Top 10 Reasons to Have a Business Blog
Here are my top 10 reasons to have a business blog:
1. Marketing – Talk about your areas of specialty, clients’ successes, and/or promotions.
2. Branding/Image – Create a “personality” or voice for your company.
3. Differentiation – Tell YOUR story. Be different & real.
4. Trust - Promote yourself as a trusted adviser; Connect with customers.
5. Low Cost / Cheap PR – Blogs are much less expensive than standard websites to create and update.
6. Writing Gigs – Great blog posts will promote you as a guest author, news contributor, or maybe even a book author.
7. Speaking Gigs – Industry leaders will recognize your brilliant thoughts and ask you to speak at conferences and meetings.
8. Customer Feedback – Comments on your blog posts allow customers to tell you how they feel (and you can respond).
9. Earn a Bit of $$ - If you employ Google Adwords, your blog can earn money for you. Simply sign up with Adwords to provide space for ads that are relevant and complimentary to your business. If you become an Amazon Affiliate, you can earn up to a 10 percent referral fee on books bought by Amazon customers who come from your blog.
10. Search Engine Optimization – Capture users in the long tail (highly specialized, low-traffic search terms that represent a significant amount of total searches); look fresh and relevant to Google
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And finally - here are some tips to avoid sucky blog syndrome…
1. Know and speak to thy audience. If you talk about the topics your target market cares about, they’re sure to listen and respond positively.
2. Present yourself as an expert - Be consistent & on topic. Decide how you’d like to present yourself through your blog and stick with it.
3. Don’t be too personal – i.e. I had the flu all last week. Let me tell you about my symptoms…
4. Be nice or don’t bother blogging. NO whiners, complainers, or digs at your competitors.
5. Use spell check and formatting to your advantage. Spelling matters. As with other websites, blogs are easier to skim and parse when they contain bold text, bullets, big messages, etc.
6. Allow comments (with your review + spam blockers). Blogs are only blogs if you allow an online conversation. While you may choose to block some inappropriate comments, it’s important that you let your readers speak to you and each other.
7. Link to important or relevant sites and other blogs. Act as a resource by connecting your readers with other sites and blogs that cover the issues important to your target market.
8. Create compelling content – not commercials. Tell a short story about one of your customers. As I’ve mentioned about good business karma, focus on helping others and your business will reap the benefits (plus, you’ll be creating a lot of good ju ju.)
Really liked your “Don’t be too personal” caution….because there is no such thing as an eraser on the Internet.
Search engines provide endless opportunities for ego surfing, Google bombing (influencing traffic so it spikes a particular site) and Google juicing (enhancing one’s “brand” in the era of micro-celebrity). Overshare and follow yourself too closely: Google narcissist.
But Googling people is also becoming a way for bosses and headhunters to do continuous and stealthy background checks on employees, no disclosure required.
How to take control? Start a blog and put your name on it.
You should expect modest results from your blog—an estimate that the average blog has one reader is “probably generous,” says Derek Gordon, a vice president at Technorati—but the 12 million Americans who blog don’t seem to care.
After you’ve polished your thoughts in a slick looking blog, don’t mess it up with a silly Web address like http://coachingtip.blogs.com/so_baby_boomer/ Instead, get a vanity address that expresses the nature of your blog, like: www.SoBabyBoomer.com. It’s never been easier or cheaper to get an Internet domain name, the .com or .net address that you type into a browser to find a website. For as little as $9 a year, you can make it easy to land your own address and point it to your blog. You can also use the domain as a permanent email address, with the mail sent automatically to any mailbox you choose.
Here are some tips to clean up your digital dirt:
1. Register with a free online profile manager such as LinkedIn.
2. If you must MySpace, refrain from posting the risque; consider cloaking or using an avatar.
3. Order a background check and then contact vendors if you find incorrect information.
4. Think before you blog. Anything personal that you post may come back to haunt you.
5. Fight fire with fire: Drive traffic with your own blog or by hiring a search-engine optimization outfit.
Comment by John G Agno — March 14, 2008 @ 7:38 amNice talk yesterday. It was informative and entertaining. You really confirmed much of what I suspected and enlightened me to the finer points of…just get over yourself and do it already. Thank you!
Comment by Sandy Hammer — March 14, 2008 @ 8:26 am