How Can You Benefit from Blogging?
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If you are
already maintaining a web site, having a blog can add to, or
enhance, your existing web presence. The ability to provide
your customers, and readers, with fresh content on a daily, or
weekly basis can keep your business running even during lean
months.
Blogging is also a great way
for small business owners, with little web design knowledge,
and small budgets to establish a professional, attractive, web
presence.
Many designers charge much
less for a completely customized blog design and installation
than they would charge for complete, traditional, html or flash
website design.
When blogging first began
becoming popular among businesses I was slow to notice
the change. It seemed to me as though more and more of my
competitors were shutting down their traditional websites and
replacing them with well designed blogs.
Other competitors kept their
existing websites up, but added links to their websites that
sent surfers to there companies newly created
blogs.
I decided to start learning
more about blogging, but I didn’t want to change my entire
website format until I was sure blogging was right for me and
my business.
I played around with a few
different blogging platforms on a personal level trying to find
out what all the fuss was about. I set up a small
personal blog on Blogger and later a weight loss blog on
Typepad.
After trying out all of the
major blogging platforms I realized that using a blog platform
to power my site rather than the current html design could do
wonders for my business.
In addition to being able to
make my blogs look, and feel, professional with little design
knowledge, I was also able to easily add photo and text content
to these personal blogs with no
assistance.
This was something I
would never have been able to manage on my traditional
site.
While any of these discovers
would have inspired me to turn my existing site into a blog,
the deciding factor for me was a confrontation with my website
designer.
I needed my site updated to
promote an upcoming concert my business was affiliated with but
the designer would not be available to complete the update
until after the concert was over.
I immediately began
researching how to create my own blog on my own domain so that
I would no longer be dependent on a web designer.
Being able to take charge of
how, and when, information was posted on my new blog site
immediately increased my sales, site traffic, and general
interest in my domain.
Clients no longer felt that
the site would always contain the same, stale
information. They knew that in order to catch my latest
promotions they would have to subscribe to my blog or bookmark
my site to return to it often in order to avoid missing
anything important.
I invested a great deal of
time in setting up my initial blog posts and interacting with
my clients. In many cases my posts for the entire week
were prepared by Monday and published on the blog at set
intervals throughout the week.
Each and every time someone
commented on a blog post I did my best to respond to, or
acknowledge these comments. Even if it was just to say
‘thank you for commenting’.
Allowing users to comment on
your blog posts can increase your companies business and
reputation tremendously. Many prospective clients make
their decision to buy a product or use a service based solely
on testimonials and reviews left by other
customers.
Since comments often offer
feedback on your products and services, they can sometimes be
more affective than the most expensive, well thought out,
advertising campaigns.
These comments can also serve
as an unofficial Frequently Asked Questions section.
Often surfers are more likely to read the comments on
posts that relate to a question or problem they may be
experiencing than they are to visit your sites FAQ.
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