The internet is always open and therefore always allowing you the opportunity to connect with potential customers. In addition, new online tools for marketing and sales tools are always emerging. However, corporate blogging, while not altogether new, is one of the most valuable.
Here are just some of the benefits of a business blog.
Interaction with Customer Base
Normally, most communication between businesses and the public is through slick advertising or boring press releases. A blog allows your company to have a personality and talk to customers and prospects in a more casual environment about your industry and products. The blog posts should not read as sales pitches but instead as helpful information that the reader will find worthwhile.
Most blogs offer you the option of enabling a “comments” field where readers can give you instant feedback on what you posted. If your visitors find your posts to be informational and entertaining, not only will they be more inclined to come back, but you will have an inexpensive way to get to know your readers better. In addition, by quickly and intelligently responding to their posts, you can show potential customers that you are interested in their opinion, as well as show them that your company is quick to respond.
Free Promotion
If you invest the time and energy into creating a helpful and interesting blog, readers should take notice. Building an audience will create buzz and positive word-of-mouth advertising. Interesting posts could also pay off with links from other blogs as they will reference your company in other posts. Getting linked to other blogs will also help your SEO ranking!
SEO
This brings us to SEO ranking. For the most part, site content rarely gets updated unless you add a new product or rewrite the copy. Since search engine spiders love new information and pages this poses a major problem. However, this can be avoided by utilizing and maintaining an on-site blog. Since blogs assign each post an individual URL address, you can add new pages to your site each time you post a blog. In addition, by taking the time to create a focused blog you can incorporate:
• Relevant titles
• Outgoing links
• Targeted keywords
By filling your blogs with useful, search engine friendly information, your site stands a very good chance of ranking well. The more you update, the more spiders will crawl them!
The best part is blogs are easy to create and maintain. Livejournal and Posterous are two that have a quick sign-up process and a speedy interface to add whatever blog you wish to write. If writing and propagating your own blog is not your cup of tea, there are companies, such as TheeDesign Studios who will assist you. Either way, it’s time to connect with your public, and blogs are just the way to do so.
Established in 2004, TheeDesign Studio is a full-service web design an