One of the best enhancements we can make to a business website is an active blog. A separate and distinct “sub site” that allows you and your team to rapidly publish your expertise to the web. We have found the best results separating the blog from the main website, which contains more static content. Of course the two sites are linked together, so as your blog content drives traffic, your main website (and your conversion rate) benefits. The more active and dynamic nature of the blog will encourage user interaction, sharing and return visits. The fact that you can have it separate (but connected) from your “static” website means you can rapidly deploy a blog, without having to completely overhaul your current website.
So why blog?? Content! Establishing your expertise will drive more traffic and business to your website. Content is the fuel for your online marketing efforts, both with your potential customers and the search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. It just happens that the same thing which elevates your ranking with human website visitors, also elevates your search rankings. If you don’t need to market your business and reach out to your customers, you can stop reading here.
However, if you do need to expand your reach and sell more widgets or services, an active blog will become the center of your campaign. Blogs are as easy to publish to as writing an email, they easily connect with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and they are magnets for search engines. When they’re properly set up, all you’ll need to do is come up with interesting content and publish it. The rest is automatic!
Enough of the sales job… You’ve decided to start a blog. Now what? First, you’ll need to find your voice. Here’s a few steps that may help you:
- First understand that blog posts don’t need to be epic undertakings. A blog post can be as short as a paragraph. The late/great General George Patton said it best: “A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow”. This rather simple point is one that we have the most difficulty getting clients to understand. Until a new blogger “dives in” and embraces the task, they’ll equate writing blog content with doing their taxes. It doesn’t need to be that difficult. Just make sure you double-check your grammar and spelling… You ARE trying to show your business in a positive light. If you have the writing skills of the average four year old child, you might want to have someone proof read and polish your posts before publishing them for the entire world to see!
- If you have expertise (hopefully, you do!), your blog will help share it better and cheaper than any other medium. A frequently updated blog will help your website and your online presence greatly. However, an inactive blog can actually hurt your business, branding and marketing efforts. Starting the blog and publishing a few posts over a few weeks, then letting it sit idle for months at a time will do more harm than good. Visitors will see the cobwebs in your online efforts. Before embarking on your blog campaign, make a plan and stick to it! In the grand scheme of things, it’s not that difficult to write a paragraph here and a paragraph there. It actually can be a challenge to come up with unique, interesting and informative blog post ideas, so keep a small notepad with you. You’ll come up with ideas at the strangest times. Write them down, then revisit those ideas later and form them into blog posts. This method can also make use of your email drafts folder… When you come up with an idea, start a new email to yourself. Type in a few lines and then save it as a draft. You can revisit it later when you have more time to complete your thoughts and ideas into a new post.
- You’ll need to determine how much of your expertise you are willing to publish on the Internet for free. This one-time process can be easier if you sell an actual product, and more challenging if you sell a service. Whether you sell widgets or your intellectual property, you should be able to define the limits of what you’re willing to publish to the web. You’ll need to develop your own blog “filter”. Everything you write will need to pass through that filter. Will this post show my business in a positive light? Will this blog post be interesting or edgy? Will this blog post result in people sharing with their friends or Twitter followers? Does this blog post cross the line and divulge intellectual property I’d rather have clients pay for? Developing a few “filter” items must be the first thing you do as you create a blog strategy.
- As time marches on, your blog posts will be sorted and automatically archived by date, tagged keywords and by categories. We have found that careful consideration to your categories, during the initial blog development, can also be very helpful to you and your blog contributors. If your blog categories are right, they’ll help you generate ideas for new posts later. Take your time and come up with 6-10 varied categories that will help you and your readers now and a year from now.
- The more, the merrier! If you can, try and set up a handful of contributors. Whether they are employees or trusted outside contributors, bringing more authors into the blog will increase the post frequency and your site traffic. Don’t worry, you can still maintain your editorial control and approve everything before its published to the Internet. Your post frequency is very important. If your blog is set up correctly, every time a new post is published, it also “pushes” to Twitter and/or Facebook followers so they can click a link and visit your blog and website to learn more. Every time you publish a new post, an excerpt can also automatically be emailed to those who have subscribed to receive those updates. It’s also a good thing if search engines index new content every time they revisit your website and blog. The more often you post, the more that content is indexed, shared and pushed out to the world. Finding a sustainable way to publish frequently is key. More contributors gets you to that point very quickly. The ultimate example of a multi-author blog is Mashable.com. We highly recommend you visit and sign up for email updates and share a couple posts with friends. All the functionality on that blog can also be implemented on your blog!
Make the long-term commitment to publish interesting content. Write your posts for your clients and prospective clients, not the search engines. Post as frequently as you can and make sure your blog is connected to the various social networking sites, so each new post is “pushed” out to your “peeps”.
If you build it, they will come! If that’s too cliche, how about “Publish or Perish“? Either way, your business needs to blog and share its perspective, insights, updates and expertise. If you would like help finding your voice or developing your blog and social networking strategies, please call us at 214-356-4700 or email us at info@cakewebservices.com.
