So the company has a blog…now what?
There is always room for improvement, particularly if the company blog is not getting any traffic, not engaging with the customers or clients, not attracting new business, and not facilitating sales.
If not, why not?
The company blog can certainly be better than it is and now is a good time to find out how to successfully propel it into the blogosphere to get some attention.
Why Blog?
Blogs are everywhere; nearly anyone with a sense of the impact of social media recognizes the importance of using blogs for generating business.
With an ever-increasing number of consumers using social media and digital apps to meet their social and professional networking needs, as well as to access consumer reports and to order products and services online—it just makes good business sense to set up and maintain an appealing, “grab their attention” kind of blog.
How to Improve Traffic to the Blog
One of the most important features of a blog is to attract and maintain a high traffic count.
The slogan “Build it and they will come” is not necessarily true with blogs, perhaps due to the sheer volume of them on the Internet. In order to attract attention and increase traffic to a blog, it has to stand out from the crowded blogosphere and give people a reason to bookmark it and keep coming back.
Successful entrepreneurs and bloggers such as Darren Rowse, Michelle Shaeffer, Adam Urbanski, among others, make their living from blogging because they have discovered the secrets to marketing their blogs and keeping a consistent traffic flow to their blogs.
These entrepreneurs also offer their expertise with these tips to help others interested in successfully blogging and maintaining traffic:
- Blog consistently—simple, but effective.
- Include the company blog link in signature lines of emails, on company stationery, and on company marketing materials.
- Interact with other bloggers who are not competitors; comment, backlink, and otherwise help promote one another.
- Consider guest blogging or invite guest bloggers who are not competitors, but will complement the business.
- Aim for excellence and focus on providing a service to the blog readers.
- Use Twitter, join comment clubs and other social media forums, and use other apps to promote the blog and individual posts, especially for special promotions.
- Include the company blog as part of the marketing plan and focus on its improvement, promotion, and consistent use.
- Build a community of readers on the blog who visit regularly, comment, interact, and invite others to do so—all of which increases traffic and loyalty to the company and its brand.
Consequences of Not Using a Blog
What happens when one doesn’t use a blog?
A company without a blog in this day and age is like a bank account without any access to the funds; it does no good to have valuable services and/or products to offer if nobody knows about them or has access to them.
Just as a person needs checks, or more often now, a debit card and online banking, to access funds and online services in his or her bank account, so a company needs a blog to provide information about its services and to provide access to the services or products to all those current or prospective customers or clients who prefer to do most or all their business online.
The interactive nature of a blog, as readers can post and ask questions of the company representative who manages the blog, is another win-win feature of maintaining a good blog.
Whether the blog is an extension of the company website, or exists on its own as a representation of the company, it can also include a catalog of the company’s offerings, along with the means for people to place orders. Providing this service in a user-friendly way would certainly increase the opportunity to improve sales, particularly if the competition does not offer a similar option.
Don’t Wait—Get Blogging!
Don’t procrastinate on setting up and/or improving that company blog and actively marketing it. Customers or clients await the opportunity to interact and do business with savvy companies who understand the value of social media.