All Entries Tagged With: "marketing"

Does Your Business Really Need A Blog?

Blog Content Provider has maintained for a couple of years now that businesses of shapes and sizes would benefit from having a company blog. But is it really necessary? Yes, in today’s dog-eat-dog Internet marketing culture you gain a significant edge by having a company blog.

The following article shares five ways to improve your company blog. Where necessary, we will discuss our own differences with the author, but by and large, Terry Philpott has some good suggestions here:

5 Tips to Improve Your Business Blog

By Terry Philpott

Do you have a business blog that seems to absorb all your efforts and still doesn’t perform up to your expectations? Many folks start a blog with the desire to make money online but often are guilty of misdirecting their efforts leading to frustration and a lack of success.

It is best when starting out to draw up a plan for your blog. It doesn’t have to be elaborate but you want to know where it’s headed. Do you want your blog to serve a specific niche? Should it address certain topics and stay away from others? What keywords will your blog focus on the most? It’s important to know as much about what you want your blog to do as possible so that you can measure the results and keep the blog moving in the right direction.

If this sounds like you let’s consider 5 points you may need to re-focus on to improve your results.

• Learn to give your readers with what it is they want or need. Many bloggers focus primarily making money and neglect the readers. Remember without readers THERE IS NO BLOG. Listen to their comments; in fact encourage them to leave comments. By responding and acting upon their concerns or needs you are creating an environment ‘tailor made’ for them. It was their input that guided the creation of this environment to begin with.

Don’t be afraid to take a reader poll and asking your readers what they want you to address through your blog. Getting your readers to interact with you is an important step in achieving your goals through the blog.

• If you don’t have anything to say in a post then don’t post. Feeling compelled to post every day or even multiple times daily could lessen the quality of your content. Emphasize QUALITY over QUANTITY when posting to your blog. If you post good quality content your readers will be willing to wait a day for it as oppose to reading shallow and pointless ramblings. If this occurs too often you can kiss your readers good-bye and say hello to a decrease in your blog traffic.

At Blog Content Provider, we are advocate of posting every day. The more often you post to your blog, the more likely you are to get the attention of the search engines and get more pages indexed and ranked. That translates into more traffic and readers. If you have trouble coming up with topics for your blog then you probably need to consider hiring a ghostwriter.

• Be careful to not become ‘anchored’ to your blogging duties. A blog is born out of the passion the blogger has for the blogging material itself. By investing an over abundance of time to your blog you run the risk of burning out. Push back from time to time to re-energize. Fresh, invigorating, and insightful blog posts are what the readers want and it would be difficult to deliver this if you’re overworked.

Again, a blog ghostwriter or consultant can help keep you focused and on track.

Business blogs are a fine balance between a blogger passionate about the topics they post on and a desire to make money online. It is important to remember you always need to put your reader’s FIRST. Introducing any aspect of your marketing strategy should be secondary to this.

• Conduct a blog search for sites that offer content related to yours. By visiting these sites you can pick up new ideas not only for your content but also for the blog layout itself. Also don’t be afraid to participate at these blogs by leaving a comment when appropriate. Leaving a comment that is useful, humorous, or insightful will catch the eyes of other participants. With a link back to your site in your signature file you can usually expect an increase in your blog traffic. Once again however your comments should appropriate!

We encourage bloggers to subscribe to a good number of RSS feeds from other blogs in their industry. Our ghostwriters subscribe to the influential blogs in the industries that they cover and will use trackback techniques and other blog writing tactics to draw attention to your blog. If you’re going to write your own blog then you should get familiar with these types of strategies as well.

• In addition to a blog search find forums and other online communities that contain niches within related to your blogging theme. Once again your participation and interaction at these sites can help you boost your blog traffic. This should be part of your overall marketing strategy due to the strength of networking.

Focusing on building relationships and building links is the way to keep your blog balanced between quality content and social media marketing.

Although a business blog is established for the purpose of making money online it is essential to remember the readers come first. They arrived at your site for the content not the merchandise. Your primary responsibility is to supply good quality content whether it’s informative, humorous, or insightful. Always set aside your blog marketing efforts until your readers needs have been met first.

We do not focus on making money. We focus on delivering quality content that will attract readers and deliver that traffic to your website where you will close the sale. It is important to think about your blog as a marketing tool and not a sales vehicle.

T.J Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For more information on succeeding in blog marketing and to receive a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://blogbrawn.com

Sales is an important part of any business, but our experience has shown that most blogs are better equipped to be marketing tools, not sales tools. That’s why we take a long-term approach to blogging and not a short-term sell it now approach.

For more information on blog ghostwriting services that deliver targeted traffic, visit Blog Content Provider today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Terry_Philpott

Run A Business? Why Not Start A Local News Blog?

Seth Godin is a genius. He thinks like I do.

A couple of weeks ago he wrote a blog post encouraging real estate agents to start a local newspaper online. Then he went on to say that anyone in any kind of business could do it. Of course, I’ve been saying the same thing for over a year now.

Seth’s idea is a good one. It’s really a community blog. We’ve got clients that run something similar in their communities. You can too. In fact, there are several ways that you can tap into your local market to gain more influence and to attract more customers. Here are a few ideas for you to ponder:

• Live in a tourist town? Start a blog telling tourists about places they can visit in your local area. Don’t just stick to the well known places. Also share ideas about out of the way places that most people don’t know about. A good example of this is the Gettysburg Pennsylvania Blog. Make sure that your readers know that you sponsor the blog and that you provide a link back to your business site.
• Sponsor a local charity blog. Approach a charity that you support and and ask them if they have a blog. If not, offer to sponsor the blog. Dedicate someone to write the blog daily or ask if the charity has someone who can do it. Either way, you can place your business logo on the blog as the sponsor. If neither your business nor the charity have someone who can write the blog, hire a ghostwriter to write it for you. Just make sure everyone in the community knows that your business sponsors the blog.
• Support a local little league or children’s organization. This is great if you have a child that plays baseball, soccer, or is in Cub Scouts. Check to see if the team has a blog. If not, start one and blog about the games during the season. Link back to your business website as the sponsor of the blog.
• Partner with a professional association in your area. If there are several other businesses in your area that target the same, or complimentary, market, start a joint blog and make sure a link back to your website is included in the sidebar or on the About page. Of course, the other partners will get a link too, but this type of blog shows that there is good will among your peers and you could see additional traffic from it (not to mention an inbound link or two)
• Write an activity blog. Join a local social club that is centered around a certain activity (ie racquetball, chess, Friday night card games, movie watching) and write about the group’s activities. Link back to your site as the sponsor

That’s only 5 ideas. I’m sure I could think of more (and so can you). These types of blog are called indirect marketing blogs. They appeal to a certain audience that might be segmented into your overall market. You build good will with your community by sponsoring these types of blogs and that’s great for PR, plus you never know what kind of business might come your way. On some of these blogs you could even sell advertising that pays for the expense and maintenance of the blog or the ghostwriting fees.

5 Featured Blogs

Take a look at the following blogs and tell me what you notice:

• Assistant for Real Estate
• SportsViews
• Red Hot Franchises
• Product Configurator Blog
• Gambling Tips Blog

Here’s what I see:

The Assistant for Real Estate blog is well designed and colorful. You notice it right away. The bright red makes the blog attractive and colorful, just like its owner. And the content is so well optimized and carefully crafted that Kandra Hamric, the assistant for real estate agents, has captured several of her key terms.

Sportsviews is a unique concept – a social website for sports fans. The site even allows members to start their own blogs and talk about what is important for them.

Red Hot Franchises is one of the most unique concepts we’ve seen in a long time. This company brokers franchise opportunities for the companies that hire it to promote them. A blog is the perfect promotional tool for such an endeavor.

The Product Configurator Blog reaches out to an entirely different market: Large complex selling organizations. Through simple optimization techniques and intelligent content, this company can reach its target market with one of the best marketing tools online.

How do you navigate through the difficult and competitive field of online gambling, particularly where gambling is legal – like in the UK? You start a blog and use it to promote your affiliates. The Gambling Tips Blog is very effective in promoting affiliates through search engine optimization techniques and brilliant prose.

Could you see you company profiting from any of these styles of blogging? Maybe you can consult with a blog marketing consultant today to see where you might take your blog.

Promote Your Blog Through Twitter

Twitter is fast becoming the best way to market your blog. Through Twitter you can promote your blog and your static website easily and widely. You don’t even have to spam Twitter to do it. Follow these tips for the best blog marketing through Twitter:

• Place a link to your blog in your Twitter profile
• Use Twitter Tools to post your tweets from your blog
• Set your Twitter Tools settings to create a new blog post for every tweet
• Have Twitter Tools provide a daily update of your tweets
• Put a widget on your blog promoting your tweets
• Link your Twitter profile to your Facebook profile so that your Facebook status changes on every Twitter update
• Set your Twitter Tools plugin to tweet every time you post a new blog post
• Tweet often, not just when you post to your blog
• Reply to tweets by others
• Use Twitter to establish and build relationships; that leads to new readers

Some bloggers have replaced their blog with Twitter. I say keep your blog and use Twitter to add new readers to your blog. Make Twitter a part of your marketing funnel.

Learn more about how you can use Twitter and a blog – consult with a professional blog consultant.