Blogging For Business: Answers To Some Of Your Questions!
For some reason it seems that almost every live and email business conversation I’ve had in the last two weeks has been about blogging and the most common questions that people ask me include:
- Why bother with a business blog – doesn’t it just take up a lot of time?
- How will I know if anyone reads my business blog?
- If I do start a business blog how can I get it found in the search engines?
Advance notice of Hubsite Builder’s webinar series on blogging for business
Because I’ve become aware of the huge number of business owners in the Baby Boomer age group who are struggling with both the reasons for and the practicalities of establishing a business blog, I’m preparing a 3 session webinar series that is designed to answer the steady stream of questions I receive on a regular basis. (Non-Baby Boomers are welcome, of course!)
I’ll let you know in the next week or so about the final dates for those events.
In the meantime, here are some words of wisdom from some of my favourite business bloggers that may help to answer some of your questions...
Business Blogging: Why Bother?
Watch this short video (1 min 38 sec) to see why two of the worlds great marketers and business leaders recommend that you become a business blogger.
Video – Seth Godin & Tom Peters identify the pros of business blogging:
Godin shared these 4 advantages of blogging for business:
- It’s free.
- Blogging helps you to become more humble.
- The blogging process forces you to think about how to explain yourself to others.
- It forces you to become part of the conversation in your field.
Blogging Is The Best Marketing Tool Tom Peters Has Ever Had!
I’m a big supporter of blogging as a strategy to grow your business, but even I was shocked to hear Tom Peters say that no single thing in the last 15 years professionally has been more important than blogging.
Peters declared that business blogging has changed his:
- Business life
- Perspective
- Intellectual outlook
- Emotional outlook
In fact, Peters says that business blogging in the “best damn marketing tool I’ve ever had!”
How Will I Know If Anyone Reads My Business Blog?
Ruslan Kogan reminds us that we must get scientific about improving our websites/blogs, and we need to start by using a free tool like Google Analytics to identify all the details of traffic to our blogs and web pages.
Kogan says ” Your website is the single most important communication channel to potential customers, even if your business does not transact online. You need to understand your online visitors and what they want. Don’t make this based on guesswork, gut feel or emotion.”
Kogan recommends that you test everything and shares what their testing revealed about what fields to include in their registration forms and where to put your navigation links to make it easy for visitors to find what they want on your site.
Business Blogs: How To Get Yours Found In Google
Of course it’s one thing to start a business blog and another to have it rank well in the search engines and actually be helpful to your website visitors. Derek Halpern reminds us that one of the most frequently visited pages on your blog is your About page, (check yours in your Google Analytics account), so as a business owner you want to give your About page lots of TLC…
How to Create An Amazing Blog About Page by Derek Halpern
In this very practical article Halpern identifies 5 things you must have on your About Page. He also gives a great reminder about the importance of email sign up forms and where to position them.
Read Derek Halpern’s full article here…
Business Blogging: Is It A Waste Of Time?
Derek Halpern also answers this question in his blog post The One Big Mistake Bloggers Make (Hint: It’s Regarding Where They Spend Time). He describes a concept he calls “spendability.”
Halpern explains that there are two ways, to encourage “spendability”:
- traffic and
- interaction
and while it may seem so simple, it’s the truth.
He belives that the single best way to build interaction is by building a high quality email list. As big as Twitter and Facebook get, email still has more than triple the users!
Read Derek Halpern’s full article on spendability here…
Business Blogs That Get Found In Search Engines
Getting traffic to your business blog is the first step to achieving “spendability” therefore your blog needs to rank highly in the search engines. The titles of your blog posts are key factors in getting high ranking and one of my favourite business bloggers, Ana Hoffman from www.TrafficGenerationCafe.com shares some really useful resources for writing great titles for your business blog.
Blog Titles: How to Write Winners Even if You Suck at It
Read Ana Hoffman’s full article on how to write winning blog titles here…
Here’s To Getting your Business Found Online,
The Hubsite Builder Team