  The messages and offers in banner ads and contextual links from consumer PPC networks can range from mildly off-target to downright embarrassing on a B2B web site.  To preserve your credibility with a highly specialized (and professional) audience, review the ad content on your site just as you would “real” content.  Depending on the placement and prominence of banners and ad modules, an advertisement may be the first thing visitors see when they arrive at your page, so be sure the offers and images presented fit the tone and topic of your site.

3.  Use your time wisely: Many site owners and content managers, B2B and otherwise, spend hours every week pouring over reports and switching out ads in an effort to maximize their site earnings.  While several major ad networks (and some small ones) offer automated widgets and contextual ad modules to help lighten the workload, the options for dedicated B2B networks are limited, and the relevance of consumer offers on B2B sites can be spotty at best.

4.  Take advantage of every touchpoint: Many advertising networks offer only one avenue for monetizing your audience… through the pages of your web site.  But, if you’re like most B2B site operators today, you also communicate with your users through RSS feeds, a blog, email newsletters, and occasional email “blast” updates.  Given the popularity of feed readers, the timeliness and accessibility of blogs, and the still-impressive response rate of legitimate email alerts, taking one-dimensional approach to promotions can mean missing out on significant opportunities to reach users… and leaving significant cash on the table.

5.  Share your expert opinion: Many B2B web site publishers have become trusted sources of information about topics relating to their field of expertise.  Visitors may frequent your site to get insights on industry trends, read the opinions of the site editors, experts or other community members, and keep abreast of happenings in their profession.

6.  Cover all your bases: Consider implementing Google AdSense, Linkshare, the Amazon associates program, or other affiliate-style networks for additional revenue on your site.

Whether your site is an established web presence or just building its online credentials, the key to maximizing your revenue potential is to make the most of the traffic you have.  If you can offer your site visitors revenue-generating content that’s just as valuable and appealing as your primary site content, your revenues will grow along with your traffic.

If you’re in the Dallas area, come check out John Pozazides of One Man’s Blog and founder of Woopra, real-time web site analytics!!!, tomorrow at the WordPress meetup.  He’ll be talking in greater depth about how to monetize your blog and web site!

Creating a business blog that increases your search engine visibility, establishes your credibility, generates quality leads and helps you grow your business.  Yet, too many small businesses and non-profits jump into blogging without a plan in place.  This mistake leads to lots of missteps, false starts and costly errors.  Here are final five of the 10 biggest mistakes small business bloggers make… and how you can avoid them.

6.  They don’t leave comments at other blogs: Leaving intelligent comments on other blogs serves many purposes.  It shows that you’re an active, contributing member of the community.  It generates good will with the blogger in question, and it creates a link back to your own blog.  Why does the link back matter?  If you’ve said something of value, visitors to these blogs will follow the link back to your blog to see what other brilliant insights you might have.  WHAT TO DO:   Leave intelligent, appropriate comments on the blogs you read.  However, if your comment comes across as a crass attempt to lure new prospects to your blog, expect that these other bloggers will delete your comment, and might even ban you from commenting again.

7.  They don’t engage their community: Personally, I don’t believe that comments reflect how effective a blog is.  Certain blogs and topics are just going to attract more feedback than other.  Want comments?  Start a political blog or take a stand on a controversial issue.  However, when people leave comments on your blog, they’re most often responding to something you wrote, or an experience they had with your company.  They’ve taken time out of their day to add to the conversation on your blog.  WHAT TO DO:   When someone leaves a comment on your blog, do your best to follow up with them by answering their question or addressing their issue.  You may also want to email a copy of your response directly to them, in case they don’t revisit that post.

8.  They make it difficult to subscribe: There are two kinds of readers at your blog: those who discover it via a search engine of a link, and your subscribers.  Once someone has subscribed to your blog via RSS or email, your content is delivered to them automatically.  Almost all blogging platforms offer RSS feeds right out of the box, and many also allow your readers to subscribe to the feed via email, delivering each post into their inbox.  However, some small business bloggers don’t enable these tools, or make them difficult to find on the home page.  WHAT TO DO:   If your platform doesn’t offer RSS and/or email options, or if you want more control over your feeds, you can use a third party service like Feedblitz or Feedburner.  Both of these services offer RSS feeds, email feeds, tracking tools and more.  In addition, you’ll want to place your subscription options “above the fold” on your blog, making them easy to find.

9.  They don’t take advantage of social media: A blog is not an island.  It’s part of your social media activity.  These days, sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, Reddit, or StumbleUpon can deliver substantial targeted traffic to your blog.  Ignore this at your own risk.  WHAT TO DO:   Encourage your readers to share your content on a wide variety of social media platforms with a tool like ShareThis.  Although it might seem redundant if you already have ShareThis enabled, you can also get great results from a “TwitThis” or the “Retweet This” button that appears at the top of blog posts encouraging people on Twitter to tweet a link to your post.  Of course, you don’t need to wait for others to promote your post.  However, people who only submit their own work usually don’t see the same level of results as people who also promote the work of others.  If you are going to use StumbleUpon or a similar tool, try and promote other people’s work in an 80/20 ratio to your own.  Trust me on this one…

10.  They measure the wrong things: They focus on how many comments they receive, how many “followers” they have, or how many people have subscribed to their blog.  Comments aren’t customers, and subscribers aren’t sales.  Measure what matters… what moves the bank account.  WHAT TO DO:  Review your business goals, then take a look at your traffic reports to determine if you’re achieving your goals.  If you wanted to increase your search engine traffic, your analytics will show that.  If you wanted to double the number of qualified leads to your web site, your analytics can show you that as well.

Final Bonus: They’re not committed to the blog’s success:   Too many entrepreneurs are excited about the idea of a blog, but aren’t willing to put the work into it that it requires.  Or, they start strong, but after a few months with little to show for it, they cut back on their blogging.  Few blogs are successful in the first six months.  They take time and commitment to the process.  WHAT TO DO:  Budget 3 hours a week to blog for a minimum of six months.  In that time, you should be able to generate at least three posts a week, and leave comments on a handful of related blogs to drive traffic back to your blog.  Don’t use the excuse that you don’t have time.  One of the great things about blogging is that it can be done at off hours.  Fit in some time on the weekends and when the kids are in bed.  Sacrifice a night of TV each week, or eat lunch at your desk and create another post.  It’s your business after all.  Probably, your blog is the most versatile tool in your web marketing toolbox.  It powers both your search engine optimization and acts as your social media hub.

By avoiding these Top 10 11 Marketing Mistakes, and by committing time and resources to your blog, you’ll increase your online visibility, drive more qualified leads to your web site, and help convert those leads into real business.

It’s easy to start blogging… If you’re just wanting to talk about your cat and what you’re planning for dinner, you can start a free Blogger blog.  For businesses who are serious about utilizing blogging to drive sales, blog CMS systems like WordPress, Joomla, and Drupal make it inexpensive, powerful, a snap to learn AND not only host the entire web site, but offer plugins to capture memberships, customer data, facilitate e-commerce and more.

However, it’s a lot more difficult to blog successfully.  Creating a business blog that increases your search engine visibility, establishes your credibility, generates quality leads and helps you grow your business.  Too many small businesses and non-profits jump into blogging without a plan in place.  This mistake leads to lots of missteps, false starts and costly errors.  Here are 10 of the biggest mistakes small business bloggers make… and how you can avoid them.

1.  They blog without a strategy: Blogging is a tactic, not a strategy.  Too many entrepreneurs start blogging because they’ve bought into the hype or they’re playing the “me too” game with the competition.  They have no idea how to create a blog that will attract the right audience or build their business.  Directionless, they flail, wondering why their blog is providing no ROI.   WHAT TO DO:  Answer these questions-  What are your business goals?  Who is your audience?  What problems or concerns does your audience have that you can help solve?  Once you have a clear vision of your business goals, you’ll know if you’re best served by a blog that’s built for inbound marketing, thought leadership, communication, product support, monetization, or some combination of these types.  Once you know your audience, and what they’re looking for, you’ll be able to create content that addresses their questions and problems.

2.  They don’t get their own domain name for their blog: The problem with piggybacking your blog on someone else’s URL, such as mycompany.typepad.com or mybusiness.blogger.com, is that it locks you into that blogging platform.  If that company changes or goes out of business, you’ll lose all of the incoming links you’ve so carefully cultivated.  The most important reason, though, is branding… It’s not your domain name.  You lose a ton of valuable SEO opportunities and it just plain looks unprofessional because domain names are now 9.99 and hosting is cheap.  Finally, you’re losinge control over whatever content management capabilities and functionality you may want to have on your web site and blog.  WHAT TO DO:  From day one, get your own domain name for your blog and make sure it’s set up properly at the CMS system of choice.  Then, if you’re forced to move, you’ll be able to keep all your domain URLs to articles and posts, and all of your incoming links.

3.  They don’t customize or brand their blog’s design: One reason it’s so easy to get started with blogging is that you can start blogging moments after you’ve signed up… as long as you go with the default settings of the blog platform.  From design templates to color choices to pre-chosen categories for organizing your content, a lot of the decision-making process has been simplified or removed for those who want to jump right in.  Unfortunately, these are the same template, the same color schemes and the same categories that so many other bloggers are using… including your competition.  EVERY communication from your company, including your blog, should be representative of your brand.  The more branded, the more customized your blog is, the more authority it radiates.  WHAT TO DO:  If you don’t have a talented designer in house, hire a professional to design a branded blog for your business… incorporated into your company’s web site.  You’ll likely have this blog design for 3-5 years, so it’s worth the price.

4.  They don’t realize how essential SEO (search engine optimization) is to the success of their blog: Search engines will deliver the majority of the traffic to your blog, including almost all of your first visitors.  All too often small business bloggers write content that’s filled with industry jargon or is just out-of-sync with what their prospects are searching for on Google.  These actions result in poor search engine visibility, anemic traffic and little to no new business.  WHAT TO DO:   Start with a keyword analysis to determine what phrases your audience is using at the search engines.  Either hire a search engine marketing firm or use a tool like Keyword Discovery to uncover these phrases yourself.  Writing great content about “rhinoplasty” is pointless if everyone’s search for a “nose job.”  Once you’ve uncovered your best keywords, make sure they go in the titles of your blog posts.  Titles are the most important element of your blog post. Good titles improve your search engine visibility, engage your audience, and often get people to share your content before they even read it!

5.  They don’t read other blogs: Blogs are often the best way to stay on top of trends that affect your industry and your clients’ businesses.  By ignoring these blogs, you’re missing a real opportunity to stay in the loop and establish yourself as an expert.  In addition, by reading other blogs, even ones not in your industry, you can get a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t.  The best chefs eat at other great restaurants.  WHAT TO DO:   Use a blog search engine like Technorati to find blogs in your niche, as well as popular bloggers in other niches.  Subscribe to the ones you enjoy through the RSS feed or email subscribe box.  This way you can keep track of dozens of blogs every day without having to visit each one.  Not sure how to subscribe to an RSS feed?  Watch this video.

That’s enough for everyone to absorb today… check back tomorrow for the rest of the 10 biggest mistakes.

The Society of Digital Agencies (SoDA) has just published its 70-page “2010 Digital Marketing Outlook” and here are some key takeaways:

Online Marketing Spending
* In 2010, two-thirds expect to spend the same or more than in 2009.
* Approximately 70% plan to increase (1-30%) or significantly increase (30%+) their unpaid/earned/proprietary media.
* The top priorities in 2010 will be social networks/applications and digital infrastructure.

Emerging Trends
* Customer experience will be more important than ever.
* Storytelling will evolve – location will become a key component; the speed at which stories are developed is crucial; and above all, emotional connections matter.
* The beginning of the end of the banner ad.
* Branded content syndication will replace some paid media.
* 40% of opportunity is mobile

Social Media
* Social is becoming increasingly mobile.
* Measurement will be more important than ever.
* Real-time search is inextricably linked to the “statusphere.”
* Forms of content consumption will continue to be fractured; the nimble marketer will need to be in as many places as possible.

In addition, the major trends will be Mobile, Location, Transparency, Measurement, ROI, and Privacy all wrapped up in social media looking less “social” and more exclusive… Obtaining value while filtering out the clutter.  Businesses will begin to leverage the wealth of data we share about ourselves to deliver individualized messages.

Let’s say that your company is brand new.  Or is launching a brand new product and you feel the need for an alternative web presence to your company’s main site.  What is the FIRST STEP you should take in today’s Web 2.0 world?  Establish a Corporate Blog.  Here are the steps:

1.  Build a platform: Define your company purpose.  Be able to convey to the world your brand and your message.

2.  Design: Create a look and feel that matches your theme/message.  Why use a WordPress (or Joomla, or Drupal) CMS theme, instead of just a .Blogspot.com blog?  Two reasons:  1.) SEO  2.) First impressions.  You may say, “Why not start on a free .typepad or .blogspot blog and move to a more expensive theme when the blog takes off?  Think about the number of visitors needed to create a successful blog.  Now, think about those visitors as potential customers.  Like the shopping mall on Rodeo Drive vs. a small town flea market, you want visitors to see an impressively designed structure.  If your blog looks like a flea market, how many customers will turn around and walk out?  Not only will they be turned off by the appearance of your “mall,” but they’ll also go and tell their colleagues that your mall stinks.  Those potential customers will have an impression of your mall, without ever having stepped foot inside it.  So, you’re already down levels of influence with a snowball’s chance of getting any of them back.  Instead of wasting time trying to chase customers, why not wow them right out of the gate?

3.  Branding: It isn’t just your logo, or a banner on your blog.  It’s the font you use, the graphics, the color of your background, the texture, the look and feel of your platform.  You want a narrow niche and to use content to drill that image into the minds of your readers.  Everything that you write about on your company’s blog should relate to the business, your industry, your products/services, your upcoming events, product roll-outs, promotions, campaigns, “did you know?” factoids, etc.

4.  Building a Tribe: Just as having a mall doesn’t guarantee an income, having a blog doesn’t insure a stream of money flowing into your corporate coffers.  So, how do you get people to not only visit your store, but to hang out, grab a coffee and make it their second home (so to speak)?  The trick is not in convincing people to come over, but in recruiting them to your “cause.”  Your point of view, the information you provide, the connections and conversations you start… these things build a tribe around your corporate blog.  So, what are the steps to building a tribe that will consume every piece of content that you create, and share the crumbs with their like-minded friends?   Three steps:  become entrenched; engage; give it all away

5. Become Entrenched: The road to becoming respect in any niche starts with possessing that which is essential to being an authority… knowledge.  With knowledge comes both the understanding of how to speak to the people within that niche, and the variety of opinions that are required to create compelling and insightful commentary.

6.  Engage: Engaging, not only with your community niche, but with those outside of your own, is the first key to building your small army.  It isn’t just answering comments and replying to emails.  It isn’t just ReTweeting and replying on Twitter in hope of getting reciprocal backlinks.  It requires a full-time dedicated person to give the time and energy that many bloggers aren’t willing to give.

7.  Give it All Away: Not a single blogger can/will begin their career by monetizing immediately.  Building trust and authority takes time, and it isn’t something that you can do easily unless you are willing to put in the work.  You don’t have to post every single day, but sticking to a consistent editorial schedule will help your audience know what to expect.  As long as you’re giving away content, you will be continuously building a bigger audience, which means that monetization options will increase.  Consider giving away the why… and selling the how.  That’s what we do here at Wendistry.

8.  End Benefits: No… it’s not monetization.  Your corporate blog functions as a platform that builds your company’s brand.  It is this brand, over time, that will allow you to earn money behind the scenes.

Like any other business, the media industry evolves in cycles.  In the past few years, the job openings at media companies have been few and far between, but now, as content converges and more media companies are looking for interesting and engaging ways to branch out and reach larger population bases, there is an increase in the availability of highly coveted marketing positions.  However, the availability of new technologies and new developments in the media industry have created a demand for new kinds of experience, cultural knowledge and skill sets that candidates must be aware of it they wish to vye for such a position.

The media industry, historically, has not provided much in the way of career potential for marketing executives.  Today, though, it is currently exceeding more mature industries, such as consumer packaged goods, in career opportunities.  When searching for a marketing position in the media industry, it’s important to know that the industry itself is highly varied.  There’s online media, traditional print media (newspapers, magazines, trade publications, etc.), television media, music media, etc.  All these forms have different revenue models that require a different forms of marketing.  For example, an e-commerce focused company might be interested in hiring marketing professionals to support customer acquisitions or product development, while a newspaper might need marketing support for circulation.

Newspaper executives know that online classified-advertising services are taking a bite out of industry revenues. Recent announcements by Google and Microsoft suggesting their interest in the classifieds business only add to the newspapers’ concerns, which also include rising costs and declining circulation.

From 2001 to 2004, online players such as craigslist, Monster, and Realtor.com captured approximately 5% of the newspapers’ U.S. market share—resulting in a loss of $2 billion of the $34 billion classifieds market.  In some categories of classifieds, the loss was far greater: 40% or more.  Lost market share is only part of the story.  Newspapers are having difficulty raising advertising rates to make up for sagging volume, since online competitors offer advertisers an inexpensive (and inexhaustible) supply of ad space in local and national markets.  In some cities, newspapers find that they must offer small advertisers general classified ads free of charge.  Newspaper publishers cannot afford to give ground, because classified ads make up more than one-third of their advertising revenues.  display ads account for most of the rest.

Any company that sells similar products at a range of prices fears cannibalization.  Take the case of a subscription media company that expanded from one product line to a mix of offers that included several similar but lower-priced products sold through a number of channels.  Executives felt that the new offers were necessary because the original product, while quite profitable, was losing market share and might never penetrate certain customer segments.  The new products did indeed attract these elusive customers, but the lower prices also lured some established customers away from the mature product.

Deciding how aggressively to push the new offers proved difficult.  The company’s customer-relationship-management system allowed marketers to pinpoint the extent of the cannibalization.  Yet the data implied simplistic recommendations—for instance, abandoning the new products without regard for their strategic importance.  Unless the implications were clarified, product managers balked at exploring the trade-offs between market share and profitability. Indeed, they had an incentive not to do so, for each product was organized as a separate, competing business with its own sales targets.

To break the stalemate, smart senior executives are looking beyond traditional marketing and media buying approaches to data and search engine optimization techniques for planning new marketing expenditures.  Expanding and embracing new forms of marketing that engage and attract younger audiences (to stave off natural attrition rates) are the salvation for traditional print media.  Not to completely replace it… but to make for a more rich and enticing user experience.

Reasons Why 2010 is The Year of Location; the Importance of Hyper-Local, and How to Leverage Location:

1. Immediacy: Location inherently breeds immediacy and action.  If a consumer is at a location, close to a location, or close to a contact, they’re more likely to purchase (if they’re there), travel to purchase (if they’re close), or meet up to share (close to a contact).  Immediacy enables actionable behavior, and actionable behavior is valuable because it provides measureable results.

2. Measurable results: Using location and proximity to measure effects is easier than measuring what happens when eyeballs read a tweet.   Retailers can use the location-based technologies to further understand their consumers.  When consumers check into a location, data such as when consumers visit, how often they visit, and their behavior before and after they visit becomes valuable.  With added incentives from brick and mortar stores partnering with these technologies, it is valuable through the information they can receive.

3. Laser pointer theory: Think of the world as your company’s target – with no map, you’ll fire all over the globe and hit a fraction of your targets.  This happens in business too- intentional or unintentional displaced messaging is the result of mis-firing and ill-placement.  With location, companies can laser pinpoint and succeed.  Misguided marketing and advertising no longer need to be the standard.  Marketing and advertising are sometimes described as an art.  In 2010, they become a science.

How to Leverage Location
The convergence of location-based digital companies and brick and mortar physical stores are breeding a new type of commerce – digital mortar.   Surely different business models will yield different ways to capitalize on it and you can approach it from any angle.  But, the main outcome should always be deeper connections with your consumers and increased value from your company.

Excerpted from GreenBuzz Agency