If you don’t have a blog on your business site as of yet, you’ve already been left in the dust. The good news is that you can still recover pretty quickly if you take some proactive steps right now. Why is a blog important? Because search engines are now tracking the content of blogs and basing rankings on the quality and quantity of blog posts initiated on business sites! Having a business blog is just part of the equation if you hope to grow your business!
- Think about your business niche, but also think about all related business niches that are of interest to consumers. If your business is in the field of real estate, get outside of your small box and think about all related topics – home maintenance and improvement, investment opportunities, mortgage loan and re-financing laws and regulations, etc. There are so many topics that can inform and educate consumers – you need to be an expert on all of them!
- Get a good blogging platform, like WordPress – one that evaluates your blog posts and makes suggestions for content and SEO improvements. If you are a novice and really unsure about your ability to implement a professional and effective blog, hire a consultant.
- Be careful about the design of your blog – it must look professional. Don’t fill your post pages with lots of advertising and media glitz. Images are great to break up the monotony of your text, but too much media is a distraction!
- Identify and use the most popular keywords and keyword phrases and imbed them naturally within your posts. Keyword stuffing in an attempt to get more search engine attraction is now penalized!
- Quality of content is a prime factor in SEO. If your posts really attempt to inform and educate your readers, search engine tools like Penguin and Panda will reward you!
- Set up pages and profiles on all social media sites. When you can have a permanent presence on these sites and drive people to your blog posts, you are also driving potential customers to your site! Again, if you are a novice, you need to spend the money and get a pro to do this for you.
- Set up interaction on your blog. Readers like to comment and give feedback. And if you can respond to those comments and feedback, you have now set up a more intimate relationship with customers and potential customers.
- Make it easy for readers to share your posts all over the place. Have visible buttons for readers to email your posts to others, to transfer your posts to social media sites, or to Tweet them – the more other people put you out there, the better!
- Be very consistent with your posting schedule. If you can only post once a week in the beginning, then set that schedule and never miss a week. Once you get in a groove and also invite others to provide guest posts, you will be able to have a more frequent posting schedule. If you gain followers who look for your posts when they are supposed to be there, they had better be there!
- Be certain that your site design, font, etc. is mobile-friendly – accessing sites and blogs via mobile devices will only continue to increase!
As you read through this list, check those things you know you can do yourself. And then find people who can accomplish the other things for you – nothing is worse than a poorly designed blog with low quality content. Remember, the ultimate goal is to attract visitors and ultimate customers, so do it right!
Julie Ellis believes that, only through experiential knowledge does one become an engaging and creative writer. Her degree in Journalism and a host of real-world study and experience has made her a permanent and popular blogger for PremierEssay.net.