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Use a Blog to Boost Your Visibility

You are probably familiar with the concept of a “blog” – a chronological collection of essays, musings, and whatever else the author feels like publishing on any given day. What you might not be completely sure of, though, is how a blog can support your business goals.

If you have the time and desire to write somewhat regularly on whatever topic catches your fancy, a blog can be a great asset to your marketing portfolio. A blog can:

Give you a showcase for your expertise – You can share your knowledge about your industry, recent market trends, and other topics of interest to your potential customers. Sharing useful information will exhibit your competence and give others a taste of how valuable working with you would be.

Create an additional marketing channel – A blog is one more place you can share your various marketing messages – you can announce new services & product launches, make special offers, and direct readers to register for your e-zine and attend your events.

Present your authentic self – The casual nature of a blog allows you to write posts which might not be directly related to your business. If you are comfortable doing it, a blog allows you to share with your readers aspects of your non-business life. Talking about family, friends, and pets is a way to humanize your prospects’ view of you. Sharing thoughts related to art, culture, or hobbies displays a three-dimensional person that your other marketing materials might not be able to present.

Create a following – If you write a good blog (interesting, useful, relevant, well-written, enjoyable, etc.), you will start to collect readers. Some of these people will be actual prospective customers for your business. Many might not be, but that doesn’t diminish their importance. People who follow your messages will often disseminate those messages farther (to their friends, or linked on their blog, etc).

Bring in new prospects – It’s possible that your best prospects don’t yet know they should be working with you. Go figure! This is often a case of “what you don’t know you don’t know”. These people might not realize they have a need that someone out there (you!) can actually meet. But, they might be out there searching for the answer to a specific question, or information on a discrete topic. If you happen to have a blog post out there about that topic, these people are likely to stumble upon it, and once on your blog, can read more about you and recognize how much they never knew they needed your services or products.

Make money – This is an optional one, but something you might want to look into. There are various ways to directly generate revenue from your blog (often referred to as “monetization”). Selling advertising, joining affiliate programs, and selling your own products from your blog are the basic ways to do this.

If you have decided to start a blog (If you’re not sure if you should have a blog or not, read Should You Have a Blog or a "News" Section?), the Web Action Steps should help you get started successfully.

Web Action Steps

  • Choose a blogging platform. There are many available, which you should use depends on various factors including how it will integrate with your current website, what platform your web developer is familiar with, how you want your blog to look and act, your financial resources, and whether you plan to set it up yourself.
  • Set up your blog. This includes installing it on your web server, setting the various options, choosing a theme or creating a design, etc. You might be doing this yourself, or your web developer will take care of this part.
  • Check out other blogs for inspiration. Especially those that are in your industry or are geared towards your target audience.
  • Keep up on blogging tips and tricks. Technology is always changing, and so are best practices, new opportunities, blogging business models, and all manner of other interesting blogging stuff. Doing some reading once in awhile is a good way to keep abreast of these things, another way is to work with a web developer or business strategist who is following these innovations and can advise you. Read my Resources for Beginning Bloggers for some good places to start.

Having a blog can be a valuable part of your online marketing strategy. If you need help getting one set up, or understanding how best your business can leverage your blog for increased revenue, contact me today to discuss your online business needs.