I’m having jitters like you do on the morning of the wedding. I wonder whether to come to the church that is my keyboard and tap out a (what I believe is a meaningful) post to share with you.

Now I’ve never been married: I can’t imagine there’s a girl in the world who would concede freedom for a lifetime of DT. So these cold feet are made for typing, and that’s just what they’ll do. And one of these days they’re gonna come and walk all over you(r mind and convince you of the merit of commenting).

Aside from personal insecurities I had an hour to kill the other day and instead of watching an ep of Masterchef (essentially a gathering of no-hopers whose interpretation of fusion cuisine is beetroot and chocolate mousse) I chose the  latest American Marketing Association masterclass on returning max ROI from business blogging.

You can watch the whole damn thing here – it’s probably the most insightful and beneficial 60 minutes of your month, if you choose to commit.

I was so inspired I produced an abridged version – a five minute podcast for those inconveniently attired with busyness. Here (same as the stuff at the top of this post, by the way):

[audio: http://www.davethackeray.com/wp-content/uploads/audio/blog_better.mp3]

If time is to you as Dolph Lundgren is to Care Bears, here’s the lowdown in just a few words:

• Find out what your customers are searching for. For inspiration use Google Wonderwheel to understand the virtual world around your offerings, Google’s Keyword Tool for phrases and words people are using to search for your products and services.
• Create different types of posts. Bread and butter stuff – to focus on your business world, achievements of customers, product development (no overt salesy messaging – just benefits to the customer); meaty posts that analyse or dissect ways to do things better, that take a while and form ‘pillar content’ for your blog; controversial posts that take a stance on an issue close to the heart of you and your customers; fun posts, poking objective fun at issues that directly or indirectly affect your professional sphere.
• Answer comments promptly. Add value for extra points.
• Analyse, measure and respond. See which posts elicit the most views/comments. Create related posts and watch your popularity ascend.