As a blog evangelist, I think everyone with access to the internet should start a blog. Do you blog? If not, go and set one up. Go. Yes, I’m serious, now. The internet has made everyone a ‘publisher’, and if the internet is where people are at, that’s where businesses need to be.
A blog will look very different depending on the company behind the site, but the key aims should be to relate to customers and to drive regular traffic to your site.
A blog should also vary and go through seasons. There needs to be some kind of pattern or journey, as opposed to a random collection of content.
I used to live within a short stroll of a lovely little book shop which had a cafe at the back. The managers had it running brilliantly, whereby each week they would use the recipe books in the bookshop to bake exciting and delicious products for the cafe- thus the delicious cakes would be on sale next door to the book from which it was created. It was a case of ‘Like the cake? Buy the book!’
The same effect needs to be created digitally when it comes to blogging. Own a fashion business? Why not start a blog about the season’s f
ashion and pepper it with some of the garments you’re selling on your main site?
A bookshop that struggling to keep afloat? Invest a few hours per week posting interviews with local authors or even guest book reviews. Drive the traffic to your site where you can offer a special deal on that particular novel.
There are many creative ways of using social media to enhance your web prescence and gain more of a voice online. When running a business, it can seem like one more thing on a never ending list of tasks, but if blogging is done correctly, it really can pay off in the long run. It might not directly gain you extra sales, but the online prescence and advertising value soon adds up.
The key to a blog is keeping it updated- regularly. This means a firm commitment to writing new posts and sourcing new articles- I probably should have told you that before telling you to go and start one…
It adds a fresh layer to your site that is encouraging for potential customers. We’ve all seen the sites that sit there for years never being updated. But a regular blog post- even if it’s only once a month, will keep you elevated in search results and continue drip feeding traffic to your main site. It tells the public ‘we’re here, we’re relevant, and we’re current’.
Having trouble thinking of a creative way to add a blog to your business website- get in touch – it’s what we’re here for!
