Archive for the ‘Blogging’ Category

Who should write a blog?

Anyone can write a blog. Some people write blogs for personal reasons, some write about their hobbies. I focus on how to use a blog as a tool to grow your business.  To be an effective blog writer and to get the most return on your investment of time and money spent blogging, you will need a blog strategy, personal discipline, an internal desire, and unique content.

Your blog strategy will determine why you are writing your blog and what your goals are. You need your plan to include how frequently you are updating it, what types of content it will include, and it needs to speak to your target customer.

Your blog needs to be updated regularly according to your plan. If it is not updated regularly it will get less traffic and be less effective in implementing your strategy. Not only do you have to update frequently, you also need to be persistent and keep at it. It will take time to develop a following. It doesn’t happen overnight. This requires discipline.

You need to have the desire to create the content on a regular basis, and to be persistent. You can’t stop once you start. I have found that once I got in the habit of writing, I about my daily routines and interactions with my blogger goggles on. For example, I was at church thinking “Oh, that would make a good blog post”.

Which brings me to content. You need a content plan that offers compelling content to attract your customers and keep them coming back. You can create a 3 month rolling calendar of what your content strategy, topics and types of articles will be. You can even write them in advance.

• Strategy
• Discipline
• Desire
• Content

These are the 4 key personal characteristics that are required to have a valuable and successful blog.

What is your Blog Philosophy?

How do I use my blog?

Now that you have your blog set up, How do you use it? What is your blog philosophy?

Think of your blog as an interactive tool. With a newsletter you push information to your customers. With a blog, your customers can talk back to you by leaving comments, and you can reply to them.

Your blog becomes an extension of your company’s public persona or brand and thus it needs to reflect your brand.

Here are some ways to build your brand with your blog:

• Portfolio – Express your brand’s personality by expanding your portfolio to your blog.
• Inform – Share with your customers some key learning or “how to” tips. Inform them of new products or services or any product recalls.
• Networking – You can use a blog for networking. Go to websites of other people in your field and leave comments on their articles and include a link back to your blog. They will do the same to you.
• Awareness – Post links to articles and content on the web that relates to your business or brand.

A blog can be a powerful marketing tool as long as you have a clear blog philosopy. It is a subtle way to brand your company while appearing authentic and knowledgeable and setting you up as an authority in your field. The blog helps you to establish a relationship with your customers and build trust. Your prospective customers get to know you and your company before buying.

Do you have a blog philosophy?

How much does a blog cost?

Blogs are easy to get for free. The easiest and most popular site for hosting your blog is Blogger. If you want advanced functionality, use WordPress.com. Both of these are free. There are actually a ton of free blog sites that add more social features as well.

Why would anyone pay for a blog when you can get one free?

The downside of the free sites is that they will not give you all the benefits of search engine optimization and thus will not optimize the amount of traffic to your site.

A paid blog with your own domain will give you better search engine traffic and thus be better at increasing your customer base and your income. This blog site is written using the open source WordPress.org blog software and self-hosted at Godaddy.com. I chose this because I liked the blog philosophy of WordPress. It is easy to use, is extensible and there are thousands of free plug-ins to support it. I have over 15 active plug-ins at the time of this post. They help with everything from search engine optimization to blog monetization. And, it only costs $5 per month.

Blogging is an easy and inexpensive way to create a web presence, and a blog is easy to keep fresh and up-to-date without the expense of a web developer. If you want to make money at blogging, use a hosted solution where you own the domain name and the content resides on a server you can control.

Why do I need a blog?

Blogs can be a free or low cost way to gain more visibility for your business. It can establish credibility in your field. It helps you to be recognized as an expert and thus people will turn to you for advice in your field. This also helps you to build your brand and communicate with your customer. It creates a face to the customer and builds the personality of your brand.

Your customer can subscribe to your blog which enables them to stay in contact with you and strengthen your relationship.  Blogs make it easier for your customer to give you feedback. They simply need to leave a comment after a post.

Blogs can be monetized to increase your sales and add supplementary income to your bottom line. A blog is also a useful tool to increase traffic to your site because the blog format is naturally search engine friendly. It is optimized for search engines. Blogs make it easy for you and customers to get links back to your blog or website which enhances search engine optimization and traffic.