Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

I`m new to the SuN community and was wondering who`s already using blogs to market their business.

If you are blogging for your business -- how are you using your blog to promote your business, influence your target audience, and build relationships with your customers?

Share your wins... and your challenges!

Aloha!


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John Paul Micek
Business Acceleration Coach

Win more traffic, customers, & cash online. Grab a free excerpt of the hit book `Secrets of Online Persuasion`

Simple strategies for creating raving fans online at the Tribal Seduction New Media Marketign Journal

I have been blogging for about 18 months.  My blog has been my best marketing tool ever.  Consumers in my industry are addicted to blogs.  I use my blog to promote my business (I post blatant commercials from time to time) as well as dispense small "snippets" of the type of info scrapbook entrepreneurs would get if they joined ScrapBiz.  I also post my opinions on various industry issues.  It`s a little bit for consumers and a little bit for other businesses in the industry. 

I try to keep it focused and keep my personal life largely out of it.  For instance, the names of my kids and CLEAR photos of them would be taboo.  As would my political opinions.  I think that`s where business owners go wrong at times - they stray.  For instance, one scrapbook celebrity is promoting her husband`s Oregon State Political Campaign on her blog.  She`s talking to the wrong audience - not only are most people reading her blog NOT in Oregon, but about half of them don`t hold her and her husband`s political views.  I think when you get too personal or controversial, you risk alienating your audience.  No one wants to read that your 2 year old threw up all night on your business blog. 

~Kim

We launched our blog this week. We decided to call it Diary of a Startup as we intend for it to be a record of sorts of how we`ve launched and started to grow our business.

As best I can tell we`ve seen a decent amount of traffic over the course of the first 3 days somewhere in the ballpark of 300 - 350 unique visitors. Mostly from social bookmarking and about 45 subscribers to our RSS feed.

What I`m wondering, and what I haven`t seen a lot of information on, is how to convert blog visitors into website visitors?

Any thoughts?

Andrew

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PeerSight, e-enabled roundtables for small business http://www.peersightonline.com

Wow Kim! You`ve got some really great content on your blog! And your posting consistency is terrific too. Perfect with the high blog usage your niche gets.

Have you considered using a self-hosted blog on your own domain so you get the inbound links and page rank beneftis instead of Google (blogspot)?


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John Paul Micek
Business Acceleration Coach

Win more traffic, customers, & cash online. Grab a free excerpt of the hit book `Secrets of Online Persuasion`

Simple strategies for creating raving fans online at the Tribal Seduction New Media Marketign Journal

Aloha Andrew,

Great to see you started with your business blog on the company domain. Makes things much easier, and your New Media Marketing much more effective. And you`re ahead of the curve with leveraging the social network and tagging sites. Great sources for targeted traffic.

On your question of; "...how to convert blog visitors into web site visitors?"

Targeted traffic is great, but what are you directing those visitors to do when they get to your business blog?

This is where a lot of business people go wrong in listening to the advice of blogging purists and evangelists in that they completely forget about the proven rules of marketing.

Contrary to what you may have heard, you can proactively market with your business blog. Marketing, blogs, and business are an excellent promotional blend. To be successful just means using influence and persuasion instead of interruption or mass media style marketing.

It`s true that a well planned business blog is a powerful tool for building relationships, opening a dialog, and developing trust with your audience. But you still need to influence those visitors to take the next step in developing a relationship with you. A blog on it`s own is not enough to do that.

At the very least a good starting point is adding a free download offer in the visual hot zone (upper left corner) of your business blog. An offer for something that will benefit a visitor from your target audience. And keep in mind that an offer to sign up for a "newsletter" is not going to be sufficient incentive for people to hand over even their first name and email address.

Add that registration incentive and that will take care of the most important step in moving strangers > friends > customers > raving fans.

Secondly, for the way your site is designed, I`d strongly suggest integrating your WordPress blog right into the layout. The design template of your company site is well suited for a relatively simple integration. That way you blog "flows" seamlessly with the main site.  

For more ideas on blogging for business, check out the current article series we`re running  Blogging For Business: Dispelling Myths and Clearing The Muddy Waters.

Enjoy!


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John Paul Micek
Business Acceleration Coach

Win more traffic, customers, & cash online. Grab a free excerpt of the hit book `Secrets of Online Persuasion`

Simple strategies for creating raving fans online at the Tribal Seduction New Media Marketign Journal

Blogging is awesome, but time consuming! I`m enjoying coming up with content for my posts, but it does feel like yet another thing on my long To Do list.

That said, I`m convinced that my blogging efforts are what lead to being interviewed by both CNNMoney and The Wall Street Journal on the very same day! So, how can I possibly complain about the time it took?!

For anyone wanting to learn more about adding blogging to their marketing mix, I recommend JP`s course. His talks always get me to take action and thanks to his latest program, I just installed a blog onto my main website. Still need to work on the "look" but I`m getting the content going in the meantime.

Previously, I was posting on four different blogger blogs and while I know they helped get Google to crawl my newest site, I don`t think they did as much for my search engine ranking as the new blog will.

You can check out my early efforts with my new Wordpress blog at: stagingdiva.com/homestagingbusiness

Can you tell me who JP is? I would be interested in taking a course on blogging

Thank you

Sure Fonz. I meant John Paul Micek. You can learn more about his programs at:

advancedbusinessblogging.com

Thank you for the information. This website was great joining. Just full of great stuff.

Thanks again

 

Thanks!  I try...  I like to say it like I see it sometimes.  My current entry is not going to win me any prizes with some, though - LOL!

I would love to have a blog with my own domain, but, after 18 months or so, how would I ever move it???  I wish that I had at least gone with Typepad - it has more features I would like.  I keep hoping that google will come up with a paid version that adds more features, like being able to put photos throughout the entry and not just at the top. 

~Kim