All Entries Tagged With: "sales"
What’s A ‘Bad Blog’ Anyway?
Spend any time at all online and you are sure to run into someone recommending that you start a blog for your business. Stick around any longer and you’ll encounter someone warning you not to start one if you are going to have a “bad one”. But what’s a bad blog? It’s almost never defined.
The implication is that if the content isn’t a pleasure to read then it’s a bad blog. But what is a pleasure for one person to read is not necessarily a pleasure for someone else. Have an interest in reading about badminton tips every day? No? Well, maybe someone else does.
But it isn’t all about the nature of the content either. You also have to consider blog design and the quality of the writing. Sure, you want your blog to be attractive. And, yes, you want the writing to be high quality writing. But understand that not every blog has to be of the same caliber as a blog on the A-list. If they all were then there’d be no A-list.
So what’s a bad blog? Let’s start by defining a good blog. A good blog is one that:
- Informs your readers about topics of interest within your niche
- Sets itself apart as unique from other blogs in the same niche
- Drives traffic to important landing pages on your website (the job of closing the sale is on those landing pages
- If your blog is a sales blog then it closes a decent percentage of sales or converts and adequate percentage of traffic to sales, or leads, or whatever your goal is
- Adds optimized content to your website often
- If an offsite blog, builds back links to your primary web property
- Gets people interested in your niche talking in the comments section
- Provides you with information about the needs of your target market
Not every good blog does every one of these, but a good blog should do many of them. It seems to reason then that a “bad blog” is one that doesn’t do any of these or that only does a few while neglecting the most important elements of a good blog. The problem is, a blog may have many different purposes or your standards for a good blog may not match what someone else’s idea of a good blog is. What every blog owner should refrain from doing is allowing your readers from defining what is “good” and what is “bad” based on whether or not they enjoy reading it. That’s not necessarily the judge of a good blog.
Assuming that readers must enjoy reading the blog presumes that the purpose of the blog is for readership, i.e. enjoyability. But simply having readers enjoying your content won’t necessarily lead to sales. You want your blog to make you money, right?
Of course, not all blogs are sales tools either. You can have a blog simply for SEO purposes. The point is this: Define the purpose of your blog and live up to that purpose. That’s really the only measure of blog quality. Don’t do that and you’ve got a bad blog.
Should Salesmen Have Their Own Blogs?
If you’re a sales representative for a company and you are responsible for generating your own leads, you should have your own blog. There is no better online lead generation tool than a personal business blog. Note that I’m talking about a personal business blog. Not a personal blog.
So what’s a personal business blog?
First, it’s a business blog. A blog that you write for business purposes. If you’re a member of a sales organization then your blog can be used to present your product to the public. You don’t necessarily have to “sell” in every blog post. Not all blog posts are sales oriented. The purpose is to generate an interest in what you have to offer. You do that by discussing the benefits and entering into dialogue with your target audience.
I call this type of blog a personal business blog because the blog belongs to you, not your company. Because it your blog and not the company’s blog, you get to decide how the blog is written and make the editorial decisions on a daily basis. Your sales manager doesn’t do that for you. It’s your responsibility. That said, many company’s want to ensure that their image is presented accurately and within the context of their own branding efforts. And that is possible with a personal business blog. I didn’t say you couldn’t consult with your sales manager or corporate headquarters. They do have a stake in the game. But you can use a blog to help you develop your territory and generate leads that you follow up on daily. It is called efficient time management and good use of resources.
To learn more about writing a personal business blog, visit with a blog consultant.
How Many Sales Does Your Blog Make?
Speaking to some blog owners you’d think that sales was the most important thing. You’ll hear them say things like, “I haven’t made a sale in months” or “I get a lot of traffic, but it’s not converting.” The issue might not be your blog.
Keep in mind that a blog is not necessarily your best sales tool online. Your website is. A blog is often better used to drive traffic to your website. One advantage that a blog has over a static website is the ability to get crawled by search engines and ranked more quickly. That’s because every time you update your blog post you invite the search engines back to your website to crawl it and every blog post is a separate web page. Those are great benefits.
But within every benefit lies a burden. The downside to every blog post being able to rank faster is that they also become irrelevant much faster. Most people don’t read every blog post of every blog they subscribe to. They read the ones with the catchy titles and that cover the topics in which they have an interest.
That said, instead of focusing on hitting home runs with every blog post, instead try to just get on base with each blog post. Sometimes you’ll strike out (Babe Ruth struck out more often than he got hits but look at how many home runs he had). Sometimes you’ll walk or hit a single. Other times you’ll hit a double or triple and, yes, sometimes you’ll hit that coveted home run. The key to blogging, however, is long term permanence. If you effectively use your blog to drive traffic to your website and you aren’t making sales then it may not be your blog’s fault. It could be your website’s.
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
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
