One of the most popular ways of spreading the word about your business is through a blog.
Marketing using your business blog
Blogs keep your customers updated on all your business activities as well as keeping them informed on a variety of relevant subjects. There are many blogging apps available, with WordPress and Google Blogger being popular choices. It is always good practice to go with your own domain name, so always secure this and find a suitable hosting company to host your blog – many provide simple one-click installs for applications like WordPress. As soon as you have done this you are ready to start blogging. The internet hosts an enormous number of successful blogs, equally there are lots of blogs which have failed for one reason or another. A blog is similar to running a business – if you are not willing to commit and seriously work on it, your blog will fail. For a new blogger, the process is often underestimated as they are not aware of how much time and effort is required to set up and run a successful blog. It goes way beyond setting up and designing an attractive blog. As a blogger you need to aggressively market your blog to generate the interest of visitors, in order for them to visit your site and make them feel compelled to come back for more. Once you have captivated visitors with your fabulous content, they will spread the word to tell their friends, who tell their friends, and so on. A blog isn’t any good if nobody knows about it. Below are some great tips to help you drive more traffic to your blog:
Fresh content is king
Content is king and this is probably the most important part of your blog. Visitors want to come to your blog and see different content each time and not the same content over and over again. While you are getting your blog off the ground you should update it at least once a week. As soon as you become confident in creating content and have regular visitors then you can upload content more frequently. A quick way of doing this is to write a few articles and post them at intervals. If you choose WordPress then you can automatically schedule these articles to be posted.
Blog and article marketing
Once you have created content for your bog, you can then turn this content into articles which can be submitted to online article sites. As you become more confident in blogging, you will find writing articles for submission much easier. Remember to always include a link back to your original blog or website in the resource box before you submit the article.
If you have not heard of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn then where have you been hiding? These are some of the most popular social networking sites today and used by millions of people worldwide. By joining these sites, you can participate in discussions by providing advice and suggestions – and don’t forget to mention your blog. Always complete a full profile for each networking site that you decide to join and include details about your business and your blog.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Make sure you regularly perform keyword searches on Google and Bing as well as other search engines to keep up with current trending topics. Every time you write new content for your blog, always try and incorporate related keywords into your blog entry – this includes headings, the main copy, image descriptions and metadata describing your blog. But remember, the keyword density should be between three and five percent so don’t be tempted to stuff keywords into your text.
Social bookmarking is also very popular with sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg and Delicious. Online bookmarking sites are a great way for internet users to organise, store, manage and search for bookmarks of online resources. Online bookmarking is great because you are not saving the bookmark to your internet favourites, but instead you are enabling them to be easily shared with friends. For each social bookmarking site you use, create a full profile and include information with a link back to your blog (where possible). Every time a visitor visits your profile they will see your blog URL.
Getting support
Setting up a blog and then running it successfully can be daunting, particularly if you have never blogged before. It may be that you don’t have the time to set one up, or the skills to customise it as you would like. Opace Technology Solutions are a Birmingham web design company who specialise in WordPress design and offer a wide range of support, from general advice on blogging, to blog design, development and even blog copywriting services. Finding a reliable partner will reap benefits as they will focus on helping you to run your blogging campaign effectively and get a quick return on your investment.
Image credit – Christian Schnettelker at www.manoftaste.de
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