Benefits of a business blog

Written by Chris Harpin   

Business blogging is becoming more and more effective each day. The public are already familiar with obtaining news online be it from a news web site or a company that they feel they have created an affiliation with.

Many of our clients are experts in their chosen field, the majority of them are more than happy to share their knowledge with potential customers over the phone or in person. They realise that this will create trust and that the potential customer is more likely to make the step up to becoming a paying customer.

There are also clients that are skeptical that their time and effort could prove to be more profitable elsewhere. When asked what are the benefits business blogging, I reply with:

Current & potential customers can join your community

If you offer something without directly profiting from it, potential customers will already be halfway towards trusting you.

If you offer something without directly profiting from it, potential customers will already be halfway towards trusting you. This is an opportunity for all to see the quality of your knowledge and to believe that you really are at the front of your field. By educating customers they will feel empowered and much more open to any ideas that you introduce.

Communicating with your customers

The obvious benefit here is that you can broadcast anything you like, what most companies do not expect is the increased feedback you can receive from your customers. By pitching each article at a level the intended audience will feel comfortable with, you are opening yourself up in a way that will make your customers feel that they can approach you. Be it through a feedback form or over the phone. If you structure your strategy around a certain product and entice readers with the benefits of how it will benefit them, they are likely to want to know more.

Regular fresh content

We recommend that anyone purchasing a blog should have feeds advertised on the web site's home page. These can update ‘on the fly’ so no additional workload is created for the writer. By offering these updates your site visitors can easily see that something has changed since they were last on your website.

We have all been in a situation were we visited a web site only to see that the content was exactly the same as when we were on there two months previously. Now how many of us have been back since? I am presuming not many. Now think through the eyes of your customer, visiting your website, do you want them to feel it will be worth coming back in a week or so?

This strategy is very effective when used in conjunction with an e-mail strategy or RSS feeds . View the suggested resources at the end of this article for further information.

Building company credibility

We have already touched on the fact that your customers are likely to buy into you as they know more about you. Company credibility can go much further than this.

We write articles mainly for our customers, but we know a lot of other web professionals also like to refer to them. This has created networking opportunities and allowed work to be pointed in all directions.

Supports search engine visibility

Regular changes and additions to your site's content will help to improve your search engine ranking.

Regular changes and additions to your site's content will help to improve your search engine ranking. By varying topics you are also creating additional key words that your web site can be found by.

Contact Castus about this article.

Early October we will release an article on how to track ROI for your business blog. Subscribe to our newsletter or RSS facility if you would like to receive alerts for new Castus articles.

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