Many small business owners start a blog as a marketing tool, but still underestimate the benefits it offers their company. Indeed, some owners only focus on their blog as a publicity tool and wonder why their business is not growing as much as they expected.
Let’s look at four of the most important, often unexpected benefits that a company blog provides.
1. Search Engine Optimization
The search engines love sites that update frequently with new content. Consequently, running a business blog with regular posts helps improve your site’s search engine rankings.
Given that it is easier to update a blog than it is to adjust a static website, you’re also getting better rankings in return for less effort.
Even better, if you allow a group of staff members to publish articles, rather than relying on a single person, you can generate fresh content much quicker.
2. Build Relationships
Used properly, blogging allows you to build a relationship with your readers, rather than just working as a glorified press release system.
The interactive nature of blogging encourages comments and feedback from visitors, which you can use to your advantage.
Don’t just post sales pitches!
Building relationships is a multi-step process, which starts with posting content that your readers will respond to, so that they visit often to take part in the debate. This encourages them to subscribe to your blog.
Once they’re subscribed, people are often more willing to provide extra personal information, give feedback, and be included on mailing lists.
This generates valuable information for your business providing insight into what your customers think about your company.
It can also generate new ideas for products and services. Basically, your blog can act as a free market research tool.
3. Build a Reputation
By providing quality content relevant to your field, you can build a reputation as an expert.
Over time, your customers and blog visitors will begin to consider you the go-to person for their issues. This gives your business an important benefit over the competition.
Reputation is an incredible competitive advantage, especially for small businesses that must stand against established companies in their industry.
A reputation as an authority generates word of mouth references – and every good businessman knows that word of mouth is the holy grail of advertising.
The price of reputation is twofold. First, you must make sure that your blog posts contain only useful information to demonstrate your knowledge, with a creative bent to attract readers. Second, it takes time to build a good reputation, so plan for the long haul.
4. In-depth reviews
Blogging can also be useful when it comes to providing in-depth reviews of your products and services.
This is very useful for educating customers about what you offer, explaining how to use your products and services, and offering tips and tricks. But you can also use your blog to respond to customer comments and complaints. Show them that you listen to their issues and take action to improve.
This is really an extension of the most common purpose of a business blog, which is as a marketing outlet.
Given that blogs also allow you to upload photos and videos, you can provide useful, interesting, responsive content at the same time as pre-selling your products and services. This can help dramatically improve conversion rates.
Blogging is more than just a way to announce company news, new products and special deals. It can also help position your site better on the search engines, build a community of loyal customers and even reach out to educate your visitors.
The important thing is to plan your blogging strategy as you do every other marketing option, and make sure that you only publish high-quality content that is useful to your target audience.
Good copywriting is all about using words to sell. That means creating clear, compelling content that captures attention. It’s the best way to keep visitors interested in your site once they get there.
Below are a few copywriting tips to help improve your marketing power:
1. Keep Content Current
If you want to come up with better content, there are tools like Google Alerts that can be a big help. Google alerts allows you to monitor the web for new, interesting content, as it sends you emails of the latest Google results. You can create as many alerts as you wish, just make sure that they relate to the topics in your niche market.
This makes writing a lot easier, as Google Alerts ensures that you receive a constant stream of news and information about relevant topics. Not only does it save you having to spend an enormous amount of time doing research, but it ensures that you never run out of things to write about.
2. Make Content Easy to Read
Write from the perspective of your reader, chances are when they get to your website they won’t have a lot of time to spare. As a result, they are going to quickly scan through to find out if there is anything that interests them.
You can make it easy for them to find that out, by having easy to read content. Remember that short sentences and simple words are easier to read.
3. Include Sound Bites
These will stay with the user long after they have left your blog or website. Sound bites should be appealing, simple, and tightly written. Come up with a one liner that inspires.
Sound bites should consist of only a few words. The key is to make them memorable, so that users will desire to return to the site for more ‘nuggets of wisdom.’
4. Write Engaging Content
When content is engaging, you are able to get a reaction out of users, encourage sharing, and get a ‘dialogue’ going. You can do this by posing questions, offering tips, using words packed with meaning, as well as being specific and including technical details when possible.
You can get motivation from well-known experts in the field, and of course do your own research with the help of tools like Google Alerts.
If you follow these simple tips, then your content will be appealing and engaging. This will ensure that you have a low ‘bounce rate.’
In internet terms, the ‘bounce rate’ represents the number of persons that visit the site and then ‘bounce,’ that is, they leave rather than stay on to view other pages on the site. If your site or blog has a low bounce rate then that will improve your SEO ranking.
The web has changed our lives, and doing business will never be the same. If you want your business to grow and increase, then you have to engage in internet marketing, and use creative, innovative ways to succeed online.
It’s almost impossible for businesses to survive these days without an online presence, and promoting and selling products/services via the internet is now commonplace. This article takes a look at internet marketing strategies that can make a difference to your success.
It’s Still About Marketing Principles
Marketing is all about communicating with present and prospective customers. Internet marketing uses online tools for this purpose. To get results, you need to have a plan that incorporates a timetable, as well as co-ordinated strategies that will extend your online reach.
It makes sense to do some research and find out the online marketing strategies that are likely to work for your type of business.
The bottom line is, you want persons to see your website, and when they visit, you want them to buy the products that you have for sale. Regardless of the specific strategies you choose, these basic techniques should be at the core of your e-marketing campaign, as they can make all the difference to success.
Your First Two Strategies:
Search Engine Optimization
To begin with, you must be visible online so that people can find you easily. If you cannot be found online then all the best laid internet marketing plans will come to nothing.
Visibility depends on search engine optimization. All that means is, your website must be so structured that it can be ‘seen’ by search engines. While there are a number of tools that can help you achieve this goal, it is best to consult with an SEO expert.
Building Communities
You can do this by utilizing social networking platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter to market your business. These tools are free and low-cost, and offer an alternative way to interact with customers, and attract new ones.
Chances are your customers are already on Facebook, so why not engage them there, and bring in new leads at the same time. You can set up a Facebook business page, and then send people there via your website, and other online marketing tools like YouTube videos.
Communities Build Brands
When you have an established network via Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube, then you can expect an increase in brand awareness. You can also collaborate and share with users, in order to build a trusted base.
It is very easy for customers to use social media to share information with their friends about special promotions or events, and you won’t have to pay for this free advertising.
When you have an online presence, and have established communities with which you have regular dialogue, the next step is to convert them. You can do this, by ensuring that your website has the content that will make prospects desire to make purchases now, rather than later.
Let them know the value of what you are selling, and make sure that there is a mechanism online that will allow them to buy.
If you suffered a setback with Google’s Panda update, then you are going to have to make some changes to your SEO strategy.
Panda is an update to Google’s search algorithm that ranks websites.
It is designed to promote high quality websites, and remove low quality ones from top positions.
This update will affect the ranking of many websites.
If there are errors in your content or website which clash with Panda, then you may not recover from the update.
This article takes a look at possible errors and how to fix them.
Quality Counts
If you happen to have a low quality website, then be warned; you are likely to be adversely affected by Panda.
The sites that Google’s Panda considers low quality will be pushed even further down the results page.
In some cases, staying in the cyber race may mean having to start all over again, and cleaning your entire website to make it compatible with Google.
As daunting a prospect as that may seem, the alternative is even worse, being doomed to a lifetime of low Google rankings.
Let’s take a look at some of the errors that may cause a clash with Panda:
Duplicate/ Low-quality Content:
If you have duplicate or low quality content, then that will not make you a friend of Google.
Google dislikes duplicate content, so if you have 2 web addresses with the same content, then you will be overlooked.
Also, avoid having multiple pages with the same keyword.
Duplicate content may often be remedied by checking the names of your page files and categories, chances are this is where the problem is.
Having poor quality content will also put you at odds with Panda.
As a result, you will have to revise content to improve quality.
Take another look at heading tags, and keywords, as when these are not used correctly, it will lower your SEO score.
Poor Internal Linking structure:
Internal linking is not often understood during website building, and therefore designers build sites with incorrect structure.
Good internal linking structure will reduce your bounce rate.
The bounce rate is the percentage of persons that visit the site and then leave without visiting other pages.
In order to correct this problem, you have to take a look at the links between web pages.
Make certain that the links to other sections of the site are clean and streamlined.
Too many Affiliate Ads or Links:
Panda is also put off by sites that have an excessive amount of affiliate ads.
Since the latest update gives a low rating to websites with too many ads, it’s best to tone down the ads.
These are three of the most common errors that are on websites, which are likely to cause a clash with Panda. But as we have seen, it is possible to counteract Panda, by making some simple changes.
Backlinks are incoming links to a website or webpage. They allow you to keep track of other pages on the web that link to your posts.
The more backlinks you have to your site, the higher your search engine ranking will be.
Search engines consider some backlinks more effective than others, and will give those a higher ranking.
If you are not sure what backlinking is all about, then this article gives you some basic information, as well as three effective approaches to build them.
Backlinking Basics
When someone creates a link to your site, it represents a positive sign, because it suggests that there is something on your site worth seeing.
Backlinks are an inbound link to your website or blog, and search engines consider them very significant.
As a result, search engines will give a higher ranking to web pages with a high number of backlinks.
How to Build Backlinks
1. Create a Website with Great Content
If you have a website that is appealing and attractive to users then they will be inclined to visit it often. Be sure to add relevant content that users will find valuable.
You can find out what it is your customers are most interested in and then post content that will engage them.
In addition, if you monitor social media sites like Twitter you will be able to find out what’s trending, and include that on your website.
When you are able to provide solutions and ideas, customers will flock to your site, and inbound links will increase. If visitors like what they see, then they will freely offer links by sharing with others.
2. Use Social Media
With its millions of users, social media platforms like Facebook, offer a wonderful opportunity for you to create links and improve market exposure.
Building backlinks to Facebook will help to increase traffic to your site, and also improve your ranking on the search engine results page.
Facebook has a very easy process that allows you to create a fan page for a local business. Once you have created this link, you can get your friends to like your page, and you can make more links from there.
3. Comment on Blogs
Posting comments on blogs is another way to create backlinks to your website. You can seek out the blogs that relate to your niche market and write a comment.
You can check blog directories like Technorati to find a list of relevant blogs. Most of these blogs allow you to post your name and website when you write a comment, thereby offering a link back to the website.
The more blogs you comment on, the more backlinks you are going to create that lead back to your website or web page.
You can also build backlinks by partnering with other websites in your niche area, and you can also use press releases for backlinks.
Linking to different sites will increase your online exposure, and lead to more traffic for your website.
