The ServeCon Bloggers Panel Answers Your Questions

• March 31, 2015
• by Kimberly Faber
• Business Tips
• Social Media
• Technology

During last week's ServeCon event, our panel of bloggers tackled the ins and outs of blogging and content strategy for your process serving business. Joseph R. Click of I Serve Papers and Amanda Sexton of DGR Legal joined me for a lively discussion.

Today, we tackle questions from those who attended the panel. First, we tackle a common question for those who are new to content marketing and blogging:

Where are blog posts located on websites?

From Joseph:

“Many sites have a dedicated section or page where you can find new articles or posts and browse previous content. Look for a link titled "Blog", "Articles", "News" or the like. Some sites are nothing but a page of blog posts while some sites don't have such a section at all. For example, my articles are at iservepapers.com/blog/ and Amanda's are at www.dgrlegal.com/blog/.”

From Amanda:

“For the most part, websites link to their blog from the top navigation bar or from a link at the bottom of the page. There are some sites that also feature posts on their home page, so you may be able to get to it that way. Not all sites have blogs though, so if you don’t see a link to a blog or articles section they may not have one. You can also do a search for the website URL with blog included. For example search for “www.dgrlegal.com blog” and our blog URL would appear in the search results: "www.dgrlegal.com/blog.”

From Joseph:

“I recommend you use as many of the most popular platforms that you can manage using automation tools like Hootsuite. I think it depends on what you want to accomplish by using social media as each site is going to offer different ways to reach its users and the types of users will vary. Blast notices of your activity to Twitter for large exposure, generate conversation on Facebook and become more surgical and personal for reaching out on LinkedIn, for example. I think a person could spend about as much time and effort as they wanted extracting value from social media so you've got to find the balance that works for you.”

From Amanda:

“Social media is a great way to connect with others in the industry and potential clients. Twitter and LinkedIn are the two I would focus on for those who are involved in process service. While Facebook posts can be a good way to use social signals to boost your rankings in search engines, without spending money most brand page or business page posts aren’t seen by those who have liked the page.

As we talked about in the panel, there are a few tools out there to help you manage what you’re posting and help reduce the amount of time you’re spending on social media. Hootsuite is my go-to recommendation for this – it’s easy to use and is free for up to three social media accounts.”

From Joseph:

“I think Amanda will be able to provide more insight on this one than I can. Certainly, the guest articles of mine that ServeNow has published have driven people to check out my website, but I do not closely monitor the traffic to my posts. I do try to keep tabs on where people come from that find my blog and see where my exposure yields the most readers. Links to some of my articles have popped up on places like Reddit and in comments on other people's blogs and seeing that traffic come through has led me to check out pages, companies, and groups I wouldn't have found otherwise.”

From Amanda:

”There are certain topics that always get more attention and traffic than others: stories of assault on a process server or situations where process servers have been falsely accused are always popular. Posts about the DCA rules and how they are impacting NYC process servers also always see a lot of traffic. I think the main reason for this is because the DCA is an organization that impacts many different businesses in New York, so others are following the situation to see how far the DCA extends their power.

Our top post was Process Server Blogs You Should Be Reading.

Since we’ve put up the post some of the blogs have changed, so it needs some updating. I was surprised to see the post at the top of our “most read” list, but it also shows how interested process servers are in being able to find quality content about the industry.“

From Joe:

“WordPress. It's all I've used so I don't have a basis for comparison but I find it offers all I need and I am familiar with the interface. I've seen some amazing sites using WordPress, from one-page blogs to complex e-commerce sites.”

From Amanda:

“We have a WordPress based site so we blog using that. It’s very easy to use and for anyone who is considering a site redesign, I would recommend switching over to it if possible. There are a number of great plugins which make it very easy to set up your blog post in the best way possible for search engines to find it, a practice which used to require one to have HTML and coding knowledge.”

From Joe:

“For me, writing articles and trying to get my name out there as a knowledgeable source of information has definitely been worth the effort but I cannot pin down the actual income it has generated. The value I derive is by having another way to show prospective clients that I know what I'm doing and to maybe answer some of their questions before they call. It is a small slice of the overall marketing/branding pie that hopefully funnels eager clients to my phone or inbox.”

From Amanda:

“We don’t have any way right now to track how many new clients we’ve received directly as a result of the blog. It’s more a way for us to generate brand awareness and to get our name out there in front of people. We’ve received lots of great feedback and have been able to use the content from the blog to create a monthly email newsletter to help generate even more exposure, which helps us to pull even more from the effort we put into the blog.”

Access Recordings of the Bloggers Panel and Other ServeCon Sessions

Recordings of ServeCon sessions will be available in the coming weeks. Check back soon for information on how to access.