(Blog search) Is Blogging Your Best Route to Success?
No commentsBy Ben Needles
I admit it. I enjoy blogging for my business. Its a great way to bring in regular traffic, recommend products and make sales. But not only is it not for everyone, its not for every kind of product.
Take one of my sites, for example. No blog, just information on the product. Earns in the $1000 range many months. My own efforts for it are much less than for blogs I have that earn less. The topic changes little enough that Id be hard pressed to write about it regularly. Its an obvious choice for a static site, updated only as needed.
But if youre going to be adding information regularly, running the site as a blog or even just using it as a backend and making your site look like a static site is a very good idea. Blogging software combined with Feedburner or other services makes it easy to offer RSS feeds and email updates to your website. You get more chances to bring people back to your site. Why wouldnt you want that?
The trouble with blogging is that it is time intensive. Sure you can hack out a quickie post in a couple minutes if you need to. But can you do it regularly enough? Will it be interesting enough? Will anyone even care?
Planning is Key
No matter which route you choose, you should work up a plan so that you know how much youll be working your site. Dont assume that youll have the energy to do 10 posts a day, every day. Thats a tough schedule to maintain, especially if you plan on quality to go with that quantity. But even just a few posts a week can be enough to make a good blog.
Before you really try to get things started, write out a few posts. Dont have them be on topics that must be posted immediately. Use them to fill in the blanks as you figure out a realistic work schedule for yourself.
It takes much the same if youre planning a static site. A one-page site is suitable for some purposes, but not for others.
Draw People Back to Your Site
Since many sales are not made by the first impression, you need to have some way to draw visitors back to your website. On a blog it is easy to make prominent links to subscribe to the RSS feed or by email. Some bloggers even place the suggestion to subscribe at the bottom of each post. This is a very natural placement, as visitors will have just finished reading and may be feeling like hearing more from you.
But dont give up on this with a static website. You can offer an ecourse that expands on your topic and keeps your offer in front of your subscribers. Keep the information useful to keep your subscribers reading.
Its Up to You
Despite its many advantages, blogging isnt the right choice for every business. It takes more of a commitment to regular content production, and if thats not your business model its not going to work.
About the Author (text)
Stephanie Foster blogs at http://www.aspectsofhomebusiness.com/blog/ about running her home business. Get more tips on blogging for home business at http://www.aspectsofhomebusiness.com/blog/category/bloggingrss/
Corporate Blog Content: What to Write About
By Justin Stewart
What do you write about in a corporate blog? Which subjects are appropriate?
Almost all of them. Don’t believe it?
If you have a personal blog, or you read personal blogs, you know that the subjects run the gamut from opinions about social issues, to complaints about spouses, bosses or friends, to silliness like memes and altered photographs. A corporate blog is different, though, because even if you’re the sole owner of your business, the blog doesn’t represent you, it represents your business. Yet you can still write about almost anything you would in a personal blog. But the tone must be different.
While your personal blog might be a great place to vent with abandon about your spouse’s snoring, for instance, the whining is best left out of a corporate blog post. But there’s no reason your spouse’s snoring can’t be the springboard for a great little article. You won’t want to type, “The %#@#%#%@@ snoring is killing me, srsly,” as might be more appropriate for a personal blog. But a lead in about your spouse’s annoying snoring to a post about life’s little annoyances, or about how we need to overlook the little flaws in the people we love, those would be topics more appropriate for a corporate blog post.
You’re trying to connect with your readers. And being annoyed by snoring, tailgating or loud chewing are universal annoyances-your readers will empathize with you immediately. And that will lead your readers to follow you to your next ideas. And will keep them coming back.
Some blogs have huge followings by doing nothing more than reviewing new techno-gadgets, or analyzing recipes. But many corporate blogs cover things from new product releases, new services, general information about the types of products they carry, philosophies of the company and owner, current events, and appeals for reader feedback or reader participation in campaigns like charities or petition-signings. And often, just general posts, with lead-ins like the annoyance of a snoring spouse, make a corporate blog popular.
Subjects to Avoid
While almost all subjects can be turned into a great corporate blog post, you do have to exercise more care than you might with a personal blog. The last thing you want to do, after all, is to work hard for a good search engine ranking and then bore or alienate the readers you’ve worked so hard to attract.
Don’t Alienate Them: A corporate blog could be considered a dinner party where everyone tries to stay polite. Some subjects like religion, politics or sex might be fascinating, but they can also cause a lot of conflict. Save these for your personal musings.
Don’t Bore Them: The fastest way to turn a reader off is by making every post about a product or service you’re selling. They didn’t come for a commercial, they came for information. You can still promote products and services, just occasionally. Make the bulk of posts informative, entertaining and engaging while focusing on something other than sales.
Looking for ways to make corporate blogging easy and effective? Buildify unlocks the world of power and potential of corporate blogging, allowing companies of all sizes to experience its benefits. Learn more by visiting http://www.buildify.com
Monday, October 27th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
