Blogging For Business: Answers To Some Of Your Questions!

For some reason it seems that almost every live and email business conversation I’ve had in the last two weeks has been about blogging and the most common questions that people ask me include:

• Why bother with a business blog – doesn’t it just take up a lot of time?
• How will I know if anyone reads my business blog?
• If  I do start a business blog how can I get it found in the search engines?

Advance notice of HubSite Builder’s webinar series on blogging for business

Because I’ve become aware of the huge number of business owners in the Baby Boomer age group who are struggling with both the reasons for and the practicalities of establishing a business blog,  I’m preparing a 3 session webinar series that is designed to answer the steady stream of questions I receive on a regular basis. (Non Baby Boomers are welcome, of course!)

I’ll let you know in the next week or so about the final dates for those events.

In the meantime, here are some words of wisdom from some of my favourite business bloggers that may help to answer some of your questions...

Business Blogging: Why Bother?

Watch this short video (1 min 38 sec) to see why two of the worlds great marketers and business leaders recommend that you become a business blogger.

Video – Seth Godin & Tom Peters identify the pros of business blogging:

Godin shared these 4 advantages of blogging for business:

1. It’s free.
2. Blogging helps you to become more humble.
3. The blogging process forces you to think about how to explain yourself to others.
4. It forces you to become part of the conversation in your field.

Blogging Is The Best Marketing Tool Tom Peters Has Ever Had!

I’m a big supporter of blogging as a strategy to grow your business, but even I was shocked to hear Tom Peters say that no single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important than blogging.

Peters declared that business blogging has changed his:

• Business life
• Perspective
• Intellectual outlook
• Emotional outlook

In fact Peters says that business blogging in the “best damn marketing tool I’ve ever had!”

How Will I Know If Anyone Reads My Business Blog?

Ruslan Kogan reminds us that we must get scientific about improving our websites / blogs, and we need to start by using a free tool like Google Analytics to identify all the details of traffic to our blogs and webpages.

Kogan says ” Your website is the single most important communication channel to potential customers, even if your business does not transact online. You need to understand your online visitors and what they want. Don’t make this based on guesswork, gut feel or emotion.”

Kogan recommends that you test everything and shares what their testing revealed about what fields to include in their registration forms and where to put your navigation links to make it easy for visitors to find what they want on your site.

Read Ruslan Kogan’s full article here…

Business Blogs: How To Get Yours Found In Google

Of course it’s one thing to start a business blog and another to have it rank well in the search engines and actually be helpful to your website visitors. Derek Halpern reminds us that one of the most frequently visited pages on your blog is your About page, (check yours in your Google Analytics account), so as a business owner you want to give your About page lots of TLC…

How to Create An Amazing Blog About Page by Derek Halpern

In this very practical article Halpern identifies 5 things you must have on your About Page. He also gives a great reminder about the importance of email sign up forms and where to position them.

Read Derek Halpern’s full article here…

Business Blogging: Is It A Waste Of Time?

Derek Halpern also answers this question in  his blog post The One Big Mistake Bloggers Make (Hint: It’s Regarding Where They Spend Time). He describes a concept he calls “spendability.”

Halpern explains that there are two ways, to encourage “spendability”:

1. traffic and
2. interaction

and while it may seem so simple, it’s the truth.

He belives that the single best way to build interaction is by building a high quality email list. As big as Twitter and Facebook get, email still has more than triple the users!

Read Derek Halpern’s full article on spendability here…

Business Blogs That Get Found In Search Engines

Getting traffic to your business blog is the first step to achieving “spendability” therefore your blog needs to rank highly in the search engines. The titles of your blog posts are key factors in getting high ranking and one of my favourite business bloggers, Ana Hoffman from www.TrafficGenerationCafe.com shares some really useful resources for writing great titles for your business blog.

Blog Titles: How to Write Winners Even if You Suck at It

Read Ana Hoffman’s full article on how to write winning blog titles here…

Here’s To Getting your Business Found Online,
Karyn Clarke

Why you want a blog for your business…

Nina Hendry of Smart Company Australia writes about the rules and rewards of blogging as a strategy to build your business and uncoverd these facts about blog readers:

• 89% are swayed by a blogger’s review of a product or service and would like to try it for themselves.
• 89% make the purchasing decisions in their household and of these, 87% have learnt about a new product or service via a blog.
• 81% notice banner advertisements displayed next to the blogs they read.
• 90% pass on blog information to family and friends.
• 92% have used a search engine to find out more about a brand after reading about it on a blog post.
• 78% agree that blogs are a better source of information than traditional and mainstream media.

She also delves into what makes a successful business blogger and how to promote your business blog. Click here to read Nina’ Hendry’s whole article about the rules and rewards of blogging as a business strategy.

I can almost hear you saying, “But what if I can’t write?”

James Chartrand shares some great guidance to aspiring business blog writers in his Coppy Blogger article, How to Turn Yourself Into a Damn Fine Writer.

He reminds us that:

• content makerketing is the most effective way to promote your business
• you can choose to write the content yourself or pay someone to write it for you
• the internet has many quality resouces to help you either find a writer or to learn to upgrade your own writing skills.

Read the entire article by James Chartrand on Coppy Blogger here.

Examples of Business Blogs:

Brad Howarth from Smart Company identifies 25 best corporate blogs.

I especially encourage you to check out these two business blogs recommended by Brad:

• Darren Rouse’s ProBlogger.com where bloggers can meet to collaborate, learn and grow their blogs
• Valerie Khoo’s ValerieKhoo.com which provides a range of news, snippets and tips on running a successful small business, particularly the importance of storytelling in your marketing and writing.

Have your say about blogging to boost your business

Found these resources useful? Know other useful resources for business bloggers? Let us know by leaving a comment below…

Here’s To Getting YOUR Business Found Online!
Kayn Clarke

Get your business found online quiz…

Take this quick quiz to identify for yourself how easily your prospective customers are likely to find your website before they find your competition.

Rate each aspect of your website from 1 to 4, with 1 being the lowest performance and 4 being the highest:

1. I have a website
2. My website has an integrated  business booster blog where I can easily update content via a content management system
3. My website is optimised for high organic search ranking
   
4. My website pages have only one purpose per page
5. My website automates and leverages my social media activity to boost my site’s search engine ranking
6. My website saves me several hours every month by automating many of its most valuable functions
7. My website easily hosts and auto distributes videos (Video pages have 50 times more chance of top rank)
8. My website is a system that is interactive and is structured from a marketing perspective
9. My website developers give me easy access at no extra cost to education that boosts my online presence
10. My website is on the first page of Google for my industry search words without paying for expensive ads
11. My website has and integrated ‘customer catcher’ to capture the names and e-mail addresses of visitors
12. My website saves me money every month by avoiding expensive programming costs every time I want a new type of page
    

Rate your website’s effectiveness

Add your scores from 1 to 4 for each of the 12 questions, with 1 being the least effective and 4 being the most effective.

TOTAL SCORE 36 or less?

Contact us now to discover how a HubSite B.O.O.S.T.S. your chances of getting found before your competition!

Here’s To Getting Found On Google!
Karyn Clarke