Want More Business? Start Blogging!

For businesses that have been looking for a new ways to market their brand and generate new customers, a blog may be the perfect answer. While good writing skills and in-depth industry knowledge are the critical success factor as far as business blogging is concerned, the great news is that virtually anyone can start one of these blogs at little to no start-up costs, making it one of the most cost effective methods of advertising in the market.

Reaching a Worldwide Audience

Gone are the days when location mattered the most for the success of a business. Today even the most successful business can operate from a small town or a rural area, as long as connectivity to the internet is available. Although local sales are still important, many businesses score higher profits through online sales alone.

While the goal of a company blog is not directly to "sell" to the customer, it is a way of sharing information about the current trends related to a product and to ultimately influence the customer to see the product as something that they need.

Keep it Light...and Relevant

It is very easy to make mistakes when blogging for a business. One of the most important things to remember is to keep the material relevant, but to beware of making the wording too promotional-like to your visitors. The main purpose of starting a business blog is to connect with customers (both present and prospective) in a way that meets their needs; while at the same time bringing them information this is of  'VALUE' to them.

Blogging for business has often been defined as a brand building exercise.

For example, if a specialty bakery wants to start a blog with the objective of attracting more customers, they might want to share their start-up stories, exciting recipes, articles giving a historical prospective into the industry or any other relevant topic.

When people visit your blog and like what they read, it creates an element of trust. They would naturally then be inclined in knowing more about you and the products you offer. Thus you use a blog to channel customers towards your product website, where the real 'conversion' takes place.

While blogging for your business, it is important to adopt a tone too not too formal or business like and make your articles as interesting to your readers as you possibly can. In addition to this, it is important to post blog entries frequently so that your target audience will always have fresh content to enjoy and people will see that the company is up to date and proactive in its approach

Promote, Promote, Promote

After a business has taken time to create a blog, the next step is to promote the blog to the audience targeted and Social Media websites are a great way of doing so. If your organisation already enjoys an active social media following, you can use this following to leverage hits to your blog. On the flip side you can also encourage your blog visitors to connect with you through your (businesses') Social Media pages. Companies may even want to list their blog website on business cards, catalogs, ads, or any other print media that they are associated with.

A Few Tips

1. Your focus should be on content quality and not quantity. More blog posts simply does not translate into more conversions.

2. Craft a publication schedule that you can honour and stick to it.

3. If you are investing into SEO, make sure your strategies are not in violation of Search Engine guidelines.

4. Moderate comments.

5. Use your business blog to break news of new product launches.

6. Keep a tab on your competitor's blogging strategy.

7. Use analytics to track visitor data.

8. Do not display ads (adsense etc) on your business blog.

Thanks for your time.