If you’re new to the internet as a marketing tool for your business, then you might be forgiven for thinking that bloggings only purpose was to publish the diary type musings of people who like to share their day to day stuff; or that blogging is just a way for people who know about blogging to make money by blogging about ‘how to blog’. Bit of a circular argument there but I’m sure you get my drift.
True, blog is short for Web Log and this is how it started, but today, blogging is a marketing tool and the platform which you use for your blog is a content management system.
A blog is a website which YOU, that’s YOU, and not an outrageous cost per hour web developer, can update in the click of a button. So what could blogging for business mean for you. The cold hard facts…
- Whatever you sell, it’s people who do the buying. People have interests and problems and they also like to know who they’re buying from. If you’re good at business, then you’ll set about the task of establishing a relationship with your most important clients. But why spread yourself too thinly? With a blog you can share the bit of yourself, the business persona that you want the world to see with all of your customers, not just the hallowed few. And wasn’t there an element of relationship building that elevated them to the status of your platinum client in the first place? Blogging for business makes that so much easier.
- Isn’t it better to keep an existing customer, than to go and find a new one? Loads. With a blog you can subtly promote different and new products to your existing customers.
- Is the customer always right? Probably not. But they always win if they just decide not to buy from you. A blog lets you collect comments from visitors (i.e. your customers) so you can find out what they want. And then you can give it to them.
- Respond instantly to fads and trends. When Delia Smith mentioned a certain mini mixer on TV one evening, the product had sold out by the very next day in most stores in the land. The demand she created was so high there was a waiting time of over 1 month whilst they were shipped over from the Eastern Block to fill the void. This £17 cooking toy was selling on Ebay for over £50. We decided to carry on buying our Guacomole from Waitrose and wait for the panic buying to subside, which of course it did. The power of media is vast, immediate, and finite. A few weeks later, when I went out again to hunt one down, they were all over the place, and remarkably less attractive for it. ‘ Flash in the pans’ pass just as quickly as they arrive, and it’s the quick who cash in. Updating a traditional website can be a slow process for the non-expert. By the time you’ve got the information, emailed it to your techie web guy and done a bit of an argie-bargie about what goes where and how, had a bit of a gasp over how much it’s going to cost-then the flurry’s all over. If you want to tap into what’s happening in your market TODAY, this minute, then you need a WordPress blog.
- A basic WordPress blog is cheap. It may not be too fancy looking, but it’s easy for you to tart up with informative photo’s and videos. And that’s what people want, information, solutions and entertainment. They care more about what’s in it for them than the web gadgets and gizmo’s.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a whole industry of smoke and mirrors when you have a traditional type of website. With a WordPress blog, the SEO element is just so much easier if you want to start doing some of that yourself and avoid paying out the recurring fees to the experts.
This web site you’re on right now is a WordPress blog structure and it’s set up as a sort of website bloggy combo. There a few pages were we explain what we market alongside posts of information and tid-bits which we hope to entice you with and deliver value. You’ll note that at the bottom of many of the posts there are links to other websites with related articles which you may also find useful. Many schools of thought believe you should never encourage your visitors to leave and head off to another site, but it’s also about providing value and support for your readers.
But what can I blog about you ask? Your business. It’s not generally a stunning idea to encourage your readers to head off to someone else’s site plump in the middle of your own article, but I think you need to see how blogging can transform the most unlikely business. English Cut is the blog of a Saville Row Tailor, Thomas Mahon, and it’s in the Times Top 100 recommended blogs. Thomas shares his day to day stuff as well as interesting insights into the life and work of a tailor, his cloth and his clothes. Crucially, he expanded his client base to encompass those who might otherwise have felt uncomfortable buying a bespoke suit. Thomas demystified it all, made it interesting and created a safe buying atmosphere before anyone had even entered the store.
If you’re a personal trainer, how about sharing tips and tricks for rock hard abs and keeping your readers up to date with fitness developments?
If you sell shoes, handbags, earrings, or chocolate, these items have a history, a creation or growing process, all of which will be interesting to someone.
Importantly, you will also be establishing yourself as an expert in your field by delivering interesting and useful information, instead of making your website all about you and your list of qualifications – about which nobody actually cares – sorry but they don’t.
There are two ways you can get your own business blog. There’s the DIY method where you download step by step videos to follow in the Business Blog DIY Programme. This is cheap and easy to do when you follow along. Plus, it means you can do it again for another business, or just because you’ve got the bug – which is what happened to us!
Or you can get us to do it for you in the cunningly named portion of our service – We Do It For You (Custom Installation).
Whichever you choose, the sooner you get started, the quicker you will start building trust and demonstrating how you can deliver value and innovation day after day.
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{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Great stuff. Will take a decent amount of time to think about the content=D
I like this post, enjoyed this one appreciate it for posting .
glad to be one of many visitants on this awe inspiring web site : D.
I really enjoyed your article and would like to know if I provide a link back to your site if I can use your article on one of my sites?
Nice read thanks, good luck with your blog, I have added it to my mixx bookmarks.
Do you guys have a page on facebook or something like that? I tried to find it but couldn’t find any, I would really like to become a follower! These are the kind of posts I usually
Great Post!
Good post and right to the point. I am not sure if this is actually the best place to ask but do you people have any thoughts on where to get some professional writers? Thank you
Hey – nice blog, just looking around some blogs, seems a pretty nice platform you are using. I’m currently using WordPress for a few of my sites but looking to change one of them over to a platform similar to yours as a trial run. Anything in particular you would recommend about it?
Hiya
Thanks for the feedback and this theme is Thesis. I use it because of the clean coding, the SEO features and also because I can customise it exactly to my clients websites – I build blogs for people who already have an established website and thesis lets me build the blog to match the layout and colours of their other site. There’s a good support forum and you can upgrade to a developers licence. But also note – I do use a lot of plugins as well! Cheers and if you do decide to join it would be fantastic if you could click through on my affiliate link which is on the front page of my site if you scroll down a bit – it won’t cost you any more but I get a few pennies. If you have any more questions then just yell!
Hi
You can hire me as a professional writer (I can do academic and technical) and you can also try Elance.com and guru.com, both of which are sites where you will find a huge range of freelancers. There are also a number of online sites specifically for hiring freelance writers.
I quote based on the job, not the time it might take to be done, so just yell if you want more info or check out that section on this site.
Cheers
Sian
Hiya, I do have a facebook page but for the training side of my business – the sianmurphycopywriter page is on the way soon!
Hi
the theme is the thesis theme and you can click through on the link on the front page of my site – this is my affiliate link so although it won’t cost you any more money, I will earn a few pennies, which is nice.
It’s a great theme so enjoy.
Cheers
Sian
‘BLOGGING A DEAD HORSE?
Yes, most certainly an interesting intake on the concept of blogging. However, it is also important to highlight that blogging should be about something that one finds true passion in. There is very little point in writing about a product/service etc if it really is not something that you are not zealous about. So, the rule of thumb is to blog about something that you genuinely love to write about with consummate ease, rather than vomitting some rethoric occasionally on a subject matter that you don’t really understand; but are simply doing so because of a possible hidden agenda – like trying to monetize it. Indeed it is like ‘FLOGGING A DEAD HORSE’.
I was just searching for this info for some time. After six hours of continuous Googleing, finally I got it in your web site. I wonder what’s the lack of Google strategy that don’t rank this type of informative sites in top of the list. Generally the top sites are full of garbage.