All Entries Tagged With: "traffic"
How Should You Monetize Your Company Blog?
One question that often pops up is “How can I monetize my business blog?” First, you have to understand what a blog is for and how best to use it. You are not trying to create a publishing platform where you sell advertising or pop on AdSense so that you earn five cents per click. If you are then you are looking at the wrong type of blog for the company blog model. It’s not that the publishing platform type of blog isn’t a good model. It is. But you can’t mix and match the concepts.
A good company blog doesn’t necessarily need a monetization plan of its own if it is done properly. That’s not to say you can’t make money with it.
First and foremost, your company blog is a marketing tool for your business. The idea is to drive traffic to your website and increase your search engine standing through optimized quality content on a regular basis. A blog is the best way to achieve those two simultaneous goals.
To measure your blog ROI, follow the traffic patterns. Are you getting traffic to your static site from the blog. If so, is it converting? If not, why not? Perhaps you nee more in-text links. Or maybe you need fewer. Maybe those links need the proper anchor text. Or maybe the problem isn’t with the blog at all.
The most common problem with websites that don’t convert is with the content on the website itself. If you’re getting traffic to your website from your blog, but you aren’t closing sales then it’s the website, not the blog. Don’t fix what isn’t broken.
We’re firm believers in first things first. Get your website to where it will convert traffic to sales. Then use a blog to promote it. You can use other methods of promotion as well. Don’t just stick with one way (ever hear of not putting your eggs in one basket?). But realize that not every visitor to your site will buy something and not every visitor to your blog will visit your website. What do you do with that traffic that leaves?
Here are a few ideas for you:
- Sign them up for your newsletter
- Hit them with an exit “pop-up” window and sell them something; like, maybe an e-book
- Get them to subscribe to your RSS feed
- Sell them an affiliate product with a link in the sidebar
- Send to them a sister site
One important concept too many business owners ignore is the value of contact information, which can lead to future sales. Get the e-mail address, at least. Use your company blog as more than a repository for your “throwaway” content.
Use Your Blog To Build Inbound Links
A blog is a great way to build inbound links. You can use an offsite blog to build links to your static website by posting daily and using your keywords as anchor text to build those inbound links. The best way to use a blog for building links is to augment other types of Internet marketing that you do and not try to do too much too soon. You don’t want the search engines thinking you are spamming and discounting those links. In the case of linking from your blog to your static site, moderation is the key.
There are two ways to make your blog’s inbound links for you:
- Sidebar
- In-text
Your sidebar links are permanent links and won’t help you a great deal, but they do help brand your blog and drive traffic to important pages where you want your traffic to go. Your in-text in-blog-post links are the best links you can have. The search engines love those links. And they count to help push your static site up in the rankings. Learn more about how an offsite blog can help you build inbound links.
5 Ways To Use Blogs To Drive Traffic Where You Want It
Blogging has grown a lot since it was first introduced online. It has changed, but the fundamentals are the same. Businesses are using blogs ever more and to great effect. Below are three ways that you can use a blog to drive traffic to your website:
- Use your blog posts to promote specific pages of your website. Don’t link to too many pages in the same blog post. This strategy is best used as a minimalist approach. Focus on one – or two at the most – pages per blog post and link to that page once or twice. No more. Focus on another page in the next blog post.
- In your sidebar. Pick a handful of pages on your website to promote in your sidebar. Create sidebar links for those pages and that’s it.
- Use a signature link in your blog posts. In your signature link, include a link or two to specific pages on your website and try to make those pages relate to your blog post topic in some way.
- Instead of a signature link, add a banner at the bottom of all of your posts. Link the banner to a specific page on your website. You can even rotate banners from one post to the next depending on the topics you write about.
- Use your RSS feed to promote specific pages on your website. The number of people who will see these links will be limited, but you can use the links as an incentive to subscribe to your RSS feed. Make those links to special pages that offer a strong benefit and plug that benefit in your RSS feed promotional literature.
You can drive traffic anywhere you want it to go using these traffic-driving techniques. For more insight into managing a blog, check out BCP.
The Difference Between Blogging For SEO And Blogging For $$
Everyone, it seems, wants to make money from their blog, but blogging isn’t necessarily all about money. A blog can also be used for marketing purposes, to drive traffic and improve your SEO, which ultimately is about improving your search position for your important keywords.
When you monetize a blog through advertising – whether display, PPC, CPM, text links, or another model – you are really attempting to get people to click on those ads. You write content that encourages that. Some people use a mediocre or lousy content strategy. In other words, they purposely downplay their content so that visitors click the ads. It works for some of them, but you don’t want to do that on your business blog.
For your company blog, you really want to develop a relationship with the people who will do business with you. You want traffic and SEO benefits. By focusing on keyword-rich content that is valuable to human readers, you will increase your brand positioning as well as your company image, and that’s what really counts.
