Web Marketing
Blog for Business Business Blogs
Companies often think that weblogs, commonly referred to as blogs, are too personal or informal for business purposes. However, in the past couple of years there has been an increase in the use of business weblogs or blogs to get more promotion, more page views, and more customers.
Why Blog for Promotion?
Blogging is currently very popular. A business weblog that provides good information for your customers while being interesting and entertaining will add a new dimension to your web site. Blogs are a powerful marketing tool. Because the entries are short, and often full of links, they are more keyword heavy than standard articles often are. Plus, being short, they are easy for your customers to read (and you to write), so they are more likely to come back daily to see what you might have to say on that day.
If your company is very formal, a blog is a place to show your customers that it is made up of people just like them. You can do this without becoming too personal or diary-like.
The web site, www.corporateblogging.info suggests several advantages for businesses getting involved in blogging:
Become the Expert
You can position yourself and your company as a leading firm in your area of business.
Customer Relationships
Blogs are an ideal way to provide tips and insights on your products and services and to receive customer feedback.
Media Relations
Blogs provide a valuable source for the media which they will regularly check. They often prefer this instead of just being passive recipients of yet another press release.
Internal Collaboration
As it’s possible to have a passworded blog, you could use a blog as a workspace where project members keep each other updated, without
constant emailing to and fro.
Test Ideas & Products
It is an ideal platform for testing ideas or products. As blogging is informal, it could provide you with
a measure of value. If you publish an idea, see how much interest it could generate.
Improve your ranking in search engines
Google and other search engines like sites that are updated often, that link to other sites and that have many inbound links - all of which a blog will achieve
Different Ways to use a blog for business
There are different ways that you could use a Blog for business:
Frequently Asked Questions
If you get a lot of mail to your webmaster account, you can post the common questions up on a Blog. This will provide your customers a place to go to see questions and answers, and as new questions come in, you can post them to help more people.
If you get a lot of mail to your webmaster account, you can post the common questions up on a Blog. This will provide your customers a place to go to see questions and answers, and as new questions come in, you can post them to help more people.
Promotions
If you do promotions every week or few days, you can use a blog to highlight them.
If you do promotions every week or few days, you can use a blog to highlight them.
Competitions
Daily contests and games are a great promo in a blog. They are fun, and bring your customers back. Remember to offer something worthwhile as a prize.
Daily contests and games are a great promo in a blog. They are fun, and bring your customers back. Remember to offer something worthwhile as a prize.
What's New Pages
If you add lots of new articles, information, or products regularly, sometimes it can be difficult for your customers to find out what's new. A quick blog entry can show them what has been updated on your site.
If you add lots of new articles, information, or products regularly, sometimes it can be difficult for your customers to find out what's new. A quick blog entry can show them what has been updated on your site.
New Developments/Projects
You can use a blog to peak interest in future products or projects. This can often be fascinating for your customers, to see how new projects might be moving forward. It's also a great way to keep notes about what you're planning for your customers, the entries are archived so nothing is lost either for you or your customers. Plus, if your blog tool has a comments feature, you can use that to judge interest before it goes live so it also serves as a market research tool.
Photo Blog
Rather than writing, you could put up a daily photo for your customers. A photo and a short description can be very compelling.
Rather than writing, you could put up a daily photo for your customers. A photo and a short description can be very compelling.
News
The most common use for business blogs is news, usually about the specific topics relevant to the company.
The most common use for business blogs is news, usually about the specific topics relevant to the company.
