October 7th, 2009 → 1:36 am @ Richard
Blogging for business…
Chances are that you’ve heard about blogging. You might even have read a few. But can business blogging really be an effective marketing strategy?
It can!
Blogging for business can be a great way of delivering your content and attracting new visitors to your website. Business Blogs do well in search engines and help you build up the content on your website. Blogs for business also allow people to subscribe to new updates – keeping prospects coming back to your site again and again.
But, blogging also requires a big commitment. There’s no point in blogging if you don’t think that you can keep it up or put in the time and effort to promote your blog.
The best way to decide is to spend some time reading blogs before you start you own. Find ones that you like or ones that work well in your industry and take inspiration from them.
Blogs for business generally have a more relaxed tone than articles or the rest of the content on your website. This can be great for bringing a little personality to your business and letting people get to know you as a person. However, blogs don’t have to be like that at all. Blogs for business can be whatever you like. Again, read other blogs to find a tone that you think would suit your business and your goals.
Blogs started out as personal journals (weblogs) but over the years have been adopted by a growing number of businesses. Naturally businesses don’t tend to write about what their cat had for breakfast, but rather business related topics. It’s reasonable to blog about things that are happening at your business occasionally. Occasionally. If you write about your business all the time nobody will be interested. A safe bet is to start with a simple list of the kinds of problems that your customers are facing and write answers to those problems. You can also find inspiration from other blogs, from comments and feedback you get, from trade magazines, from customers and from suppliers. Inspiration is everywhere so long as you are looking.
If writing isn’t your thing you have a few choices. Instead of blogging you could try running a video blog (vlog) or audio-based blog (podcast). The equipment to record and play audio and video on your blog is easy to find and relatively inexpensive.The other option would be to pay someone to either blog for you or to help you blog. Finding a keen blogger willing to help shouldn’t be too difficult (there are plenty of services online). You should expect to pay anything from $15 to $50 per post depending on the blogger, the topic and whether or not you would like them to help promote it as well.
If you are happy to do the writing then make sure you schedule some time into your week to do it. To get a blog going, one post a day would be a good target, three a week pretty good and once a week a suggested minimum. Of course, it’s not just for one week. You need to commit to blogging for the long term. Which is why many business bloggers look for help – either other people in your business that can contribute, or people associated with your business like suppliers or professionals.
There’s no point in having a blog if nobody reads it. So, in addition to writing the blog you will also need to promote it.
Here are a few quick ideas:
A blog can be a highly effective tool but it needs commitment. Ask yourself these questions before you get started and you’ll be on the right track to make blogging work for your business.
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