On Day 6, I talked about using social media as the spokes of a wheel and at the center of that wheel is your blog.The fact that I made a blog the hub of the wheel should tell you that, yes, the blog is important. Even if your business centers around an online ecommerce store, you should still have a blog.
Why?
As I also said in Day 6, anonymity and impersonal business are a thing of the past. In fact, it is common for small businesses to try to look bigger than they really are online. They’ll use the word “we” when they mean the word “I”. They’ll have multiple department email addresses when there are only one or two people on the staff. They’ll use corporate “lingo” on their website, thinking it makes then look professional when, in reality, it makes them look dumb.
Today, business is about the individual. You are an individual and you are in business. Your customer is an individual and they have a need or desire to be filled. Even if your operation is larger than a one-man operation, you should be accessible and personable and REAL.
With a blog, you can do that and you also have a solid line of communication to your customer. You can post news stories tailored to your market. You can use your blog to get feedback on your products and services (by way of blog comments).
Blog software, too, is set up for interactivity. When you post a story in our blog, your blog software will automatically “ping” any other sites you link to in your post as well as sites which you specify (such as Pingomatic). This serves to notify others of what you’re doing on our blog as well as to notify search engines of your new post – automatically. Search engines like Google LOVE blogs so strategic use of your blog can get your site and brand into search engines.
So, my advice:
- If you do not yet have a blog, start one. I recommend using WordPress for your blog. Also, I highly recommend you use your own hosting, not WordPress.com. You want to you use OWN domain name, not a domain of some freely available personal blogging service.
- Post often.
- Make your posts valuable to your potential customer and reader. Do not worry about giving away too much information. It is the free stuff which is going to bring people in the door. If you hold back too much so that you can charge them for it later, you’re not going to have many takers.
- Like spokes to the wheel, use your social media profiles to drive traffic to your blog.
- Use the blog to drive traffic to your sales letter or online store. If you are running a service business, make your contact information clearly visible on your blog.
Happy blogging.
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