For the past several months now, there has been a new development used more and more by businesses and companies of all sizes: Business Blogs. First, for those of you who may be wondering what “blogs” actually are, they are an abbreviation for “web logs”. First popularized by journalists, tech geeks and by teenagers, “blogs” are now increasingly in use by the business community and Fortune 500 companies.
If you have new ideas or a new product your company would like to promote, business blogs are a good, inexpensive vehicle. And there are many other advantages to using blogs too: major search directories and Search Engines such as Yahoo, Google Alta-Vista and most of the others crave on fresh and new information that is frequently updated, sometimes many times a day. Business Blogs consist of many links, written with fresh content that is propagated everywhere on the web.
The more Search Engines like Google find daily and updated content, the more often their search spiders will visit that business blog, resulting in high Search Engine rankings for a good part of your business blog-powered data. If you still have your doubts on business blogs and are wondering if they are just a passing fad, for your information, in February of 2003, Google bought Blogger, itself a blogging software pioneer. Google publicly said they don't even know how they are going to use the company, but they will certainly have some use for it... (!) (Quoted in the New York Times).
If you are still asking yourself why should your business start a business blog (b-blog), here are a few answers to ponder about:
1. If you have timely information to share with your customers
2. If you're unhappy with the results and ROI from email marketing
3. You would like your web site to have top-ranking positions in Google
4. Many observers think that blogging will last for a long time
Here is a list you might want to read of the many business benefits of starting a good and serious business blog:
Higher search rankings on Google with no paid-submission
Other Search Engines will most likely position you higher too
Pay-per-click (PPC) is great but free marketing has infinite ROI
Create visibility with information by sharing with your customers
Fresh information appears on Google in only a few days, not weeks
Other business bloggers will point prospects towards you for free
Now all of this is great and can help companies a lot in their Search Engine rankings. But Business Blogs should not be viewed as the single winning “solution” that will “do the magic”. Business blogs should be viewed as an added, parallel solution to increase communications and ideas to your prospects and customers, while at the same time helping your web site in the Search Engines.
To be real successful, a business first needs to have its web site properly optimized by a professional Search Engine optimization firm, one that knows Search Engines and truly understands your specific business needs. After a serious optimization campaign and the ensuing positive results that can be analyzed in detail and carefully measured, business blogs should be considered as an added way to help increase Search Engine rankings in the major Search Engines, while at the same time more effectively communicating new ideas, products or services to the business community, your clients, prospects, suppliers, business associates, etc.
Be prepared to see a lot more developments in this area. Already the Internet is seeing a new wave of business blogging software and related applications claiming to propel your web site to the top of the search results. Be careful before choosing any such software. While some can be of help, as with anything that is new and “revolutionary”, careful analysis, due diligence and product evaluation is necessary before deciding on one final choice. We will continue to monitor this development closely and will keep you posted on our findings through this web site.
Note: Slated for January 31st, 2004, Rank for $ales will have a Business Blog solution ready for it's clients. Interested parties please enquire here. In the mean time, you are encouraged to visit www.escalate.ca for more information on blogging news and business blog technology. If you would like to see an example of a personal blog website (with a touch of humour) that is already online, then you can visit www.bloggers.ca
Business Blogs to help your rankings
Business Blogs an Evolution in Cyberspace
The invention of the printing press didn't start the advertising game. It just made it quicker and easier to find
and inform business clients. And technology rolled on. Moving steadily from telegraph, telephone, fax machine, direct mail
marketing, right up to today's internet. And all along the way entrepreneurs’ took advantage of the changes to engage in
their business endeavors. And nothing has changed. Taking the ever popular blogging phenomenon and changing it from
a home spun communications medium to a business promotion wonderland. Enter the blog the poor man's website.
Blogs started out being a place where the common person had somewhere to express themselves. A place to open up their
diary's and let the whole world know their hereto before private thoughts or an opportunity to express their political views.
Truly this was a quagmire of unprofitable information though interesting as heck. The blog wasn't made popular because of financial gain
initially. Regardless of why blogs became so popular they did achieve a phenomenal growth. And with that explosion of
popularity the greedy blew in with it. A Blog as a retail marketing medium was a certain destiny.
One of the advantages of blogs for business is that it's easy to get access and use of one for free. Free in a
sense. Usually the free ones require one to advertise the company providing the free blog. Because blogs
are user friendly, and designed to be easy to customize, it's a real cost effective tool for the internet marketer. Even if you
choose to pay for your own the cost is usually a under $10 a month. Most important is the fact that hundreds of thousands
of blogs are in use. Statistics show there are currently close to 14 million blogs posted on the internet with an estimated
80,000 additional blogs signing up daily. Couple those facts with the reality that there are over 50 million internet users and
that 30% of them are reading a blog. It becomes a no brainer why for the online marketer it's a mind boggling, ready made,
opportunity to be exploited for profit.
One of the common formats that are used on blogs is the mini forum. This has great advantages for the serious
online marketer. It provides real input as to how the public thinks and feels about the product or services being
promoted. It always helps to know exactly what you need to change to keep things moving upward. A popular technique
used with blogs is to treat them as a stepping stone to another website. For example let’s say you might have a website selling
sports tennis shoes. So now you create a blog called, " Freddie the Sneaker Tweaker". A site where folks come to get Freddie's
latest complaint or praise about different sneaker brands being sold on the internet. However most conveniently there happens to be a URL for the sports tennis shoe website clearly
seen on the blogs review page which , "bingo", directs more traffic it. Doing this of course feeds more traffic to the real money maker.
If you’re new to the internet don't expect like so many unfortunately do that your simply having a website will guarantee that here comes
the money. Even blogs being used for business reasons require good SEO practices. It would be advantageous for the newbie
to join a SEO blogging community along with having their blog indexed by the larger search engines. They also should take a serious peek at their
competition. The best business blogs are those owned by people who only started out sharing something they had passion over
and that passion caught on to all those others with a common interest. This is a win-win situation. Good blogs are those
which truly provide the public with meaningful information.
For those folks that were the charter members of blogging what's happened to the blog is discouraging. Yet change is
a natural part of life. And sense behind all those two dimensional blogs is a human director it was only a matter of time
before the business blog appeared and with its success it grew and grew. Yet, there is a bright side. Because of the
blogging explosion thousands of good people overnight found themselves suddenly wanted and financially bettered. May the blog live long
9 Top Business And Personal Applications For Blogs
Weblogs or blogs for short, can be developed around on nearly any and every subject. And not only for personal use, blogs can also be used effectively as business tools, for business of all sizes from Fortune 500 to home-based operations.
Many have found that a blog is similar to a personalized money churner for their websites and businesses. In fact blogs can function as stand-alone websites with a full assortment of features; such as, automatic archiving, comment posting, pre- and post-dating entries, survey tools, remote capability, easy management, RSS feeds, subscriber box, statistics, IP banning, Google™ Adsense capability, sidebars, full color templates, assorted marketing means like SEO tools and much more, depending upon the blog and hosting set up.
Blogs actually have a variety of practical applications for both businesses and individuals using them for personal use. Some popular applications are:
1) Content management system (CMS) – With good blogging software, you can manage the content of your website in an efficient manner. For example, with good a blog content management program, you can add multiple authors and even pre- and post-date entries, loading them in advance in order to take time off for a vacation.
2) Organizational Updates and Calendar of Events - Blog software also sorts your posts chronologically, giving the latest entry first place for enhanced readability, even allowing posts via email. Plus you can incorporate a calendar to quickly find and click posts on each date that bears an interactive hyperlink.
3) Customer Relations Board - A blog can also serve to increase credibility and help boost your customer relations. Web visitors can post comments and questions on the blog and even use its knowledgeable base of posts sorted by categories as a public relations tool. Your blog will also allow your customers to find information quickly and easily with a search tool.
4) Sales Booster – You can use a blog to describe your products and services, listing them by categories and incorporating multimedia into the posts: digital photos, video and audio tutorials, PowerPoint slide show manuals, Adobe PDF guides and more. Invite visitors to subscribe to the blog for product and service updates, specials, coupons, an award points program and more.
5) Media Center – Post your press releases, digital photos, company history, executive resumes and article clips on your blog to boost the public relation efforts of your company.
6) Interactive Education – Educate your prospects and customers with your blog. Discuss not only your products and services, but your industry. Keep readers abreast of industry development and news. Invite feedback and reviews from your blog readers and industry professionals.
7) Community Development – Focus on developing a community of any size and invite participation from your blog readers. Invite file sharing, uploading digital photos and video clips, for example, with critiques and reviews.
8) Service Providers - Blogs can also serve as service providers by sharing news and relevant and detailed technical information about your products and services in a timely fashion. For example, add one inside your member area, and once members log in, they can click your blog as an updated knowledge database that discusses issues linked to specific dates so they can immediately catch up since their last log in day. Plus they can read through your categorized entries to problem solve tech issues and more 24/7 at their leisure and own pace.
9) Internal Communication System- You can set up a private blog; for example, for your own members or company workers and associates for intra personal communications. Display the latest information there and invite feedback and interaction, even adding surveys.
Hence, blogs can definitely be used in a variety of applications for both business and personal functions. They can serve as interactive tools like discussion boards and message forums or focus on any number of other software features to help a diverse audience interact via a common platform.
Blogs And Sales: A Natural Business Partnership?
As you can surmise, one of the principal reasons why businesses find blogs effective as business tools is they help generate or increase sales. While there is no quantitative amount with regards to the exact monetary significance of blogging on sales, there are evidences of some sort of return on investment. Increase in sales can be and often is one of the indirect effects of successful blogging.
Blogs – Good for Business
Imagine sitting in front of your computer with millions of people (shareholders, business partners, competitors, employees and the media) conversing about business and the like. Now imagine if you can use all the information you learned to establish what product or service your customers want, why they want it, how they want it and how much they are willing to pay for it. This is precisely what a blog is all about and much more. Definitely, blogs are good for businesses.
A blog or a weblog is an interactive website that maintains an ongoing chronicle of information. It is a regularly updated website featuring links to other articles or other websites. Generally, a blog tends to have a main content area with articles called posts or entries listed in reverse chronological order with the latest on top. Typically, these articles are organized in categories. There is also an archive of articles based on dates. A blogroll, a list of links to other related sites is another feature of a blog.
A blog may contain one or more feeds. Most blogs publish feeds (RSS, RDF, Atom). A feed is a machine-readable content that is updated periodically. A feed reader displays the new post and a link to it. Most blogs also have a feature that allows visitors to leave comments. With a blog, you publish fresh content and your readers can add their own comments with links to their own blogs. Easy to use blogging tools are available, often for free. A basic blogging tool provides an interface where you can work in an easy and intuitive manner while it takes care of the rest of the logistics involved in making your blog presentable and available for the public.
Blogging, authoring or maintaining a blog, is one of the rapidly increasing growth areas of the Internet. According to popular search engine Technorati, there are roughly more than 40 million blogs on the Internet today and more blogs are appearing at the rate of 75,000 a day. This is mainly due to the numerous benefits of blogging for business.
A blog has a powerful marketing capability to grow your business, be it small or big. You can now have a commanding presence on the Web, not one based on size, capital, or resources but one based on quality of content, targeted audience and useful products and services. With blogs as equalizers, the blogosphere has become a truly exciting playing field for all businesses.
A blog is a constant source of valuable and up-to-date information. Setting up a blog allows you to showcase your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. A blog can be your vehicle for product or service updates, company news and any other information you want to relay to your targeted audience. A blog must contain relevant information, not just sales pitches; otherwise readers are much less likely to return. As with any part of a business marketing plan, a blog must contain information that appeals to its targeted audience.
A blog is an effective method to communicate with clients and prospects. It allows you to openly and regularly converse with them increasing credibility, creating trust and forming relationships with them early on. A blog with its conversational style is ideal for developing good customer relationships. Readers will feel comfortable with you long before they call you to make a purchase or avail of your service.
A blog is a great tool to get feedback from readers. Your readers can leave comments or make inquiries. A blog is a great way to find out what readers are thinking and in the process provides you with ideas or how to better serve them thus improving your business. Forming business decisions based on reader feedbacks can be one of the smartest business moves you can ever make.
Nevertheless, to be effective, a blog has to be updated frequently. Readers do not visit blogs that do not feature fresh content regularly. Keeping readers in the know with periodic posts about your business creates buzz and publicity. There is work involved in creating a blog. It takes time and commitment to write interesting and informative blog posts. But it may prove to be well-spent especially if it helps generate sales.
Blogs and Sales – In Tandem
Sales require personal interaction. A blog is one such place where communication thru conversations thrives and relationships are fostered. When you give your readers significant information they can use through your blog consistently, they will be satisfied. They will then return for more fresh content on a regular basis. Overtime, you will be able to build a loyal following. Readers will see you as an expert in your particular niche. Your readers will come to trust you and a relationship is developed. Your readers will perceive that it is less of a risk to buy from you or avail of your service. If you can blog efficiently about your subject, they tend to believe that your product or service will be worth it.
By blogging, you are sending the message that there is someone listening, someone you can approach as can be gleamed from answered comments and fresh updates. This will make your readers feel more secure and will take this into consideration as they form a purchasing decision. Blogging is inherently an ongoing conversation that in the long run builds trust and loyalty and breeds familiarity. When they become satisfied customers, they will come to you for more information and if given the choice will want to buy from you. This strengthens the relationship between you and your customers and they may also send other sales lead your way. The cycle goes on. Moreover, a blog is a remarkably effective way to get high search engine ranking. In other words, blogs can bring in more readers – more prospective buyers.
A much publicized example that highlights the natural relationship between blogs and sales is the Stormhoek case. Blogging doubled South African wine producer Stormhoeks’s sales in less than twelve months. Aware of the vast numbers of people who blog and read posts, Stormhoek decided to capitalize on this by offering bloggers free bottles of the Stormhoek Shiraz 2004 and Sauvignon Blanc 2005 to try and comment on. Sales went up from 50,000 cases to 100,000 cases. The wine became popular and earned it listings in prestigious wine connoisseur clubs. What is more, Stormhoek gets feedbacks and suggestions ranging from bottle color to label design.
Blogging is marketing to people in a less obtrusive and offensive manner, more like a freewheeling conversation compared to an irritating sales pitch. It truly is a good way to increase sales, albeit indirectly.