Building Your Blog:
Create Customer Relationships
A blog is a web log, much like a journal or a newspaper column that allows you to express your views, opinions, and expertise. A business blog is different from a personal blog in that it is always focused on the reader who is a customer or could become a customer. The blog needs to be entertaining, informative, and interesting to encourage the customer to return and send colleagues and other potential customers to the blog. It is part of a marketing program to acquire and keep customers and potential customers. A blog is a tool that allows your business to build relationships with your customers over time.
In building a blog a number of decisions and choices must be made. It is important to know what your budget will be and who will maintain your blog. Templates for blogs already exist in developer-hosted platforms such as Blogger, WordPress.com, TypePad, and many others. While Blogger and WordPress.com are free, TypePad’s basic service costs $4.95./month. All three are user friendly, however WordPress.com has more customizations options to add as you become more proficient in utilizing your blog as a marketing tool. It also allows you a unique domain name for your blog which is important for search engine optimization (SEO). While anyone can set up a blog using these templates, keep in mind your business blog needs to reflect the level of your customers’ sophistication and what they can expect from your business.
Well-trafficked, well-tagged, regularly updated blogs will appear much higher in search engine rankings because they have optimized site architecture. Most blogs are set up with clear navigation, where every page is designed to link back to the other main pages. Also, blog-generating services offer the inherent potential to be well-linked by automatically formatting your blog in such a way that search engines can pick up on key words and phrases.
Read, Set, Blog!
Start by setting your goals just as you would for any marketing program. What are you trying to accomplish with your blog? Who is your reader? Then establish your focus and write with your goals in mind. For example, a Virtual Assistant (VA) works primarily with business owners, entrepreneurs, and busy people so he or she might write a blog offering advice on how to partner with a VA, what to delegate, time-saving tools and how to use them, marketing ideas, and tips for business success. Your blog should speak to your customer’s needs and be short, concisely written, informative, fresh, and interesting. You want to grab your audience, entice them with good information, encourage them to comment, and give them an incentive to come back to read your next blog.
One of the most important things to consider when blogging is using relevant keywords and phrases because they are an important factor in destermining your search engine rankings. If you need some ideas, try a keyword research tool like Wordtracker. You simply enter a keyword or keyword phrase and Wordtracker returns a list of related keywords. Wordtracker is a subscription-based service, but they offer a free trial. Google offers a free keyword tool as well.
Now, set a schedule and keep it. The more often you post, the better your chances turning your blog into a must-read that brings people back again and again and inspires them to introduce it to others. Write short informative paragraphs providing a straightforward, clear message with concise points. Devise a catchphrase for the subject to grab the reader's attention and make it memorable. Keep up on the latest news and how it relates to your industry. The more informed you are, the more informed your reader will be. Add a personal touch to your blog because it humanizes you and gives readers an opportunity to get to know you.
As your comfort and ability to customize your blog grows, posting videos, screenshots, photos, and other visuals can become an important way to enhance your blog utilizing websites like YouTube and Flickr. An easy and inexpensive tool that will allow you to easily take and post videos to your site is the Flip Camcorder. For just $150-$200, the Flip camcorder makes it easy to update your blog on a regular basis with fresh video content to entertain, inform, and engage your customers.
Create a blogging schedule for yourself and maintain it. If you need to take a break, consider a guest blogger. Cathy Stucker developed, www.bloggerlinkup.com which is a free service for people looking to guest post for other bloggers and for people who need someone to guest post. Once you sign up, you will get e-mail notices of requests and tips about blogging. Cathy takes questions and gives her answers to some of the common blogging problems. Sometimes that is invaluable support. Your blog can be the most powerful tool in your marketing plan. Be creative and be consistent.
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