Friday, October 24, 2008

The Benefits Of Blogging For More Website Traffic

By Mike McCoy

If your website gets less traffic than you may want, you should consider adding a blog to your marketing plan. Today's internet users want to feel engaged in community and conversation, and blogging is one of the quickest and easiest ways to get your customers and prospective customers to feel as though they have a personal connection to you and your business. The more you blog, the more of a relationship your customers feel they have with you, which can, in turn, lead to more sales and more referrals.

Simply put, if you're not blogging, you are missing out on tons of potential traffic.

Blogs are very search engine friendly, and search engines tend to index blog posts very quickly, so it's a great way to ensure that your information gets "crawled", or seen by the big search engines. Blog posts can be made up of text, photos, videos, articles, press releases, and much more. You likely have lots of material you can use as is, or re-purpose into blog posts.

It's also a good idea to keep your blog separate from your website, for the simple fact that a blog with your name on it creates another URL with more links to your original site, which will help increase your internet presence.

Some keys to keep in mind for blog posts:

1) Keep things simple.
People tend to read many blogs on a daily basis, so short bursts of information have a better response. If you have a lot of information to disperse on a given topic, break your content up into a series of related blog posts.

2) Respond to comments.
If your readers take the time to comment on a post or ask a question, do your best to answer them right away. This helps them to feel that you really care about them as a customer, and don't just see them as a potential dollar sign. It also helps people view you as down to earth and not so caught up in the workings of running your business that you take time to do the small things. This kind of attitude goes a long way toward building a valued customer.

3) Give your blog readers an incentive to come back.
Run a contest or hold a giveaway. Maybe offer a certain amount of commenters a sneak peek at your newest product. Readers love coming back to informative blogs, but the prospect of winning a prize can also drive even more visitors to your blog.

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