subject: The Power Of Blog Marketing. [print this page] Let me tell you a little secret: People love to blog. The idea of being able to talk about ourselves and record portions of our lives using images, videos, and even music. We also love the feeling that people are following us because they are interested in what we say and we love the fact that they will nudge us if we haven't posted in a few days.
You can actually get the same kind of response when you develop a business blog. It's definitely fulfilling when people are reading what you have to say, getting plenty of tips from you, are inspired by you, interact with you and, most of all, are convinced enough by your level of expertise that they trust what you're saying.
Here are a few ways to make your blog successful:
Choose the Right Blogging Platform
There are actually quite a few blogging platforms for you to choose from, but I will give you the top two for now: 1. http://www.blogger.com 2. http://www.wordpress.com
There are 3 main reasons why these 2 are most popular:
First off, they are free, but most platforms are these days. Second, they are easy to customize because there are a lot of plug-ins and tools which allow you to add buttons or widgets. They can also be integrated with other applications, such as twitter. They are user friendly with social networking sites and often it is easy to cross-post. Third, they communicate very well with search engines like Google. Posts are easily indexed and can be a part of the search results page when relevant.
Keep Your Blog Updated
People have a tendency to ignore blogs whose owners don't update them at least once a week. If you want to keep your visitors, as well as search engine spiders, interested enough that they will come back to your blog. To be on safe, you should create at least 3 new posts per week.
Your blog posts don't have to be all about your business, press releases, accomplishments, reports, etc. You can post suggestions, tips, published news (with your own commentary on the story) or other facts and information related to your chosen niche. A big help for you would be to subscribe to a website for a national association or well-established online journal, news site, or magazine which is dedicated to your niche market.
Interaction
One good thing about a blog is your ability to increase the level of participation. To accomplish this, make sure there is a comment form and make sure you turn on the spam filter to avoid spammers in your feedback area. This could put off any legitimate audience.
You can include polls or surveys: ask a questions for your audience and then wait for them to respond, engage them in your conversation. Post videos, images, and texts that are of interest to you and see what other opinions are. Most of all send back replies or comments to your posts and readers as often as you can, just to let them know you are listening.
Don't Forget Marketing
Make sure to display your landing page on your blog when you can, since the main purpose of blogging is to increase sales and production through interest. Add the link for your landing page in your blog profile, in your signature, or just make a casual reference to it in your post. A successful marketer recently told me that someone will need to be invited to your landing page at least 7 time before they will view it. If you don't have a dozen leads after your first mention of it on your blog, don't worry, just continue to provide people with the opportunity at random intervals but be careful to to spread it out so as not to bombard your readers.
If you don't have a dynamic landing page and are not sure how or where to get one, check out the great designs available at Ad2Action Landing Pages. Their pages are easy to customize according to your preference or marketing ideas. These landing pages are available for any industry.
