Blogging..!

I don’t know how long you’ve been in Internet marketing but if you are at all a competitive person then you must have noticed that a very large number of business websites have a blog integrated somewhere in their website design. Did you ever wonder why that is? Having a regularly updated blog integrated in your website using an established blogging platform such as WordPress can be highly beneficial on a number of fronts. For a start, if you fail to have a blog with posts related to the various aspects of your niche, you won’t come across as someone with a lot of knowledge about his field. Blogging can take the shape of posting general articles meant to provide free advice to people while you subtly advance your business interests or it can also sometimes take the shape of product reviews in which case your blog posts will essentially talk about the products and services that you offer. For the purpose of maintaining a very active blog, you can choose to write articles yourself or obviously you’ve got the option of hiring someone, a ghostwriter to do that for you while you do more interesting things such as market research or taking care of your presence on the popular social media platforms out there. For a complete list of the benefits of blogging, read on.

The benefits of integrating a blog in your website

1. The SEO benefits

Ever since Google introduced its new Google Panda algorithm earlier in this year, it is now even harder than ever to rank well with the search engine. As a business, you absolutely need to add fresh and unique content to your website if you want to stand a chance as far as Internet marketing is concerned. The easiest and most practical way for you to add content to your website on a regular basis is to maintain a useful and reader-friendly blog. A blog can help you provide regular content updates without actually needing to change any of your on-site page text. In addition to that, should you choose to keep a blog that you regularly update, it becomes significantly easier for you to design and implement the internal linking structure of your website. Whichever way you look at it, blogging has SEO benefits that no business should remain unaware of.

2. Blogging shows industry knowledge and expertise

I don’t know about you but when I visit a website that lacks the presence of a blog, the first thing that comes to my mind is that the person who is handling this website has little or no industry knowledge at all or if he does know what he is talking about, he does not want to make it easy for his readers. These days, the Internet is the primary source of information that millions of people turn to for solutions to problems or else for casual reading. As an Internet marketer, it is great if you offer reliable and good products but unless you can demonstrate that your products are useful, people won’t buy from you. Managing a blog is a perfect way for you to demonstrate your knowledge of the industry you work in. After all, it can be a tough business world in the current climate and it can sometimes be difficult persuading potential customers to part with their cash. However, one sure fire way to increase brand loyalty, sales and enquiries is to show that you know what you are talking about. That way, if someone has any questions during or after a purchase, they will feel sure that you will be able to assist.

3. Social media and blogging

Personally I doubt there is a better way to stay active on the different social media platforms out there such as Facebook and Twitter than by ensuring that each blog post you make is fed to these social networks. Theoretically speaking, it is relatively easy to ensure that all posts from a blog appear on the leading social media platforms, driving traffic to the blog in question from all areas of the web. After all, if you are taking time to write blog posts, you certainly want them to be read by as many people as possible. The blogs also act as a discussion point on the likes of Facebook and Twitter, and if people like what they read, they may even share or re-tweet your post, increasing your business exposure without even knowing what they are doing for your bank account

4. Give visitors a reason to return

Once a potential customer has visited your website, you need to give them a reason to return. A regular series of blog posts will give website visitors a reason to come back to your website to read future blog posts, and hopefully they will make a purchase or an enquiry at the same time. It is important to make customers want to return and a blog does this perfectly. Ideally, what many businesses do is they write a series of linked blog posts over a couple of weeks, which they then use to ensure that readers return to read the next installment.

5. Link building and blogging

If you see an article, which really catches your attention, instinctively you will want to share this content with others. What is the best way to share an article with other Internet users? A link! A blog with well written and interesting blog posts can help increase your link profile as readers will often link to your blog from their own blogs, websites or social media platforms. With the benefits of link building well documented, start an interesting blog and you will see your site linked to other resources without you doing anything at all.

How to Make your Blog Attractive..?

1. Have an “Advertise with Us” Banner on your site

This is the single most important issue. It should click to an Advertising information page and have an easy way to contact you for more information and rates. Key points: Make it a graphical image or a tab. Keep it above the fold.

2. Keep the ads on your site specific to your site

Don’t have smiley ads and wallpaper ads if your site is site is about mobile phones.

3. Show them the banners

If you currently have no paid placements on your site, put up house ads or partner ads in the same spot you would run a paid spot. (A house ad refers to banners for other products or sites that you or your company own)

4. Throw up a free bonus ad.

By putting a free advertisement on your site, you may not only encourage similar ads or competitors to that product, but the company you added for free may decide to advertise with you. Ask for full disclosure of the performance of the campaign in return. (Total clicks, total purchases etc. ) Key points. Put the free bonus up with a direct URL without tracking tags or affiliate tags.

5. Show your site stats.

You need to show at least the basics for site statical information: Monthly unique visitors and total number of impressions are the 2 key ones. Other less important can be Google PR & Alexa rank.

6. User demographic information. Know your audience.

The bare minimum is Male/Female % and average age of your readers. Other potentially useful information includes geographic, HHI, single/married, number of kids. etc. How do you get this info? You can do site polls, survey’s, or get more detailed stats from ComScore or Quantcast.com

7. Have an ‘About Us’ section.

Clearly explain who you are and what your site is about. And also why you are an ‘authority’ on what you are writing about, and why anyone should care about what you have to say.

8. Don’t use Google AdSense on your site.

OK, this could be the most painful one for most people especially if you are generating a few hundred bucks a month from it already. But Google ad sense devalues your site and makes it look unprofessional. You have to ask yourself, “Do I want some real revenue from my site or Google’s table scraps.”

9. Keep your blog on topic.

If you are all over the map in regards to topics about which you talk about, advertisers won’t know if they are a good fit for your site.

10. Keep your blog professional.

If you are talking about your cat, (Matt Cutts), ranting about your drive to work, swearing or bashing every product you can think about, it will scare away advertisers.