Blogging is “hot” right? And yet there are so many online businesses today being ruined because of the blog. Whatever article you read, whichever website or forum you visit, you will read or hear about the benefits of setting up a blog and its advantages over using traditional static websites. And, I gotta tell you, “I’m one of those proponents!”
But what I see all too often is bloggers sabotaging their online business because of their mindset about blogs and blogging. You see, I believe there is a general consensus amongst marketers new to the Internet that if something is inexpensive, if something is said to be easier, then it means that it doesn’t have to be “worked.” And then the other side of the coin is that if “I have paid thousands of dollars to get my site built then the “workings” are surely included!”
So whether people have gone through the process of setting up a simple blog or spending hundreds if not thousands of dollars to have an all singing and all dancing blog built for them, they then feel they can do very little to market it, only to be surprised and disappointed later on that no one is visiting their blog, no one is signing up to their newsletter or blog updates and certainly no one is buying their products and services or clicking their AdSense ads.
But it’s not all doom and gloom … The great thing about blog marketing is that by mixing some solid business principles with a few marketing strategies, you can get back on track to get more traffic, build your list, sell more products and attract more clients and, this can all happen in a relatively short period of time.
Here is one principle and three simple strategies that you can apply to your blog marketing and promotion efforts today that will start bringing you traffic and building your readership in a matter of weeks, if not days… First, here is the principle: “You Have to Start Thinking of Building an Online Business and Not of Building a Blog.”
If you think in terms of building a blog, this is where you’ll stop. If you think of building a business, you’ll be attracted to business ideas that will help you promote and market your blog and, attract the RIGHT kind of clients. What you want to avoid is falling into the trap of creating “form over substance.” In other words, the strategies you apply, must be grounded and backed up by principles and, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the writer, said that if you try to apply methods but ignore principles, you are sure to have trouble. So with that basic principle of “thinking” business building, let me cover three strategies that will help endorse the principle so you start making money with your blog:
1. Theme your blog. You cannot be all things to all people since you’ll end up serving no one. So the first thing you need to do, is decide “what” your blog is going to be about, “who” it will help and, ask yourself “why” people need your information. This will help you narrow your niche before you even start spending your precious time on writing elevator speeches and thinking of the perfect strap line. What you now need to do is go into the admin area of you blog and, since I use WordPress, I will use this as an example … you need to ensure that both the “Weblog Title” and the “Tagline” of your blog reflect what your blog is about.
And ensure they BOTH include your site’s overall keyword or key phrase. So, if your blog is about Dog Training, but your domain name is CruftsRUs.com (a made up name), instead of using the domain name in your blog title as so many bloggers do, you could write “Dog Training With Crufts” or something creative that grabs the eye of your human readers but also attracts the search engine spiders. Now, when the search engines come to crawl your blog, this is the first thing they will see … a title that reflects the keywords or phrase that people are searching for online.
2. Write regular “quality” blog posts and ensure you’ve activated your Pinging or Update Services in your blog admin area. This is where many bloggers trip up. They want a blog, but only want to add a blog post every two months because they just don’t have time to blog … and believe me, I’ve fallen into the same trap. But if you understand how blogs work, I think it will help you understand just how important it is to update your blog on a regular basis. For a quick overview on how blogs work, you can go to my article entitled How Blogs Work. In my view, if you don’t have time to blog - especially if your blog is your main marketing tool - what you are essentially saying is that you don’t have time to build your business.
3. Comment on other people’s blogs. It takes just a few minutes to make a comment on other people’s blog posts, but ensure you write something of value and not just “great article … thanks!” If you write something of value, you will get people clicking on the link that will take them to your blog and, in some instances you’ll get backlinks to your blog which, Google loves. And you never know, you may even gain some new clients from this relatively simple exercise.
By implementing these simple strategies and, thinking in terms of business building you no longer have to let your blog ruin your online business. You’ll also notice a significant difference in your blog traffic over days, weeks and months which will then put you in the advantageous position of being able to monetize your blog traffic.
Source: Trish A Jones. “Is Blogging Ruining Your Online Business?” http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Trish_A_Jones. Trish Jones, aka The Blogging Queen, will take you by the hand and and show you the exact steps necessary to build, market and attract more clients with your blog. Find out more by visiting http://www.theblognetreporter.com.
Related Post: “Top Three Reasons to Use Blogs,” EBT Blog 01/27/08.
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