So far I have only talked about blogging as a way to directly generate income; but the advantages of a blog go further than that.
If you own an online business, no matter if it is based on selling products or services, you may benefit from the numerous advantages that a blog has, and considerably increase the number of sales or clients portfolio.
Although it is absolutely necessary for an online business to have a “classic” presentation website, nowadays, a blog that would work together with your main site may prove useful from several points of view.
Traffic
You may benefit from specific services to drive traffic that are only available for blogs (such as blog directories, technorati tags, and google search for blogs) and bring your business a plus of visibility. Also, the percent of visitors”converted” into clients that comes to you through your blog will be higher because the traffic generated by a blog is usually more targeted.
Know your market, get in touch with potential buyers and building brand recognition
As a blogger it is far more easier to make connections with people that your business may benefit from, by approaching them in a more friendly manner. This may include affiliates, former clients that may post a positive review of your services or products, or simply people that are impressed enough by the quality of your work to post links to your website or blog, which will translate in pagerank improvement. Although many of you may say that you actually don’t need to be a blogger to achieve this, it is actually easier to do it if you are part of the blogosphere.
There are many bloggers out there that at some point don’t have subjects to blog about, so if the services or products that you provide, have the necessary qualities for catching the attention of some people, you will benefit from tons of free advertising. The down side to this is that some of the reviews may not necessarily be positive, but the controversy itself will create the buzz you need. On top of that, if your services are original in someway, you will probably hit the jackpot because these kind of news spread like fire in the blogosphere.
Keep your potential clients close to you
By posting articles and information related to your business on a regular basis, you will keep your potential client’s interest raised. People will make a habit from visiting your blog and there is a far better chance that they will buy from you when they need a product or service that you provide and not go someplace else.
This will also take the business relationship of seller-buyer (or potential buyer) to another level, by evolving from the cold and formal manner of a business relationship to a more friendly and familiar bound with your contacts on the market and potential clients.
Building credibility
How many times did you come by a website of an online business, liked their products or services, but hesitated to buy because you did not know if they were a legit business, or simply you did not know if the actual product that you will receive will be as good as the presentation says it will? Nowadays fake testimonials are very common, so probably you will not be able to gain a visitor’s trust even if you have real testimonials from real clients. However, if you manage to keep your clients posting comments on your blog, will add a lot more value to whatever you provide than those questionable testimonials. Bloggers can be tracked (simply by clicking on the name of a person that posted a comment will bring you to their own blog) so this will resolve the question of the authenticity. There will still be an issue with the fact that opinions may not be totally unbiased, but this will tend to fade proportionally with the increase of number of comments posted. Further more, potential clients really enjoy transparency, so even if you receive some negative comments, don’t be in a hurry to delete them! Just try to work together with your audience, take their comments into consideration and improve whatever needs to be improved; people that are interested in what you provide, will appreciated it a lot! Which brings us to the next subject…
Improving your services
As I have stated before, one of the major advantages that a blogger has over a regular webmaster is the higher level of interactivity between the owner and visitors of that specific blog. So if you use this opportunity wisely and keep the lines of communication opened with your clients, you may actually improve your services or products. Feel free to encourage them to post what they really think and even ask them to make a wish list. Don’t be afraid that you might not always receive positive feedback; think of it as another way to know if your clients are happy, and if some them aren’t, do your best to improve. You may have great products, or services, but there could be areas (such as customer support or shipping, for example) that may not totally satisfy your clients (and probably you are not even aware of that).
Again, you could probably do this without a blog, by keeping in touch with emails or phone calls, but not only it is much easier to do it through a blog, in terms of time management, centralizing data etc., but also, it is a proven fact that in direct communication not everyone will be totally honest and willing to tell you all what they think (depending on their personalities or the even the fact that you may catch them in a bad moment); by blogging, people will take the time they need to say whatever they think. Finally, there is a better chance that they will provide the feedback you need (comparing to the email method) probably because they know that what they are saying will be seen not only by you, but also everyone else that will read the blog.
Additional income
As you probably already know by now, if there is traffic, there are ways of monetizing it. Although in this case, it may be a little tricky because you may loose some of the visitors focus from your own products, with a little attention you may be able obtain a more or less considerable additional stream of income by advertising for products or services that relate to yours. Just be careful not to advertise for your competitors.
SEO
Because of the fact that blogs are updated more frequently and due their “friendly” nature they attract more links, you may even experience a higher amount of traffic generated through search engines to your blog than to your main presentation site.
Having this said, nowadays, due to it’s multiple advantages a blog is becoming a marketing tool for your business that you can not afford to miss.
Technorati Tags: Blogging, business blogs, blog for business
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