SAY HELLO TO BLOGGING FOR BUSINESS!

SAY HELLO TO BLOGGING FOR BUSINESS! by: Rhoda Israelov

Blogs (short for web logs), no longer new to the business marketplace, can play a key role in any savvy business marketing plan. The goal - to "win search" by moving your business listing higher in ranking on the search engine pages. That way, when potential customers (those you might never have met otherwise) are looking for your type of product or service, they see your blog, leading to your website. When those web searchers read the very relevant information you've provided in your blog posts, at least some of them decide to stick around and do business with your company.

About you:

As a business owner, you're always looking for new ways to introduce what you have to offer to new customers of the right kind (the kind of customer that has a need for, who will appreciate, and who can afford to pay for your services and products). That's exactly what having a corporate blog is designed to do. Having a business blog is your way of extending a personal invitation to online searchers to "come on in, meet us, and take a look at what we have to offer."

About blogging:

Your blog functions as a trade show booth. Customers are at the "trade show" (online through a search engine), looking for some information or perhaps for a provider of a service or a product of the kind you offer. They arrive at your "booth", and when they read something that draws their interest (That's where the fresh and relevant content in your blog is so important.), they come inside the booth (meaning they "click-through" to your website), where you'll get the chance to find out more about them and help them find out more about you.

About e-mail and blogging:

The email has been adopted by just about every business and organization to stay in touch with customers and constituents. But you can't stay in touch with people you've never met and who don't know your name, and you can't email strangers without their permission (that would be illegal spamming!)

Blogging is the perfect complement to email as a marketing tool for the beginning of the customer relationship!

About Pay-per-Click online advertising:

There are basically two ways for your business to use the online search for customer acquisition: Pay-Per-Click advertising and blogs. Blogging is part of organic search.

A study by Marketing Sherpa found that as many as 99% of clicks on a search engine are on organic results, not on ads! Pay-Per-Click ads, designed to attract all the online searchers, end up winning only a very small percentage of search.

Are you ready for business blogging?

You may have heard all the buzz about blogs, but you may be wondering if you need a new marketing initiative. Your decision to start a corporate blog should be deliberate and strategic. Here are two questions to ask yourself:

If you had only eight to ten words to describe why you're passionate about what you sell, what you know, or what you do, what would those words be?

(That's the message that needs to come across loud and clear in every blog post!)

Would you find you?

I challenge you to imagine someone seated at a home computer, navigating the Web on a laptop - or a cell phone - at the corner coffee shop, or perhaps a business manager at work, searching for information about the kind of information, products, or services you have to offer.

(Remember, though, they've never heard your business name!)

Go ahead and try it, using the search terms you believe your potential customers would be likely to use - does your business show up?

Rhoda Israelov