5 Ways to Use Blogging to Attract New Business
In a world where 70 million blog posts get published on WordPress alone every day, it can sometimes feel disheartening to try get your blog roaring and bringing you business.
But there’s good news: Cream rises to the top, and a large quantity of those 70 million posts are probably of such shoddy quality that they would never rank on the first page — or even the 90th page — of Google.
You can be successful blogging as a business provided you follow some basic guidelines which will ensure your blog posts are the cream and not the sediment.
1. Find your niche
Of those 70 million blog posts being published, only a certain percentage will be in your industry.
Within your industry, there are undoubtedly niche topics that are much easier to rank highly for in the search engines.
A major mistake that many organisations make is to think they need to get thousands of visitors a day to their website in order to be successful.
One thousand visitors resulting in zero leads is a far worse statistic than two visitors which result in one lead.
The biggest problem with “SEO for SEO’s sake” is that it targets too broadly and is not focused enough on getting qualified visitors who slide naturally into your sales funnel.
Pick a niche that is highly relevant to you, not too obscure and which you feel you could write about and then go for broke on it. Your chances are high that you’ll rank well for those articles.
2. Showcase your knowledge and share your experiences
There are two distinct parts to getting business via your company’s blog:
- Writing your blog in such a way that it garners links from other blogs and so starts getting found more easily via the search engines.
- Write your blog in such a way that people who have found your site (whether via search engines or not) are both impressed and intrigued by your knowledge. This will cause them to either devour more content or immediately start looking at your products or services.
Writing for Number 1 and Number 2 above is actually the same type of writing i.e. authoritative and useful content.
Whether you’re writing for existing customers or trying to get new ones through search engines, your business blog needs to contain knowledge and information unique to your experience.
People love a good story. So, tell them an anecdote while also showcasing your skill or expertise.
3. Be personal. Build trust and relationships.
The constant bombardment of online advertising and insincere belly wash which passes for “content” on so many websites gives you a unique advantage: People want to connect. They want to hear stories from real people amidst the overload of senseless marketing drivel so by being personal you can build a following.
Being found via search engines is one thing. Having a body of dedicated readers who receive your content via email every week is an entirely different ballgame.
Subscribers to your blog directly impact the chances of your content being able to be found on the search engines, provided the content is sincere and useful.
Your subscribers are likely to share the content via social media or even linked on their own blogs. Google has previously confirmed that social signals are indeed a factor in a website’s ranking.
To get your content shared, and to build a dedicated readership in the first place, you need to show your human side in your writing. Build trust and nurture your relationship with your readers. Even if none of them are clients, they can bring value to your business and your website in other ways.
4. Run a giveaway
People love free stuff, and giveaways are an excellent way to generate interest and buzz for your website and blog, especially in the field of E-commerce.
Rafflecopter is a well-known and easy-to-use giveaway tool that can be embedded in your website. People take certain actions that you define in order to enter the raffle (e.g. subscribing to your newsletter or following you on social media) which also helps you build an audience.
You don’t need to give something large away for the giveaway to be a huge hit. Ideally, you would give something away that represents your business.
5. Be visual — use great images and charts
Use images and charts in your blog to assist in conveying the message you’re trying to get across. Internet users are renowned for their low attention span (we are all guilty — click, click, click, click!) it is crucial to ensure that your blog has maximum impact and that its message can be assimilated as rapidly as possible.
Use images, graphics and high-quality charts that add meaning to the text immediately surrounding them. This will make the text easier to understand, and it is a well-known fact that relevant images in a blog post can improve its ranking on search engines. Here's a great article by Bruce Clay on how to improve Google image search ranking. Just be sure to add an “alternative text” for the image, which helps search engines understand what the image is about. It also assists people who are visually impaired and must use screen readers.
What do you like to see in blogs you read?
The main thing to know about blogging to attract new business is to think high-quality.
What do you like to see when you visit a blog? Well, if you like it then others will too and so the search engines will also like it.
Strive to emulate the form of those blogs you enjoy reading and you will increase your chances of turning your blog into a leads-magnet!
