Business blogging is the act of adding or updating a blog. Blogs are informal, easily kept ways of conveying an idea to your clients, employees, or prospects. If there is a new news story in your industry, you can comment on it with a blog post. Blogs are ways of keeping your website active with news related to your market.
According to David Sifry, in early 2008, there were over 70 million blogs online. Around 120,000 new blogs are built daily, or 1.4 new blogs are built each second. Furthermore, close to 50 million Internet users read and scanned blog sites during the first quarter of 2005; these readers total about 30 percent of all Internet users, or about one in six people who reside in the United States.
With all of these blogs available out there, how can you make your blog stand out?
Also Read: Secrets of Selling: 7 Psychological Tricks for Maximum Profit
Jeffrey Oravbiere
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No worries, included here are 10 quick ways to make your business blog stand out from the sea of internet blogs.
1. Be Reliable
If you want to be seen as an authority in your market, you must first of all be reliable. Your blog could become the go-to place for your industry information but only if you can show that what you say can be trusted.
Be active, engage your prospects to leave comments, and create interesting discussions. If you can achieve this, you will be able to retain most of your clients and convert over 80% of prospects into paying customers.
2. Be Unique
You must always remember that your blog is not the only one online, your prospects have options, Instead of writing cookie-cutter articles, make sure you have a unique edge to whatever you post. As a business, you have a unique story, share that with your readers.
Share some of the things you’ve experienced in the industry, it will help your readers connect to you as a person. This provides them with more knowledge about your business and makes them more interested in your products and services.
According to Mr. Darren Rowse; an expert blogger, backstory topics could include any of the following:
a. Who you are?
b. Where did you come from?
c. Why did you choose your business location?
d. What is it that makes you passionate about your small business?
e. What have you done in your life that makes you unique?
f. What struggles have led to the creation of who you are today as a business owner?
3. Utilize SEO-Friendly URLs as well as SEO Plugins
Always use WordPress. WordPress is the simplest and best blogging platform. It is a committed CMS (Content Management System); however, more importantly, it features a group of focused users that make themes, plugins, widgets, and more, and they offer most of them free of charge to other users.
Among these power tools are a fantastic variety of SEO tools that you can use to optimize your meta description as well as title tags. Change the permalink option from your WordPress settings to either %/postname/% or %/category/%postname%/; it cleans up your URL and makes it more SEO-friendly.
4. Multimedia
Textual content is crucial for SEO; however, if you consistently present plain text articles to your visitors, they will get bored and stop visiting. Most people, especially those who spend time on the Internet, are creatively and visually driven.
If you truly want to engage your readers, you must include videos, images, or audio in your articles. But make sure you only showcase interesting and valuable videos, photos, illustrations, logos, and other forms of media on your site; with this, you will quickly grab your reader’s attention and interest and keep them longer.
5. Advertisements
Placing third-party ads on your site is not usually a wise idea because the selling of third-party products is not the main purpose of business blogging. If you want to put up ads for your company and also your partner’s websites, you can, but make sure it is on the sidebar, or if you write about a particular product or service, you can place a banner or link to that product/service you offer.
Make sure you are always professional and try not to clutter your blog with too many ads because it will annoy your readers.
6. Post Frequently
Make sure you have a regular schedule for posting quality content on your blog. A site that is not updated for 3 months or so would create a negative impression about your site and your business.
So, provide constant updates at least once a week. Talk about the popular and hot topics in your market as this will let your readers know that your blog is active and alive.
7. Be Human; Be Personal
A relationship is important. Although you and your readers do not see face-to-face when you converse online, it is still vital to add a personal and conversational tone to each of your posts, as these will give the human touch missing in a lot of business blogs.
Show off your individuality and your character through your content and discussions but you must remember to remain professional and avoid getting too personal.
8. Act in Response to Feedback
Never ignore feedback from your visitors, whether it’s regarding your products, services, or anything else. Always bear in mind that your audience is your potential customers. Your products and services are meant for them, so their feedback and/or suggestions are extremely important to enhance your business.
Through listening to them, you can learn what to improve in your business and how to communicate with them effectively. So, this is vital to your success; never overlook this or take it for granted.
9. Develop An Email Lists
Make sure you have an opt-in form to capture your visitor’s email. Some of your visitors will not come back to visit your blog either because they didn’t bookmark your site or simply move on but if you have their email, you will be able to send them messages, redirecting them back to the site or to your products and services.
10. Be Committed
Don’t just begin well, but aim to finish as well or better than you began. Commit to your blog and see it as a valuable tool in your marketing efforts. It not only makes you an authority in your industry, but it also helps you in branding your business to the masses.
