You’ve got the website and the promising client list, but do you have the blog—and even more important, do you need one? My clients are often surprised to hear me say that most of the time, the answer is yes.It doesn’t need to consume your life. But smart marketers know that a blog can be a critical piece of your online marketing puzzle.
There are two key reasons for this:
First, Google and all search engines love fresh, original content. Every time you put up a new post, it’s like waving a big flag for them to notice your website and move it up in the search rankings.
Second, the more fresh content you post to your website, the more you are building relationships with your community. Think of it as getting a group of girlfriends together a few times a week—it nurtures the heart and soul of your business (your connection with your clients and customers). In my Elevate online business training program, we recommend you post fresh content to your blog at least every 3 days.
But blogging isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution for small business owners. How you approach your blog depends on your business strategy and position. Take a look at these four blogging objectives below and see where you fit in:
The Business Owner Blog –This is the blog for you if you provide some type of service or product to your customers, like life coaching, graphic design, accounting services. You have a website already set up, where you list your products/services, so any blog you have would be an add-on—an extra navigation tab on your existing website. (My own blog is a good example of this. Take a look at www.AliBrown.com/blog/)
The reason why a blog is so important for this business type is that it is one of the only places where you’ll regularly update your web content—and is thus a main traffic generator. Here, your blog’s objective is to get as many people as you can to come to your website, and discover all the products and services that you offer. Do this by posting your own relevant articles, updates, and musings—but keep it all related to your business mission.
The Personality Blog – If your primary goal is to position yourself as an authority on a specific subject—by writing books, speaking, making media appearances—then you’ll want to set up a slightly different blog. (One example of this is best-selling author Tim Ferris’s blog: www.FourHourWorkWeek.com/blog/)
In this scenario, your blog’s objective is to build a community. When you have a community that champions you, and looks to you for guidance, media outlets can catch on quickly. People connect with your unique personality, your philosophy—and your blog showcases this. Have opinions, be bold, and start up as much conversation with your community as you can.
The Company Blog – This is a blog for a big company, where there is no specific persona to associate with. (Ford’s blog is an example: http://social.ford.com) These are usually huge snoozers (zzzzz).
It’s a tricky scenario because people like connecting with people, not a faceless entity, like a company. But what you can do is focus on industry news and updates within the company. It’s kind of more of a bulletin board blog versus one that can get a lot of traffic and build community.
The Curator Blog – This is like an online magazine, where you gather content on a specific topic from around the Internet and build a loyal community around that content. (Reader’s Digest is a tried and true example: http://www.RD.com. Yes, they are still around!)
Here, you are acting like a curator—picking only the best content around your specific topic and putting it all in once place. Since your product IS your content, it’s absolutely essential you are posting regularly. In this case, I suggest you post every day if possible, even more if you can.
QUESTION: What type of blog do you have and what type of content do you share? Post your URL below so we can take a look!
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© 2013 Ali International, LLC
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