Blogging has been popular for years with hobbyists, enthusiasts and experts as a means of letting the world know what they know by imparting their knowledge there are so may blogs around now that it has become a hobby in its self.
In this article we hope to let you with the advantages of blogging from a business perspective but not just that give you some ideas about what a blog should contain.
A blog is a website that is frequently added to by an individual or group, they are generally written in a more conversational style and can contain many different types of content.
Generally speaking a blog can contain articles, Video, Images, Quotes, Links and Images or even Image Galleries, this gives the blogger(s) (person(s) running the blog) a great deal of flexibility when it comes to how they wish to publish content.
In many blogs content is categorised in to different subject areas and people visiting it can filter based on these categories or even search using an on site search box.
Businesses specialise in specific fields and as such have a great deal of knowledge about what they do, products they sell and the services they offer; having a blog means you have a less formal environment where you can publish information to show you know what you are an expert in the field in which you operate.
To people visiting your blog this can give them confidence that you are indeed an expert in your industry.
Not only that it can also increase or improve your websites SEO score.
Having an external blog to your existing website gives you the opportunity to place links on another website pointing to pages on your main website, if google decides that the link from your blog to your website contains content relevant to each other then you start getting SEO points for back links. In addition visitors who read your articles then click on a links going through to your website are much more likely to engage with the content on your main website as both pages content complement each over meaning that this visitor is potentially more likely to become a customer.
First thing to remember is that you are writing for an audience and as such you should be targeting what is written to entice them to read on, your content needs to be valuable not just to your business but also your customers need to learn something as well.
Your content should be planned as a blog should be frequently updated with fresh new content, for some this is a reason not to blog however below are some ideas of how you can plan your content or even re-use other resources to bolster up your posts.
- Identify parts of your main website that are not getting so many visitors, research key words people are using to find the same or similar services on other websites to come up with ideas about articles on your blog that may fill in this gap.
- Are you getting asked the same questions or get the same requests for information from customers? If so then publishing the answers to these questions may attract visitors to your blog as a lot of people will use a search engine to find an answer before they contact you.
- Do you publish regular newsletters or articles? If so adding these to your blog is a great way to establish more content on your blog.
- Publishing information about events such as trade shows or networking events that you are attending.
- Do you take pictures of your work, is there a creative or design aspect to what you do, if so showing examples of your work is a great way of making your blog look less text heavy and more attractive.
Over the years I have suggested to a lot of people, organisations and companies to start blogging and explained the benefits whilst 90% of the time the advise is accepted there are reasons given as to why a customer doesn’t want to blog.
I just don’t have time to manage 2 websites.
Like everything this is an additional resource to manage and time needs to be put aside to generate new and immersive content to entice customers to visit your web page. If you reverse the previous sentence…. Entice customers to visit your website by having immersive and interesting content on your blog, yes simple as this can drive more people to your website, more importantly these visitors are more likely to get in contact and become customers.
A blog will not be about our business, it is more about a subject area
I completely agree with this a blog is not about your company it is about your customers…. Let me explain…
Your blog is about attracting customers in a different way from your website, your blog should contain articles of interest that relate to products and services offered by your business, for example if you sell wall paper having a blog with a subject like “home decoration ideas” gives you another area to display room shots showing how great your product is, through out the articles you can place links to products displayed in each shot. Lets face it if someone likes what they see and find what they are looking for quickly they will be more likely to purchase a dozen rolls of wall paper to decorate their lounge.
We’re not very good at writing
Well this is a problem, whilst images, video or audio can all be put in to a blog there will always be the need for text, it is something every one struggles with and the only way to improve is practice.
Generally getting 2-3 people to proof read amend and re-write an article is advisable as it will help it make more sense and as time goes on the quality of each post will improve.
A well maintained and engagin blog will generate sales over time, if offers a secondary entry point for people searching to find out what you do and that your company can help them with a problem or service that they require.
It offers additional links back to your site which can both improve SEO but also improve the quality of visitors to your website, getting better quality visitors will over time increase sales and make the effort put in to writing your blog an investment rather then a chore.
At AME WebTech we can build you a blog that complements your brand and can deliver all the advantages described above, we can help with your content strategy and produce an easy to update blog, we can also help make your articles more attractive and advise how to get them as high up search engines as possible.
If you are interested in finding out more why not contact us.
