Blogs act as a link between a business and its customers. They are especially helpful with increasing traffic to a business’s web site. Here are some ways you can increase traffic to your site via a blog.

• Write relevant content that matches the readers’ interest. It is essential to always keep in mind what information your target audience is looking for. The relevancy of blog posts with reader’s interest is important as it will attract them to read it. They might even refer it to others. Search engines favor blogs that have user relevant content.

• Make titles appealing. Having catchy titles to posts help in attracting both readers as well as search engines. Always write articles that can pull people to read the post, and include important keywords if possible.

• Use the right keywords. Undertake keyword research to find the most appropriate keywords and effectively place them in the posts. Highlight the keywords to attract the readers’ attention.

• Post regularly and often. It helps in retaining the interest of the visitors if you post often. Readers like to be welcomed with a new entry! To keep readers as well as search engines updated about new posts, make use of RSS Feeds.

• Allow for easy commenting. Comments are the best way to get feedback and thus may provide some vital information on areas that a business needs to improve upon. Make sure that readers are able to comment on the posts easily.

Yes, we’ve all heard of blogs, but do you truly understand how to utilize a blog,  the frequency of posting or what plug-ins  you should be using for maximum marketing impact?

You don’t need to have one blog, we encourage you to have three!  A company blog, a personal blog for the key executives and a general market commentary blog.

The key to blogging is consistent posting with relevant information.   97% of blogs have 1 or less postings each week.   That leaves a great opportunity for you to shine in the other 3%!

Once you’ve mastered blogging, we encourage you to jump on the micro-blogging bandwagon.  Micro-blogging is posting shorter posts, typically under 200 characters.  Twitter has mastered this concept and is among our favorite sites to be leveraging in 2009.   Twitter allows you to post short “tweets”  of 140 characters or less.    You can update your audience on your personal life — for example Michael is currently enjoying some time his twins or on the business side of things — Michael is currently working on his new book, check out the link here.   The great thing about twitter is that you can link twitter with various other social networking web sites.  So one post or “tweet”  to twitter, and you’ve just updated ten other social accounts instantly.  

Not logged into your computer to make the post?  Send a text message and your status will be updated automatically!

Twitter is one trend that you cannot ignore.  It’s still relatively new enough to start gathering a following and taking that market share away from your competition!  Get on twitter and become the expert in your field, you’ll have thousands of followers in no time!  

Key Resources:

·         Twitter.com

·         Wordpress.org

·         Blogpress.com

·         Typepad.com

Yes, we’ve all heard of blogs, but do you truly understand how to utilize a blog,  the frequency of posting or what plug-ins  you should be using for maximum marketing impact?

You don’t need to have one blog, we encourage you to have three!  A company blog, a personal blog for the key executives and a general market commentary blog.

The key to blogging is consistent posting with relevant information.   97% of blogs have 1 or less postings each week.   That leaves a great opportunity for you to shine in the other 3%!

Once you’ve mastered blogging, we encourage you to jump on the micro-blogging bandwagon.  Micro-blogging is posting shorter posts, typically under 200 characters.  Twitter has mastered this concept and is among our favorite sites to be leveraging in 2009.   Twitter allows you to post short “tweets”  of 140 characters or less.    You can update your audience on your personal life — for example Michael is currently enjoying some time his twins or on the business side of things — Michael is currently working on his new book, check out the link here.   The great thing about twitter is that you can link twitter with various other social networking web sites.  So one post or “tweet”  to twitter, and you’ve just updated ten other social accounts instantly.  

Not logged into your computer to make the post?  Send a text message and your status will be updated automatically!

Twitter is one trend that you cannot ignore.  It’s still relatively new enough to start gathering a following and taking that market share away from your competition!  Get on twitter and become the expert in your field, you’ll have thousands of followers in no time!  

Key Resources:

·         Twitter.com

·         Wordpress.org

·         Blogpress.com

·         Typepad.com

Exposure to a new audience – Guest blogging opens you up to a whole new audience of potential customers.  Those who haven’t come across your blog may be reading the blog you are guest posting on, so they’ll get a chance to read your writing and follow links to your site.

Backlinks – Guest bloggers are usually allowed to include a short bio that contains a link to their site.  This can help you to create backlinks, which make it easier for potential customers and the search engine spiders to find your site.

Improved credibility – If another blogger thinks your information is good enough to post on their blog, people may begin to see you as an expert in your field.  This improved credibility can result in more traffic to your site and increased inquiries from potential customers.

If you don’t feel like writing a guest blog post for someone else’s blog, send us an e-mail.  Our bloggers can develop a high quality post that you can use to reap the benefits of guest blogging.

Backlinks – Blog owners who host blog carnivals link back to the sites of the original content authors.  This can give you good quality backlinks that the search engine spiders can use to find your blog.

Exposure – You may get 1,000 visitors to your site each day, but what will happen if your content is published and linked to on a site that gets 100,000 visitors per day?  Some of those visitors may click on backlinks to your site, giving you new readers and additional opportunities for revenue generation.

Publicity – If you participate in a well-known blog carnival, other bloggers or even print journalists may pick up some of your information for their own publications.  This can generate free publicity for your business.

Enhanced Credibility – Anyone can start up a free blog on Wordpress or blogger.  However, having other blog owners deem your content worthy of inclusion in their blog carnivals shows readers that you truly offer quality information.  This enhanced credibility can help people to trust you more and put your business in a more positive light.

Linking Benefits

If you blog about a popular topic or give credit to another blogger in one of your posts, you’re likely to get some quality one-way links from other blogs to yours.  These links help new readers (and the search engine spiders) find your blog.  Internal linking is also common with blogs.  Blog owners can link to previous posts, which creates a positive search engine effect and also gives new readers the ability to catch up on old posts.

Updated Content

Many Web sites fail to benefit from SEO because their owners don’t update content as frequently as they should.  The search engines, along with readers, place a high level of importance on how often new content is added to a site.  Because most people post on blogs at least once or twice a week, readers have something to look forward to and the search engine spiders have new content to crawl on a more frequent basis.

Community Interaction

Blogging is a great way to create a community of readers who interact with you and each other through the use of comments.  By creating an active community, you are opening up more opportunities for links and positive publicity, which can improve your search engine rankings as well as your business reputation.

If you don’t have a blog for your business, you need to get one up and running so you can take advantage of all the benefits blogging has to offer.