Blogs

By now I'm pretty sure you know how valuable blogging is as a way to market your business. Not only is it an extremely low-cost way to spread the word but it’s a quick way to begin to develop brand awareness. Let's face it, regular websites are still a great tool for business but not nearly as effective as having a blog.

• Choose a topic. Take some time to really think about what the main focus of your blog will be. Will your blog be designed for a specific niche market, will you be sharing special tips and advice, is it for product reviews or do you plan to keep readers informed on specific service and product specials? Whatever it may be, keep your blog aligned with your original topic of interest. Readers can become easily disinterested if your blog is supposed to be about raising puppies but most of your posts are about your latest greatest recipe or your two silly kids.

• Generate traffic. When you first start a blog, it can be a bit challenging trying to get visitors to actually come to your site to read it. The quickest way to start the process (notice I said start), is to get your blog connected to a few blogger communities such as; BlogCatalog, NetworkedBlogs and MyBlogLog. These sites have good rankings in Goggle which means your blog will be indexed in the search engines allowing more people to find you.

• Spread the word. Here comes the fun! This is the part where you get to spend time and effort promoting your blog on your social networking sites, forums and groups. No spamming allowed – you want to bring traffic to your site not drive it away. If utilized correctly, twitter can be one of your best, if not the best, tool in bringing traffic to your site quickly. In fact, most of my blog visits come from the tweets I share with my followers announcing a new post. If your business doesn’t have a Facebook Fan Page, online community or twitter – get them. Make it easy for people to find you and for you to stay connected.

• Finally, be consistent. I cannot express it enough. Building a blog following is the same as building your business. It takes time, time and more time. Be disciplined and consistent with the time you spend posting and marketing your blog. If you got one reader from twitter, keep tweeting. Continue to do what works and have patience. If your blog has created interest for your niche and you are providing the quality content they want, they will come.

If you want to start blogging for business, increase sales and use social media to build your online presence, check out - Blogging for Business: Complete Starter Kit today!