How Can a Blog Benefit Your Business?
To stay competitive in the online marketplace, a blog is essential for a
company of any size. A blog allows your customers to feel like they are really
getting to know the company and the people behind it. Consider these important
benefits to blogging. Regular blog posting for your business has once again
become a potentially viable form of Internet marketing. If your website has
a blog attached, here are five ways a business blog can help you increase sales
and reduce costs.
Increase Search Engine Ranking
Having a blog can help your business achieve high positioning in search engine
results. This is thanks to a major reset of how search engines rank websites
based on their content. Rather than on basing rank on their use of Internet marketing and
‘search optimization' techniques. In order to be listed high in search results
for the words that best describe your business, it is necessary to continue
providing quality content on a regular basis. Blogs can help your site be noticed
by search engines and consistently well-positioned in the results they return.
Spotlight Products For Higher Sales
You can get rid of last season's products or other stale inventory that has
not been moving by giving it prominence in your blog postings. A blog post
is an ideal way to spotlight products that haven't moved from the shop floor
and that are beginning to cost you more in storage just to have on the premises.
This is the same reasoning for avoiding shellfish meals if they are listed
on a restaurant's specials board.
Enhance Relationships with Suppliers
You can build better relationships with your suppliers and business collaborators
by spotlighting on their work in the occasional blog post. Regularly mentioning
aspects of your suppliers' business can
enhance your relationship. And it may allow you to negotiate better wholesale prices
or gain supplier discounts when doing business together. Even if it doesn't
affect the financial transactions between you both, it may lead to receiving
a priority service from them or greater access to their customer base.
Speed Up Conversion of Potential Customers
Contact research shows it takes on average 6 individual interactions with
each customer before they are converted from an interested onlooker into an
actual business client. Providing a blog can help rack up the number of individual
engagements with each potential target. It can also convert them into customers
faster. These potential customers may have come across you before. Each
time they perform new online searches relevant to your product or service offerings,
a new blog post will help them come across you again. This will help tally
up the 6 engagement opportunities that are needed before they are willing to
hand over money and become a paying customer.
Raise Local Awareness of Your Business
If your bricks and mortar business sells retail or manufactures product,
a high number of people searching for your goods will be doing so from their
mobile phones. 53% of people using search on their mobiles are looking for
local businesses. If you have a physical shopfront, you should make sure your
business listing is up to date. You should list yourself in Google Places, and in Bing and Yahoo Local
directories. You can also use your blog to draw attention to your location.
Make sure a good proportion of your posts include reference to your physical
location. This will help you achieve higher positioning in search results
for customers looking for you from their mobiles.
Advertise for Free
It is important for companies to advertise through as many different methods
as possible. A blog is a free way to reach a wide variety of customers at no
cost to you. By choosing a free blogging site such as Wordpress.com or Blogger.com
to host your blog, you can advertise without spending any of your limited marketing
funds. People will see your logo and pictures, company information, and any
other product or service details you list on your blog site. Even when customers
are reading blog posts that aren't directly about your product or services,
they are still learning about your company. They are also seeing reminders of your location,
and more that will stick with them long after they are done reading.
Become More Approachable
The more friendly and relatable your business is to customers, the more people
are going to choose you over your competitors. This could mean the difference
between a one-time customer and a loyal lifetime customer. Putting up blog
posts of the “behind the scenes” aspects of the company makes your business
seem down to earth. It is also a less intimating way for customers to ask questions
via the comments tool. Many people prefer to leave an anonymous question than
ask one to an employee in person, take the time to make a phone call, etc.
If people have a way to contact you that is free and easy, they are more
likely to communicate with you.
Expand Your Market
Blogging allows your business to reach people that live all over the world.
With so many people using the internet each day, blogging has become the perfect
tool to reach customers that wouldn't even know your company existed otherwise.
Local television, newspaper, and radio ads don't reach that same number of
potential customers as a blog online. You can expand your market even further
by using as many tags as possible per blog post. For example, if your business
sells carpet, then your blog posts could have tags like best carpet buys, cheap
carpet, carpet deals, carpet companies, wholesale carpet, etc. This way Google
and other search engines direct people searching for these words and phrases
to your blog.
Starting a web blog is a great way to establish a web presence. Unlike starting a regular website, starting up a web blog tends to be fairly straightforward. Regardless of your level of web experience, getting a simple web blog up and running is something that can be done in a day. The following steps will teach you how to get started with blogging.
Read more about WordPress Web Hosting »
Start Benefiting from a Blog Right Now!
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allows you to create a personal state-of-the-art blog quickly and easily. With
WordPress you can increase search engine ranking and spotlight products for higher
sales. A WordPress blog can enhance supplier relationships and speed up customer conversion. Use a WordPress blog to raise
local awareness of your business, advertise for free, and become more approachable,
and expand your market!
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