How Blog Content Differs from Website Content

 
The content on your blog should be different from the content on your business website. Website content has a specific purpose: It must keep people on your site and convince them to become leads, clients, or customers. It's pure marketing writing and serves to educate visitors about the products and services you offer and show them why your business is the place to purchase those products and services. A blog can do much more. Blogs are part of your social media presence, and can build excitement about and interest in your business, let your customers give you feedback, and provide information that would't fit well into your website's strategy. Some of the ways blog content differ from website content include:

• Timeliness - It's difficult and expensive to change website content to provide time-sensitive information to your customers. A blog has no such issues. In fact, keeping your blog up-to-date and letting customers and clients know the latest information about your business should be a top priority for every blog entry.
• Audience - While good use of SEO strategies on your blog may bring visitors who aren't already your customers to the blog, blogs are most effective at informing and retaining current customers. Those current customers are looking for the latest information about your business. Web content must assume that every visitor is new and unfamiliar with your business. Your blog can make other assumptions and address issues not appropriate for your website.
• Non-Marketing Information - While your website is primarily a tightly focused marketing resource, aimed at making the sale or enticing visitors to make contact, your blog can do more. By providing informative, educational information that is not directly related to actual sales, you build customer confidence and loyalty. For example, a lawn care business benefits by showing customers how to handle do-it-yourself lawn projects on its blog. When they need professional services, they'll remember you. As long as the information relates some way to your business, providing that information builds your credibility.
• Short-Term Information - Having a sale? Introducing an new product line? Scheduling a customer-appreciation event? All such activities are ideal for an entry in your blog. In fact, they should be at the heart of your blog. By notifying customers and clients of time-sensitive information, you help to get repeated visits to your blog, and that should be huge goal.

Twin Cities Custom Blogging can help you with all aspects of your business blog. We'll work with you to keep your blog active, current, and relevant to your customers and clients. Email Me to discuss how a blog can enhance your search engine results. There's no charge for an initial consultation. Or call George at 651-774-7999.

Keeping Your Customers Up-to-Date

A regularly updated, well-written blog can be your best tool for informing your customers and clients about the latest news about your business. Unlike your primary website, your blog can be quickly updated whenever you want to share information with your patrons.

Whether it's a sale, the arrival of new products, or a seasonal news item, a blog makes it easy. Best of all, you'll also benefit from updated search engine listings and can customize your news items to get the very best response.

Add to that the ease of implementing RSS feeds on a blog, letting your customers and clients get news about your business automatically, and it's easy to see how a blog that is constantly updated can be a very effective business tool.

Email Me to discuss how your business can have an effective blog up and running now. I can help you set up your blog, populate it with search engine friendly content and update it on a frequent, regular basis. For a small investment, you can add a powerful marketing tool to your web presence.

Drive Customers To Your Website with A Blog

Search engines are great, and SEO helps people find your business web site. But, is that enough? What if you could attract even more potential customers to visit your site? It's easy. Using a separately hosted blog, you'll get even more hits on your main website.

Blogs hosted on Blogger.com are ranked highly in Google searches, since Google owns Blogger.com. That means that your blog's name and blog entry titles gain high positions in searches. With links to your main web site showing up everywhere on your Blogger.com blog, you gain hits on your main website, where its content can convert visitors to customers.

To achieve that result, your blog's title and the titles of articles in your blog should be carefully chosen. They should include your business location and key words commonly used in searches for your type of business.

Blog articles should provide useful information for the visitors you want to attract. For example, if you have a lawn care business, blog entries should be about lawn care, not about your business. An example title for an entry might be "Wisconsin Spring Lawn Care Essentials" or "Lawn De-thatching For Healthy Denver Lawns."

With titles like those, potential customers searching for information on those things will find your blog article high in search results. The article itself should be well-written and informative on its own, and should include content that refers readers to your web site for more information.

It's pretty easy to create this kind of blog, and inexpensive to have a professional do the job. If you combine a professionally-written website with an excellent and informative blog, you'll achieve high search engine results and gain new customers and leads.

Email Me to discuss how a blog can enhance your search engine results. There's no charge for an initial consultation. Visit the other links on this blog, too, to learn more about how custom blogging can benefit your business.

A Custom Blog Can Be Your Best Lead Producer

When potential customers for your business have a need, it's usually a need for information. Today, when people want information about a product or service, they turn to search engines like Yahoo. Whether they need a new high-definition television set or a home repair, they search for information to help them make an informed decision about where to get the product or service they need.

If your business has a well-written and informative blog that's updated regularly with articles about what your customers need, chances are your potential customers will find it in their searches.

Not just any blog will do. For your blog to be effective, it must be designed to get great results on the search engines. That means careful, targeted presentation and excellent writing. The better your blog is in achieving top search engine rankings, the more of your potential customers will find it and move along to your web site or contact you directly.

Beyond that, the content at your blog must answer the questions and provide the information visitors seek. It must also inform, entertain, and motivate readers to act. That's a tall order, but a professional custom blogger can fill it, and at a price low enough to make your decision to contract with that blogger easy.

Email Me to discuss how a blog can enhance your marketing strategy. There's no charge for an initial consultation. Visit the links on this blog, too, to learn more about how custom blogging can benefit your business.

How Often Should You Update Your Business Blog?

Business-oriented blogs are an excellent way to communicate with your customers. There's no question about that. But a stale blog communicates nothing except your lack of interest. For a blog to work for you, it must be updated regularly, so your audience will return to see what's new.

The best frequency of posting new blog articles depends on your type of business. For some businesses, daily updates are needed, but those businesses are rare. Entertainment businesses are a good example. With constantly changing events, daily updates help keep customers informed about what's happening right now.

For most businesses, weekly or monthly updates work the best. Customers get fresh information without being overloaded with emails about updates or RSS feeds. They're happy to check your blog out once a week or once a month. They learn new information related to your business and are reminded to think about your business, and are more likely to contact you or visit.

Finding time to research and write fresh material can be tough for most business owners. Often, it's best to contract with a professional blogger to handle these regular chores. You'll be on your contract blogger's calendar and the updates will appear, like clockwork. You get the benefit, and none of the work. Custom blogging is affordable, convenient, and just good marketing strategy.

Email Me to discuss how a regularly-updated blog can enhance your marketing strategy. There's no charge for an initial consultation. Visit the links on this blog, too, to learn more about how custom blogging can benefit your business.

How A Custom Blog Helps Customers Find You

Every web site, including yours, relies heavily on search engine results to bring new potential customers to the site. With the heavy competition out there for search engine results, you need all the help you can get. Search Engine Optimization on the site itself is a good start, but having a blog hosted on a blog-specific service like blogger.com can add new dimensions to your search engine success.

Did you know that Blogger.com is owned by Google? That simple fact means that Google works hard to get its hosted blogs listed high on its search results. You can use this synergy to help your own web site get better search engine exposure.

It's not hard to do, but does require some knowledge of how search engines catalog blogs in their databases. It also requires careful planning to match your business to search terms your potential customers are likely to use.

The easiest way to do this, and the most effective, is to hire a professional to build and maintain a blog for your business. I can help you build an effective blog for your business and keep it updated on a regular basis. The cost for this is surprisingly low, and the benefits are huge. Read the other articles in this blog to learn more ways a blog can help build your business. Email Me to discuss how a blog can enhance your marketing strategy. There's no charge for an initial consultation. Visit the links on this blog, too, to learn more about how custom blogging can benefit your business.

Should Your Blog Be about Your Business?

Many people think a business blog should be restricted to articles about that business. That's a real mistake. The place for information about your business should be your main web site. While information about the business is of interest to you, it's rarely that interesting to blog visitors. In fact, blogs that deal only with information about a particular business don't work very well at all.

Instead, make your blog somehow related to your business, but not about your business. For example, an auto repair business should blog about automotive topics, like the importance of regular maintenance or how to inspect tires for excessive wear. Blog entries that help your customers understand and enjoy their cars will attract people to your blog. They'll get the idea of visiting your business on their own, since you'll have links to your main web site prominently displayed.

Similarly, a dental office blog should be about understanding and caring for teeth, not about the specifics of that dental office. Again, that information belongs on the main web site. Articles about the importance of early dental care for chidren or informative articles about common dental concerns are the best blog topics for this type of business.

That's not to say that an occasional article about the business itself isn't in order. If you're having a special event or a change of address, an article about that is a good idea. But such articles should be well mixed with informative, entertaining articles about topics related generally to the type of business you operate.

At the end of each general blog entry, you can also include a short paragraph inviting readers to contact you for more information or to schedule an appointment related to the topic of the blog. These paragraphs should not be more than a sentence or two, and should contain links to your web site and email address.

Remember, you're aiming at a balance between informing and entertaining your blog visitors and putting them in touch with you. If you attract them to your blog by offering useful information, they'll naturally think of you when they want to shop or obtain related services. That's the way blogs work to help you build business.

Email Me to discuss how a blog can enhance your marketing strategy. There's no charge for an initial consultation.

Should You Host Your Own Business Blog?

If you're ready to start a blog for your own business, you're probably wondering whether you should host it yourself on your company's web site or use a third-party blog-hosting service. In almost all cases, it's better to host your blog on a dedicated blog host, like Google's Blogger.com service.

Hosting is free on Blogger.com, and there are several advantages to using that service. If you host on your own site, you or your custom blog service will have to coordinate with your company's web designer or webmaster. Since blogs require frequent updates, this can lead to excessive time spent on the blog by your designer or webmaster.

A hosting service like Blogger.com lets you or your custom blog service update the blog at any time without involving your web hosting personnel. It also lets you keep non-employees from accessing your web-site server. Even better, changes and corrections can be made almost instantly and new blog articles can appear without delay.

Naturally, you'll link to your external blog from your website. Best of all, your external blog will contain links to your business website and provide an additional way for customers to find your business. Blogger.com, as part of Google, includes your blog entries in their search engine, which gives you additional internet exposure. All in all, the benefits of external blog hosting far outweigh the costs of hosting on your own servers.

Email Me to discuss how a blog can enhance your marketing strategy. There's no charge for an initial consultation. Check out the links on this blog, too, for more information that can help your business.

Does Your Twin Cities Business Need a Blog?

Most Twin Cities businesses like yours already have a web site. That's a great thing, since it gives your customers and potential customers a place where they can find your business and learn about it. But, most small business web sites are static or are rarely changed. That means that most customers come to your site just once and never return. Even if you update your site once a month, that may not be enough to bring customers back to your site. Keeping your business in the minds of your existing customers is the very best way to keep them calling and coming in.

In today's internet marketing environment, the blog is the very best way to keep your website fresh and up-to-date. Lively, informative blog entries are the perfect way to bring customers to your site and to keep them interested in your business. Whether you have an auto repair shop, a restaurant, or a fishing guide service, a regularly-updated blog will keep your business web presence alive and current.

A business blog should incorporate:

• Updates on special offers, new features, and changes in your business.
• Seasonal articles that remind customers of your business, while informing and entertaining.
• Articles of interest to your customers about subjects related to your business.
• Search engine-friendly phrases and terms that bring new customers to your website and business.
• Regular updates on at least a weekly basis to keep customers returning to the blog.
• Clear, accurately-written articles that inform, entertain, and motivate readers.

I can help you set up a blog if you don't have one, and keep it updated on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. With 25 years of professional writing under my belt, you can be assured that your blog will be lively, accurate, and timely. It will always reflect the philosophy and style of your business. Your blog can be hosted on your own web site, or set up on a blog service with links to and from your web site.

Your time is valuable--too valuable to spend trying to maintain a blog. For a reasonable fee, I can handle those chores for you and help keep your internet presence fresh and active.

Email Me to discuss how a blog can enhance your marketing strategy. There's no charge for an initial consultation.