Blogging for Business
Blogging follows the same rules as Article Marketing - It
is free (unless you have to hire help), it is friendly and
helps with the relationship process, and it MUST be indirect
to be successful. NO ONE is going to check in regularly to
read ads!
Free blogs on Blogger.com, or WordPress.com offer you the
advantage of a ready-built blogging community to tap into.
Self-hosted ones offer more flexibility, less of a chance
of it getting deleted (Blogger has that reputation), but a
little more risk in some ways.
The key is that you provide posts that people are interested
in - they have to give them something they want, that they
consider to be valuable.
Value may mean instructions, information, humor, warmth,
reviews, recipes, ideas, encouragement, etc. It can be anything
that they feel a need for in their life.
And it has to be regularly provided. Bloggers are a hungry
lot. They can be taught to diet on a schedule of once a week,
but less than that, and they'll starve. They also get testy
if they are used to an every other day schedule, and you drop
them unexpectedly and leave them hanging. Like a bowel-fixated
senior citizen, regularity is important to them.
So, in order to make it work, you have to be pretty gregarious
and you have to have plenty to say that is worth saying. Some
people operate a blog by finding words from others to post,
and while this is acceptable some of the time, it is not going
to produce quality stuff that keeps them coming back for more
if that is all you have to offer. It is like a diet of TV
dinners - they can get it anywhere. They want home cooking.
They want it fresh, and they want it to be digestible.
Bloggers tend to be more impatient than other website visitors
also. They want something that gets to the point. Don't waste
their time with a tidbit that tries to lure them somewhere
else every time. They will be willing to visit your site if
you link it in, but they expect you to earn that visit.
If you cannot produce good quality regular content, then
you are better off with article marketing, which does not
require a regular schedule.
Blogging won't bring you a flood of business instantly. It
is like the other forms of free marketing - it takes time
to establish, and time to grow, and then frequently the benefits
will be indirect.
A blog can provide three basic benefits:
1. Clickthroughs from links to your site that you put on
your blog. These are easy to track.
2. A minor increase in pagerank from links in the blog that
go back to your site.
3. A viral benefit as your blog link gets picked up and syndicated,
IF you have something good enough to syndicate.
You'll have to promote your blog too though. When you have
a website, and a blog, you have to promote them both, which
can complicate the marketing tasks for some businesses. You
are the only one who can decide if it is worth trying, and
then determine whether it is worth it for you to keep doing
it.
Expect to have to give it three months before you'll have
an idea of whether it is sustainable. By that time, you should
be able to see at least a potential.
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