How to Blog Your Way to Online Business Success

26 Jan 2010 by Kevin Gallagher No Comments

What if I told you that there is a way that your business website can increase your sales and can connect you better with your customers? Would you believe me? Well it can, and these are just two benefits your business will receive from having a well maintained blog on your website. Many SEO professionals say that having a blog on your website can yield huge benefits, and they’d be right. However SEO is just one of the many feathers in a Blogs cap.

So let us explore in more detail, the benefits of owning a well maintained blog. We will also give you ideas on what kind of topics to blog about, because a common question we get here at Moovin On Up is ‘what do I write about?’ Don’t worry; we will give you plenty of help on this subject a little later on.

Connecting With Your Customers

A blog can really help you connect better with your target audience by opening a dialogue. Let me explain: every time your business adds a new blog post, there will be an option for your customers to comment on the post. If you wish, you can reply to these comments, thus connecting you better with your customers. This will help give your company a human face and a way for your customers to interact with you more effectively.

Not only this, it can be an excellent way to canvas the thoughts and opinions of your customers. This will also give your clients the opportunity to ask questions about your posts topic.

Become an Authority in Your Industry

Another huge benefit your blog can bring is to reinforce your business brand as an authority within your industry. If for example you are constantly updating your blog with interesting unique content that adds customer value to your website (like tips and industry news for example,) your website visitors will begin to treat your company as a leading force within your industry.

Trust

Building trust between you and your customers can sometime be a long process. Creating and maintaining a blog will show to your customers that you are industry experts and know what you are talking about.

Brand Awareness

How can a blog possibly help with your brand awareness? Well let’s say for a moment you sell TV’s and you regularly put advice on your blog on how to fine-tune the picture on all the latest models. Now the next time a visitor thinks of where to buy a TV they will think of you as your blog helped them tune their TV – they will remember that you know what you’re talking about.

search engine optimisation Benefits

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is maybe the most popular reason why most business’ create a blog. Their SEO company may have recommended that they do this in order to improve their visibility in the search engines – and rightly so. However, if you create a blog solely for SEO purposes then it has already failed. Don’t get me wrong, done right, there are overwhelming SEO benefits for creating a blog. Below are some of the main reasons:

Unique Relevant Content – Search engines like websites that have lots of good unique content, and if you run an ecommerce website then adding lots of new content can be difficult. A blog can really help you to do this.
Link Generating Machine – If you create a blog with interesting content that is targeted to your customers needs then this will encourage people to link to your blog; hence increasing your websites strength.
Social Media – Although not of direct SEO benefit, using social media to put your content in front of the people who are interested will generate quality traffic for your website. This will also encourage other bloggers and website owners to link to your site, thus gaining strength. This is just not possible with a conventional website.
Increase search engine saturation – Having more pages in your website means more opportunities for potential customers to find you. A blog is an excellent way to build new, interesting pages on your website and increase your exposure in the search engines.

What kind of Content do I put on My Blog?

This is a very common question that we get asked. The question will go something like this:
“We operate in a small niche, what can we possibly write about on a regular basis?”

Even if you operate in a small niche there are always plenty of opportunities to write interesting content for your blog. However, remember – don’t just write for the sake of writing, only add a post when you have something interesting to say.

News – What’s going on in your industry? There is always something going on if you do some research. I’m sure you can find something relevant to your niche to write about. When your business has some news to report then blog about it also.
Reviews – Why not review products, books, and software that are related to your industry? Also, if you have launched a new product or service then write about that.
Tips & Advice – Your customers love it when you give tips and advice on how to use your product or services. This will also instigate conversations with your customers and may lead to some invaluable feedback.
Press Releases – Press releases are an excellent way to announce anything newsworthy within your company, maybe to announce a new product launch or charity work that you have been involved with.
Invite Others To Contribute – Another great idea is to invite other experts from your industry to write exclusive blog posts. This will go a long way to getting your blog noticed.
Interviews – Why not interview a well known figure or expert within your industry? This will generate attention for your blog and will also get your brand and company name talked about.

As you can see, these are just a few ideas for subjects which you can blog about. I’m sure if you put your thinking cap on you could come up with many more.

The best platform that we would suggest, and is by far the most popular and easy to use, is WordPress. This system will let you blog away with ease. You will however need to have the blog designed to fit with the design and feel of your website. You need it to feel like an extension of your website rather than something ‘tagged on’.

I hope this helps explain why your website needs a blog now!

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