With the New Year many companies are trying to enhance their business and create a stronger presence online.  You should too! According to a recent article in Open Forum, there are eight easy steps to boost your website on a budget.

The following are our top 5.

1. Maintaining a blog can do a lot for your business. They bring traffic to your website, stir discussion and keep the public interested.  Blogging is as easy as creating a free account on Blogger.com or Wordpress.com. If you already have a Website, your Webmaster or marketing firm can create a blog as part of your site.  Once the blogging tool is installed, just log in and start writing.

1. Don’t hesitate to register with a business-listing site.  Websites like Bing, Yahoo, Yelp and Google can help your business with website traffic through search engine optimization (SEO), and help increase the amount of times you are seen online.

1. Paying attention to key words helps with SEO.  The more precise your wording, the higher the probability of increasing traffic to your website, and prospectively more clients.  You can also use the Google Keywords Tool which allows you to check for searches that describe your business and will notify you with successful and unsuccessful keywords that resulted from the search.

1. Watching your analytics also helps with your online presence.  You can register with Google Analytics and search your blog posts to see which are faring well on your site and what specific keywords were used to accomplish it. This helps see which keywords work best and what types of information are read frequently on your website.

1. Adding social media tools should be a priority in today’s society.  Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Linked in are just a few of the names we hear on a daily basis in public relations.  These social media sites are very popular and effective tools in creating website presence.

To read more helpful tips, visit Open Forum’s website.

Boardroom Communications’ COO Don Silver longtime Boardroom client Field of Flowers CEO Donn Flipse were featured

in a recent Reuters article about ghost blogging.

Silver commented on the increase in demand for ghost blogging.

“You’ve got to find new platforms to convey your news and messaging,” said Silver, whose South Florida-based public relations firm develops and manages blogs for clients ranging from insurance companies to law and accounting firms to retailers.

Donn Flipse, owner of Field of Flowers, a chain of South Florida floral super stores with locations in Boca Raton, Davie and Kendall, relies on Boardroom to supplement internal posts released under authorship of its fictional nom de plume, Dr. Phil O. Dendron. The character writes about special events taking place at the stores and alerts customers whenever company executives appear in local news.
Silver attributed the rising interest in blogging in part to a decline in opportunities for traditional media coverage and the need to take advantage of the power of social media and search engine marketing.

Why ghost bloggers? Busy executives do not have the time to manage and write frequent blog posts and promote them on social media. Many Florida PR agencies have filled the vacuum and taken over their client’s blogs. How often do you hear, “Where do you find the time to do all of that blogging and social media posts?” Guess who is really doing it?

The article also described a ghost blogger’s job as including a mix of strategic and editorial tasks including: keeping abreast of hot-button issues, developing editorial calendars, penning original posts, as well as enlisting raw copy from a company’s insiders and transforming it into readable text.

visit Reuters.com for full story

Attention, Miami Herald: Use proper grammar. The newspaper received that lesson from an experienced South Florida teacher when it asked her to mark up a recent edition.

The same advice applies when an organization distributes a press release, publishes information on its website, updates a blog, or posts on Facebook: To look professional, follow the rules of grammar.

Elaine Kenzel, who wields a sharp green pen for her publishing clients, found 133 mistakes in just one issue of the Herald. Some involved starting a sentence with “but” or “and.” Others related to sentence construction.

Based on her analysis, here are some recommendations for professional public communications:

• Write simply. Complex sentences can confuse the reader.
• Be careful with commas. Writers tend to use too many.
• Be consistent.  Apply the same style to sentences and lists.
• Read and re-read. Have two or three people proofread a press release or Web post before it is distributed.

Boardroom Communications checks and re-checks press releases and other communications before they are made public. We track changes to ensure that no vital information is lost or misstated. Like newspapers and other news organizations, we have editors. Their job is to double-check spellings, facts and, of course, grammar.

Publicizing your products, services and stories via media relations,  social media, website or collateral materials can all be very effective branding tools — if everything is correct.  Otherwise, a small typo or grammar error may quickly deflate your branding balloon and credibility.