Preeminent direct marketing publication (and client of Netconcepts), DM News, has started blogging! Check out their direct marketing blog. They're off to a great start if I don't say so myself (since I had a hand in helping them get it off the ground). Congrats DM News!

It was an exhausting couple of days this week, as I manned my company's Natural Search Optimization Site Solution Clinic. I was critiquing sites for attendees starting at 8am and going through to 5pm both days. This was a new initiative for the folks at WBR (who own the Etail conference). It wasn't at all what I expected, but it worked out okay in the end. It felt like a spillover of the trade show floor, complete with mini-booths. Too salesy in my opinion. The way Search Engine Strategies does it, the Site Clinic is treated as a separate track with a room dedicated to the clinic. There are chairs for an audience to watch sites being critiqued and to ask questions. And a panel of invited experts who aren't paying for the privilege to speak. And there are time slots dedicated to different topics and the panel changes as the topics change. For example, a couple hours for site design issues then a couple hours for link building. As an attendee, I like the latter model better.

Because I was so tied up with site critiques, I was unable to attend any of the sessions this time. Which was a shame, because our client Home Shopping Network spoke and I heard he had great things to say (some of which were about us! yay!). I heard grumblings from attendees of the pre-conference "Search Optimization Day" about it being full of sales pitches from the table moderators. Which is a shame. As DM News reports, moderators were paying $25k to speak there, so f0r that kind of money I guess they must have felt it necessary to sell sell sell. Someone needs to tell them to cool their heels and make the selling so soft that it's hardly noticeable. Frost & Sullivan coaches their sponsor-speakers about how best to interact with prospects at their conferences through phone briefings, an on-site sponsor-only pre-conference session, and a handout full of useful tips. WBR would be wise to do the same.

Shop.org's Annual Summit is next month. It will be my first one. I'm speaking there (on blogs, RSS, and podcasting) as well as having a booth. I've heard very complementary things about the Summit, so I can't wait to compare and contrast the show with Etail, which I've attended a few times now. I'll report back with my thoughts here on the blog, so look for it!

I was recently interviewed by a journalist on business blogging and its benefits. He wanted to know specifically what it's done for me to have a blog. Here's what I told him:

• I've gotten inquiries from prospects who found Netconcepts through my blog.
• My blog helps me get speaking gigs and PR. In fact, I recently got one of my blog entries taken verbatim by a well-respected US magazine — DM News — and published as an article.
• It builds credibility and establishes me as a thought leader in the eyes of prospects and clients. For example, one of our recent clients choose us over a competitor for online marketing services partly because of my blog.
• It's helped upsell existing clients on additional services, as many of them are regularly reading my blog. For example, some of our clients are going to start a blog and use us for blog design, blog consulting, etc.
• I've gotten links from popular bloggers, like Robert Scoble of Microsoft. It's much more difficult to get a mention from Scoble (or other prominent bloggers) if you're not a blogger. Scoble's blog, called Scobleizer, is one of the most well-linked blogs on the Internet. Some bloggers have even included me on their blogroll, like Toby Bloomberg of Diva Marketing Blog (Thanks, Toby!)
• It's helped me with recruiting panelists for Thoughts Leaders Summits that I organized and moderated for MarketingProfs. For example, the lineup of panelists for one of the recent summits included Internet marketing gurus: Seth Godin, Doc Searls, Robert Scoble, Steve Rubel, and Debbie Weil. My blog played a role in establishing my credibility with them and getting them to respond to my "cold call" email message.
• Blogs are also great for SEO (search engine optimization). Links are important to the search engines, and the blogosphere is richly interlinked with bloggers linking so much to each other. Blogs are also rich in content, which search engines also like. If I blog about RSS and SEO (which I have), for example, next thing I know I'm #1 in Google for [rss and seo].
• I've also built some great business relationships with other respected bloggers. They have referred business to me, shared speaking opportunities with me, etc.

I had yet another experience with that last item, just today in fact. I'm speaking at the Frost & Sullivan Sales and Marketing East conference in Boston, and a fellow blogger from a competing SEO firm who was sitting at the table I was facilitating earlier today on blogging very kindly publicly commended my blog to the rest of the group for its content and thought leadership. (Thanks Stephen!) There's a guy who understands the benefits of coopetition (rather than competition)!

The journalist also wanted to know how my blog's traffic had grown over time. Here are the charts I shared with him showing the growth trends in pageviews and visitors:

Pageviews:

Visitors:

A pretty respectable trend, I'd say. If you're curious what the actual numbers are, I will give you a hint and say that the both charts measure into the tens of thousands of visitors per month. Hopefully the trend will continue.

One thing I really need to do to keep the numbers heading northward is to blog more frequently. I'm sure traffic growth will accelerate once I do. I just need to buckle down! I guess I'll just sleep less... (sigh). You other bloggers out there know what I'm saying here, don't you! More often than we'd like, it's the wee hours when we're blogging.

How might a blog pay off for you? For some general ideas, read this article of mine, on blogging, published in last month's issue of Multichannel Merchant magazine.