If you are blogging and if you have a online or offline business, generating business and building your business should certainly be one of the goals you have for your blog. And remember, blogging is and should be proactive marketing for you. You should not be sitting around waiting on customers to arrive at your site and either buy from you or hire you. Blogging and social media are proactive in the sense you can do something to bring in business.
While it is important to always keep the search engines in mind. You can not simply sit around and wait on the traffic to stop by. You have to do something. And using a blog and social media is a great apparatus to be proactive.
What can you do now to turn your business blog into a business building apparatus?
1. Give some thought to your blog post headlines. Blogging is powerful if for one reason. Each post you write is a new web page. And each one of these new web pages has all of your information on it. It has the name of your business, a link to your About Page and anything else you might put in a “single post” sidebar. That is why it is so important to consider the design of your “single post” pages when you are building your site. Which is where a tool like Headway Themes is so powerful.
Your post headlines or titles should be well thought out and contain keywords specific to your niche and/or business. While I usually write the headline to a post before I start to write the post itself. Nine times out of ten, I will make changes to the headline after I write the post. Your post headline is the one place you should stop and seriously consider Google and the other search engines. Keep in mind, the headline is the first thing people are going to see in a search results page and the first thing they will see in their RSS reader. You want the headline to catch and maintain their attention. Also, make sure your best niche or business keywords appear in the first few words in the headline for maximum exposure.
2. Make it easy to share your post. While you must consider keywords in your post headlines as we just discussed. You also want your post to be easy to share. Of all of the social media tools, twitter has become the first choice for most people to use for sharing content. What you have to keep in mind is the one limitation of twitter. There are only 140 characters to work with. And you have to keep that in mind when crafting your post headlines. You don’t want people to have to edit your headline to share it on twitter. So, try to keep your post headlines at no more than 120 characters if you can. This leaves room for retweets too.
3. Blog for and to your audience, who are your prospects and customers. You want your prospects and your customers to get to know you. You want them to feel comfortable with you. And you want to connect with your audience too. The style of your writing is extremely important when you are considering your audience.
I firmly believe it is fair to say that every business has their own audience. They come to you for what you have to offer. And they will come to your blog and come back to your blog for what you are offering there too. Know your audience and write to and for them. Too many businesses and professional service firms try to impress their audiences with the style of their writing. Don’t!!! Give your audience what they want. Your audience wants information, solutions to their problems and issues and answers to their questions. They don’t want a techie journal article or a professional journal article. They want information they can use and understand. A blog is perfect for this.
4. Post to your blog on a regular and consistent basis. People go to the internet for information. And like the search engines, people like new, up-to-date and relevant information. You can be light years ahead of your competition if you are the one blogger in your niche who provides this information on a regular and consistent basis.
No, you don’t have to post daily, unless you want to. What you need to do is pick a schedule and stick to it. Your readers are going to come to know when you post and they will come to expect it.
Yes, you do have the time to post. Because you better be finding the time to market and that is what blogging is. Blogging should be one of the activities as a business you are doing inside your overall marketing program. Make the time to do it.
5. Spread out and guest post on other blogs. If there is one sure fire way to reach new readers it is guest posting on other blogs. But, don’t sit around waiting on an invitation. This is also where you should be proactive. Ask for the opportunity to guest post on other blogs. Effective guest blogging comes with key things you should do. Here is a list of steps you can take for effective guest posting.
6. Promote your blog. Great content, great headlines and having a few readers is not enough. You have to be proactive once again. You have to promote your blog.
We have given you 6 ways you can turn your business blog into a business building apparatus. What are some of the ways you have done the same? Share your ideas in the comments below and let’s keep the conversation going.
