How to Blog Effectively for Business (GF101)
It’s become a very important aspect of any business to inform, educate and simply keep customers in the loop of what is going on with your business. Blogging for business can be just about any aspect of your business from new products and services to special promotions or reviews. Keeping your readers informed and up to date about your business helps keep your business relative online. Here are 3 tips to help you keep your blog organized and relative.
1. Content – This is the most important ingredient of your blog. You can have beautiful images and eye catching headers but if your content is garbage you will never see return traffic. If your content isn’t up to date or you haven’t added a post in months, there is a good chance it will lose value. A relative blog will be up to date with weekly post additions on industry related topics. The best content relates to the broader topics covering your industry which will ultimately attract a broader reader base.
2. Reader Comments – Another important aspect for business blogs is to allow for reader comments. Whether the comment is positive or negative, this gives your business a great opportunity to get feedback. A lot of people can be scared off by negative comments or delete them from their blog but if you receive a negative comment this will provide an opportunity to interact with this person and find out why they feel the way they do. No business gets 100% positive feedback but only the strong minded businesses can turn a negative into a positive. A key component to internet marketing is interacting with your customers. If you take the time to understand the person behind the negative comment and look to build off it and reassure the person that you take their comment seriously, you could change their outlook on your company. When you’re able to respond to positive and negative comments you’re able to expand your customer base by simply showing your readers that you are constantly working on improving your service.
3. “Busy” Isn’t Always Good – Sometimes people or businesses get carried away with images or sidebar content, polls of all sorts. If your reader doesn’t know where to look when they land on your blog, there is a good possibility they will get confused or frustrated and bounce. Keep your layout clean and preferably just one sidebar. If your blog is full of advertisements or flash banners, the distractions could be fatal to your blog. Make sure your layout is defined and your readers know where to go for the latest blog post or to find information out about your business. Sometimes too “busy” is not good.
Inbound marketing, or any form of online marketing for that matter, has pros and cons just like your traditional avenues for marketing. Inbound marketing takes considerable time and on most instances the leads do not generate over night. The biggest pro of inbound marketing however, is that your leads are pre-qualified. Almost 100% of your leads will be people looking for a particular product or service and by searching Google or other search engines, your name, website, product or service has the potential to show up in rankings. What does this mean? When you allow people to choose you or your business you become more than just a provider you become a source of knowledge or expertise in your field.
Let’s give you an example of how this could work in real life. You blog about fashion design and because you own a boutique you are very knowledgeable about fashion. Since you have been blogging about fashion and have used several relevant terms to people searching for fashion tips, hot trends or local clothing, you begin to climb in organic search rankings. Emails and phone calls begin to trickle in (inbound) from people asking about your store and clothing. Since they have taken the time to search and find numerous articles you have written about fashion and clothing you stock in your store, people begin to visit your store or website looking for the hottest outfits. Why? Because they know your store carries certain brands due to in the inbound marketing efforts of blogging about those brands.
This happens all over the world and can be used for any product or service. When you are able to provide valuable content and cast your pole in the consumer pond, your business is extending its hand to those that are in need of your product or service. You’re generating exposure through inbound marketing efforts to do the selling for you. Your not picking up the phone to cold call people during dinner. When you give your customers the opportunity to find you they are not only interested in your product or services but they will also be more willing to open their wallets.
One of the biggest cons of internet marketing or inbound marketing is that it takes time. By time I mean months, perhaps longer. It truly depends on how focused your efforts are and how saturated your area of expertise may be with other businesses. There are certainly no shortage of clothing stores so it’s imperative that you separate your store and clothing from the rest. If you’re clothing is more expensive than the Gap, be prepared to explain to the customer why and what makes your clothing different from the Gap. Internet marketing works the best for niche businesses so giving an explanation on why your clothes or services are more expensive and sometimes declining business is all a part of the process. You don’t need to make every sale for every customer that contacts; in fact I would recommend saying no every so often if you feel the customer does not believe in your businesses services.
The companies that are able to bridge the communication gap between consumers and providers are the companies that succeed. Eventually you will find out that it will become necessary to implement some form of inbound marketing to cast your business pole. As always, Inbound Promotions is here to help your small business with its online marketing efforts when needed.
