Challenging...

It’s the best word to describe business blogging. Although at times it may feel like pushing a piece of wet spaghetti, it’s one of the most important elements of the path of engagement your prospects take toward becoming loyal customers.

Building a Bridge Toward Engagement

Your prospects embark on a journey each time they take to the web. Their quest is simple. Find relevant information, find it fast, solve a problem. To ensure their success you need to create a path of engagement with three stops. First is discovery. An appropriate social strategy helps prospects find you on the web, especially in the mobile age. The second stop is relationship building through content marketing.

Your blog helps prospects develop a level of trust. Not only about your products or services, but how you do business, what you believe in and who you serve. Effective blogging links discovery to sales, making it easy for prospects to say yes.

Connecting. It’s the singular purpose of your blog. It not only creates a path for your prospects, it creates links between everything you publish online. Search engines love to follow a trail to truth. Give them one.

Publishing a business blog on a regular basis gives you a reason to post social updates. Not inspiration quotes from dead people, or links to the intellectual property of others, your stuff. We try so hard to get prospects to visit our website. Publishing a business blog makes it effortless.

Tips for Effective Business Blogging

• Keep it Close – Your blog should be part of your website, right next door. Not down the street or across town. Do this and the branding is already done.
• Build a Bridge – Social networking informs your prospects about what’s happening. Blogging tells them why. It gives you an opportunity to share what they need to do about it.
• Keep it Tight – Develop a short list of blog categories aligned with your products or services. Focus all your blogging energy on only these topics. Straying dilutes your message and your brand.
• Connect the Dots – Start by linking to a current news item, add your two cents worth to create value, end with a Call To Action (CTA) that leads to your solution to the problem.
• Encourage Engagement – Remember, the goal is building a relationship. It’s about give and take, dialog, discussion. Encourage both commenting and sharing. It takes a blogging village.
• Consistency is the Key – Develop a publishing schedule and editorial calendar. You’ll learn how important this tip is on the day your subscribers contact you to learn why you missed a regular publish date. That’s engagement.
• Create a Balance – There should be an inverse relationship between frequency and length. It’s not about how much you can write. It’s about how much your followers can read and assimilate.
• Have Fun – I just finished a transcontinental migration to my hometown of San Diego. I brought my followers along on the adventure by publishing JustParadise.net/blog. They felt included, I felt connected.

Insight

Anatomy of a Blog Post

I’ve developed a resource that makes quick work of blog publishing. It’s a step-by-step checklist that reduces your effort while increasing the quality and effectiveness of your blogging. My clients use it each time they publish. It’s now available to you. Give me a call if you’re interested in making your blog work.
Direct: 904-566-8325.