To serve as the voice of the pest control industry, protecting the livelihood of pest management professionals while fostering education, promoting professionalism, raising ethical standards, enhancing environmental stewardship, improving public health and quality of life.
Here’s why and how.
Mark L. Hendrickson, Wingra Group
You don’t have to be a web-geek to understand and develop a blog for your pest control web site. It’s a good idea to have one, however, because it can help you communicate continually with your customers and connect with new ones.
What is a blog? A blog is a “web log” – a running account of information, ideas and tips published on the Internet. If you have a web site, a blog can help drive traffic to it. A blog produces an ongoing stream of content and this helps search engines find you. Furthermore, a blog creates a pathway between you and your customers. With a blog you can interact directly with customers, they can comment on your blog and you can respond in turn. Finally, self expression and the sharing of expertise are other driving forces behind many blogs.
Anyone can have a blog. My cousin in Rockford maintains a blog about knitting. Cannot say that I’ve ever visited it, but she says she has lots of people who read and comment. A buddy in Chicago has a blog about vintage Corvettes. And, blogging was a pretty big deal in the 2008 presidential campaign where the online forums discussed everything from Sarah Palin’s wardrobe to Barack Obama’s citizenship. Technorati, the Internet search engine for blogs, indexes more than 113 million blogs. Not all of them are good, informative or entertaining. Here are a few rules to follow in setting up yours.
1) Provide information rather than advertising. You pest control blog is not an advertisement for your services. So if you run a pest control business, don’t blog about your great services. Instead, blog about the best ways to combat bed bugs, or ants, and provide useful, relevant, factual tips and self-help information.
2) Make it fresh. Your blog doesn’t have to complete with the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times. But it does have to be updated regularly if you want people to return to read future posts. It’s a good idea to include somewhere on the blog a note about how often the blog is updated. That way readers have an idea how often they should return for new posts.
3) Have something to say. An interest in pest control and know-how are the main requirements. You can write about seasonal pest concerns, advice on exclusion, control strategies, what you’ve learned at recent pest control conferences, and much more. And, you don’t have to write a lot — probably no more than 200-250 words for any one post.
4) So you don’t like to write? You don’t have to do it all and it’s okay to have others write your company blog. Some people seem born to blogging, where writing is a natural calling. Look around your company and see who has voiced their opinions or likes to tell stories. There’s your blogger.
How do you get a blog up and running? There are numerous web sites that make it easy to get started and many have a process for incorporating a blog into an existing web site. Visit these sites to learn more:
February 8, 9, 2011 at the Kalahari Water Park and Resort in Wisconsin Dells.
Your WPCA Board of Directors in wrapping up the conference speakers and topics as this newsletter is being prepared. Here is the speaker lineup:
Bobby Corrigan, RMC Pest Management Consulting
Mark Keuther, Sunbelt Business Brokers
Phil Pellitteri, UW Insect Diagnostic Lab
Clay Sherer, DuPont Professional Products
Arnold Ramsey, FMC Corporation
Dave Mathis, B & G
Watch for future conference details in The Pest Dispatch newsletter, and online at www.wisconsinpest.com.
Mark L. Hendrickson is President of The Wingra Group, a Madison-based marketing and business development company. He can be reached at wingra1@gmail.com .