Do businesses need blogs?
Consider these facts about business blogging
Would you like somewhere where your customers can check your business out before they decide to buy?
A blog can hold more details about your business that you are unable to put onto your website. As a blog has no space restrictions, you are able to provide far more description, good news, relevant information and future aspirations to persuade your prospects that they have come to the right place.
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Would you like a focal point of your business that regularly updates its information?
Websites have to rely on their webmasters to update their information. A blog is designed to be self-editing, and posts can be immediately published by the author to go immediately live on the web. And with the technology of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) your posts can be viewed in other social networking media, which also have a domino-effect in distributing that feed.
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How does a blog add value to your business?
How can I get any business from blogging?
It’s the same with advertising. Your posts must have a purpose and a call to action. You could just blog aimlessly, which would probably gain a good following, but if you didn’t ask them to do something your efforts might be seen as wasted. Lace your post with persuasion text about a new event or product, offer an incentivised time dependent call to action and clearly provide details for payment or more information. And don’t sit on your laurels waiting, multiple exposure with different methods will eventually achieve your desired response.
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Can I use my blog to get more traffic to my website?
Certainly you can, it’s ideal for this purpose. The content of your posts should be full of contextual links (written phrases that are links) going back to your website (or the appropriate webpage) to compliment and supplement your post. Again your side bar could have written or visual links back to your website, and hosted blogs can accommodate sign up forms for newsletter subscriptions.
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Blogs and newsletters – which one is best?
They can easily exist side by side. In fact, a blog is ideal for acting as an archive for newsletter material after it’s been published, acting a ‘belt and braces’ for storing and distributing the material. Some newsletter providers offer applications that publish your blog posts to your newsletter database, and RSS also provides an email subscription service for newly published posts.
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Could a blog be an alternative to spam emails?
You could confine your blog within its limits, only to be visited by passing trade or invitations like your website, but because of its affinity with SEO (search engine optimisation) it naturally has an open element that encourages visitors and their comments and thrives off their links. RSS provides a wider audience base for your posts, enabling linkage to other internet media for passive followers.
How important is interaction for my business?
Don’t underestimate the pleasure in getting a comment to your business post. It proves that someone has read it, and has understood it enough to leave their penny’s worth. The opportunity to receive almost instantaneous feedback is extremely valuable, especially when you can immediately reply. And don’t forget the link back to his website/blog adds to the SEO of your post. Oh, and if you do get spam you’ll be able to delete it before it’s published.
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How can readers find posts on a particular subject?
Use the category system available. By allocating each post to its appropriate category, visitors can search your past posts via subject matter, or by the month it was posted if you can remember it.
How wide a net can my blog cast?
This will depend on the relevance and value of your posts, the subjects you blog about, how often or how regularly you post, how easy it is to read and understand them, how many followers you gain, where you put your RSS feed in social networking sites or reader pages, the attractiveness of your headlines, the effectiveness of the keywords and tags in your posts, whether you can gather a following base via email, where you advertise your blog’s URL, where you can link to your blog from other resources… the more active you are with your blog, the more the return.
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Could I use a blog instead of a website?
Yes, you can, especially if it is a hosted blog. It would be far more cost effective than an ordinary ‘brochure’ website, as it would benefit from instant publishing, practically self-editing once set up, powerful blogging software that encourages spiders to visit more regularly, and has static pages like on a regular website with the blog area embracing it. In fact, this is a hosted blog if you want to look at an example.
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How do I use my blog to promote my business?
