Blogging for Business

There are numerous strategies for growing a business online today but few as effective as a business blog. Simply put a blog can significantly increase the traffic or amount of people who decide to visit your business website. That's a significant fact for business owners since an increase in website traffic will in most cases have a direct and corresponding positive effect on sales.

Before you can understand how a blog does this, it's helpful to get a clear understanding of what a blog is. A blog is a journal, organized on a website by date and category and focused on a particular topic or issue. Since we're talking about business blogs, your blog would be about your company/industry.

Today businesses are blogging because audiences want that authentic, personal voice not the corporate message machine. For example, weekend gardeners might want to know what an owner of a garden shop personally thinks about the newest product on the market to combat plant fungus when he puts up a post about garden pests.

A business blog today is in many ways better than traditional advertising. If created well blogs can generate interest, buzz, conversation and excitement about your product or service. What's even better a blog is only a fraction of the cost of an advertisement and maybe even less than that.

Here's the challenge: one of the biggest complaints business owners have about blogs is that they haven't the time to create one and maintain it in a way that will generate profit. That's a misconception that will cause you to leave lot of money on the Internet table.

A blog isn't a book. It's a journal that thanks to free content management systems like WordPress or Blogger is easy to upload and update for just about anyone with basic computer knowledge and an ability to write.

(If you absolutely hate writing you might consider hiring a ghost writer or multi-talented virtual assistant to create blog posts for you).

There are a few tips that will help businesses to launch successful blogs and they include:

1. Know your audience and offer them value: Before you write a word, think about your audience (prospective customer) and what they would want to know.

2. Conduct research on the keywords used by those searching for your product or service: Use Google's keyword search tool or Wordtracker.com. What I'm suggesting here is a basic search engine optimization strategy and will help your target market to find you sooner on Google (your goal is to have your website turn up at the top of search returns for keywords related to your business/market).

3. Post as regularly as you can - daily or at least twice a week.

4. Encourage comments on your post and respond to those who comment.

5. "Capture" the emails of your visitors. Put a form on every page of your blog (in the right hand margin is ideal) and encourage your readers to leave their name and email address in that form. Offer to send them a semi or regular newsletter if they sign-up. As they provide you with this information you'll begin to grow your list of prospective customers. You can then deepen that relationship with your readers by sending them emails, tailored to their interests and every so often highlighting a product or service that you're selling.

Sharon McMillan has spent over 15 years creating successful marketing materials and public relations campaigns for small businesses and professional organizations in the U.S. and Canada. To get her free guide "Business Blogging Success

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