A blog is a specific type of website, but as with this blog that you are reading, they can also be part of a bigger site.
These days most businesses use blogs by integrating them into a single web presence, but there are two features of a blog that set it apart from a traditional website.
Blogs tend to be updated frequently and tend to have new content added regularly. As with this website they are generally written to provide general information, they are best used to establish the blogger as an thought leader in the niche and maybe the wider market sector.
Blogs allow for reader engagement. Blogs are usually uploaded to social media as well, because of the ability for readers to comment and have a discussion with the blogger, and others on social media.
Blogs are a great way to improve your SEO and your Search Engine Result Page (SERP) rank.
Since content is added on a regular basis, they generate more attention from search engines than a website. By using keywords around your niche in your blog, you will increase the possibility of people finding your business on search engines, especially Google, which loves blogs.
There are several reasons why entrepreneurs have turned to blogging to establish their business as a leader in their niche and to dramatically improve customer engagement:
Search engines love new content, and as a result, blogging is a great search engine optimization (SEO) tool.
Blogging is the best way to keep your customers and potential customers up-to-date. You can let them know about your products and / or services, but also provide tips and set up discussions around the wider market. The more a targeted customer comes to your blog, the more likely they are to spend money.
A blog allows you to build trust and rapport with your prospects. Not only can you show off what you know, building your expertise and credibility, but because people can post comments and interact with you, they can get to know you, and hopefully, will trust you enough to buy from you.
Blogs can make money. Along with your products and / or services, blogs can generate passive from things like advertising and affiliate products.
Blogging is incredibly flexible, you can produce content anywhere and at any time and cover issues across the wider sector.
Blogs are written to facilitate engagement and reaction from readers. One of the reasons people like blogs is because of the way they allow comments. When someone has left a comment on a blog, you can react to their comments, but you can also control whether articles can be commented on. Some people like to blog without dealing with comments; others like to leave things open – if the blog is simply information about the wider market, then there really are no good reasons not to allow comments.
When someone comments, it’s basically like filling out a form and when you post a comment, readers can be notified if someone else comments in relation to their comment.
Your Blog posts should also include links at the bottom that make it easier to share, using email, Facebook, Twitter, or something else. You can also include a personal touch, perhaps through the design of your site, or through a section that includes a short bio about you and your business. Starting a blog or adding a blog to your existing site is relativity easy and affordable.
There are free blog options such as WordPress.com and Blogger, but to retain control and professional image, consider investing in a domain name and hosting, and installing WordPress or other content management system on your host.
Once your blog is up and running, you need keep it active with new content to grow your business. Develop a set schedule for writing and posting blog articles. Create a content calendar so you always know what you're going to post.
Like all other business ideas, your success comes from marketing, and letting your target market know about your blog. Great ways to reach your market are through social media and by reaching out to other bloggers, podcasters, and media outlets for publicity.
While your blog is vital to help potential customers find your website, it can also be used to add additional income.
You can promote other companies' products and services in affiliate marketing.
You can offer advertising or feed ad networks, such as AdSense, on to your blog.
If you have a service business you're promoting with your blog, you can create your own information products to compliment it.
Getting people to read your blog consistently.
With any blog, if you want to build up momentum quickly, you need to start thinking about it even before you launch.
It doesn’t matter what platform you are blogging on, you should be focused on getting followers. Every new follower is a sign that you are doing something right and is a potential customer you can easily reach.
Make sure to concentrate on your niche and the wider market sector and do not try to sell!
A good blog should be focused, consistent and informative and you should be looking to post at least one a week. You can post more often if the blog becomes popular but posting any less often is unlikely to have much effect on your business and increasing the chances of finding potential customers.
To find subjects for all of these blogs is relatively easy; writing the content is a little tougher! Let’s assume that you want to blog about coffee. If you put “coffee” into Google you will see that “coffee bean”, coffee machine” and local coffee shops are on the first page.
Straight away you have 4 blogs as there are 4 main types of coffee beans and there are, at least, a dozen types of coffee machines. You have local coffee shops you could review and, of course, plenty of national chains as well as reviewing the coffee sold in supermarket cafes and fast food outlets like McDonalds.
Enter “coffee beans” into Google and there will be a long list of coffee beans that are sold on Amazon and elsewhere, all of which could be reviewed; same with coffee machines.
There are also nearly 200 countries so you could write about coffee in each of those, simply by searching online and, of course, every time you visit a town or city there will be content for a few blogs.
This is before you look at when we started drinking coffee and its history.
As you can see, with almost any subject, there will always be enough to write blogs about!