5 Secrets About Blogging For Business

Blogs are brilliant marketing tools but only when done correctly. In fact some company's marketing strategy is solely based around their blogs. Here's my five secrets to blogging success that will help your business grow online. * Buy your own domain name. Websites that include the name of the host look completely unprofessional and where this is fine for a small personal website, it cheapens the business brand and in the virtual world, devoid of any physical contact with the customer, image and first impressions count. Either name it after the business or try a funky yet associated name. For example if you are in the pet business you could try, "smith-and-sons-pet-supplies.com" or simply "the-dog-blog.com" * Post regularly. Need I say more? People read blogs for the same reason they read newspapers - for new information. Try and choose a regular schedule, once a day, three times a week etc. and stick to it. That way customers who may only visit a real pet shop (to continue with our illustration) once a week or fortnight will be visiting yours three times a week. * Write good content. Make sure your postings help the reader in some way. The aim of a post is to improve the reader's condition. The last thing you want is for potential customers to think that all they are getting is a hard sell. The blog is there to build relationships. Good sales will come from writing good content and attracting repeat visitors. Write how-to's or insider knowledge in bullet point format. In other words, give readers a reason for returning. * Selling via your blog is a big no-no. The blog is for attracting customers not turning them away. Use the space around the blog to advertise your wares, or set up other dedicated pages for your catalogue and to show off your stock. But keep your blog informative and written in a fun, informal style. One exception to this rule is to perhaps finish off each post with a one-liner. For example if you are in the pet trade, a post about how to clean your dog's teeth you could finish off with something like, "And on the subject of teeth hygiene, have you checked out our fantastic prices for dog toothpaste" with the words "dog toothpaste" providing a link to the relevant page on your site. * Market your blog. It's easier to market a blog than a business so market the blog instead. Use social networking sites, write ezines on your business topic, join forums and generally get your web address out there (use it under your name in the signature area). People will be more willing to click on a link to a blog than a business site and if the two are one-and-the-same, then that means more traffic to your business. Search engines count how many links are targeting your website and the more links there are, the higher you will appear in the rankings. Also when writing your blog entries think about what words potential customers will use in search engines and include them in your post. Making your presence felt on the information superhighway is actually very easy and costs relatively little. Indeed you can do it for nothing, but as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. However, though some initial outlay may be necessary to project a professional image, this should be no more than the cost of a yearly domain name registration and basic hosting fees. So if there are cobwebs forming on the front door of your physical business and you were thinking about getting an online presence to increase sales... then get blogging!