So You Want to Run a Successful Blog?
The term 'blog' gets it's name from web logging. Blogs have totally changed over the last few years from a private log of one's thoughts and actions, a bit like a diary into one of the most potent marketing forces on the internet today. The advantage of a blog over a traditional website is the interactiveness which more easily creates relationships between the blogger and his visitors.
Setting up a blog is very simple and easy to do and once made you have plenty of ways of monetizing your blog and also changing it's appearance to suit your business without knowing any coding or html. You can place strategic links on your blog to your business web site either directly or via RSS. If you want to create a blog then here is some advice on how to run it to your best advantage.
1, Your audience. You are writing your blog post for your audience to read, so don't forget that what you write is of interest to them. They have searched for through a keyword, or keyword phrase, and arrived at your blog. So, make sure they are happy with what they find and even interested enough to look a little further into your blog, and maybe visit your website.
2, Words fail. A large block of text can become very boring when reading, especially online. A picture or graphic or two placed within the text breaks up the strict framework of the post and keeps the reader interested through to the end. It is especially true if the picture is relevant to the subject of the post.
3, The content needs to be relevant. The posts made to your business blog need to be relevant to the subject of the blog. In other words the blog is set up around your niche market and with keywords and keyword phrases that are relevant to the subject. The intent is to draw traffic to your blog based on those keywords and keyword phrases. The business blog needs to create a special relationship with its visitors with the aim to sell products or services/ If you consistently write good quality posts to your blog the visitor will return for more of the "good stuff", and will eventually trust that you know what you are talking about and buy one of your recommended products or services.
4, Easy English. The secret of a good post is to write in language your visitors can easily understand. Everybody out there isn't a graduate and you can easily put people off if your text is too full of technical jargon and overly big words. Short snappy sentences and paragraphs with plenty white space makes for a better read.
5, Make it interactive. Audio and video are very good interactive methods, but all blogs come with a "comments" facility for each post made. Make sure that this feature is not turned off, and all comments must be approved before publishing them.
Always make sure that you have a definite plan of action before even starting your blog. You need to be committed to entering fresh content on regular occasions. There is nothing worse than a stale blog so make sure you have a regular schedule and stick to it. Visitors soon realize when you're not updating regularly and hard won visitors you don't want to lose. Don't for get to answer comments that need to be answered as well. Your visitors who provide comments also supply their email address so this is a great tool for building your list as well.
March 19 2008 | Blogs | No Comments »
