Blogs as an Inbound Marketing Tool
June 5, 2009
Inbound Marketing Tools and Techniques – Blogs
First in a series of six newsletters
Goodbye, 2008! Hellooooooo, 2009!
I’ll be posting a six-week informational series on Inbound Marketing techniques…it’s the wave of the future, dontchya know!
Don’t miss a thing! Sign up for my Girl Friday Blog’s RSS feed. Girl Friday promises lots of good info!
BLOG, BLOG, BLOG!
Everyone talks about them, but fer cryin’ out loud can’t someone just list what a blog is and how you use a blog to market your business? Here you go!:
1. A blog is an on-line conversation between you and your customers/potential clients. You post “content” (informational text). They read it, respond if they like, and most important, THEY TAKE AN ACTION (like clicking on a link to your shopping cart, or sending you an email asking for more details).
2. You are the expert. Readers need and want your information, expertise, or service. So they actively seek you out by searching for you, your services, your products, in Search Engines like Google and Yahoo! This process of attracting customers to your blog and website is called Inbound Marketing, and your blog is just ONE of the many tools you can use! Nifty, huh?
3. The words that people type into Google to find your blog are called “keywords.” If your blog has unique, specific keywords that very clearly describe your services, and if you use keywords in your blog posts, your blog’s site address (URL) will come up to the top of the Google search. The person searching for your services will then click on that URL and land on your blog, your shopping cart, your website. So, the keywords are like ‘magnets’ attracting searchers to your blog/site. I TOLD you this was nifty!
4. Once a potential client arrives at your blog, provide plenty of links and opportunities for the reader to TAKE AN ACTION.
And there you have it! Inbound Marketing techniques, using your keywords, have attracted new customers to your blog almost like a…like a….dare I say it? Like a spider weaving the World Wide Web attracts and snares a hapless fly…oh MY!!! How NIFTY is that? Got questions? Email Girl Friday Today!
Practical Tips for Starting a Blog for Your Business
DO use your business website address (URL) as your blog URL. In other words, make the blog part of your existing site. You’ll want to host the blog yourself, on the server where your website lives.
That means, you DO use a blogging software that you install on your server.
DO NOT use a blog generator like blogger.com. They host the blog (so you don’t have your company URL address), it’s not as search engine friendly, and, it’s simply not as professional, dahling, and we must be professional at all times, must’nt we?
About Your Blog’s CONTENT:
1. Make your blog informational, NOT an advertisement. That’s a BIG blogger no no! Don’t do that!
2. Make it intriguing, entertaining, fun, colorful…UNIQUE.
3. You are the ‘voice’ for your company. Speak with authority.
4. Additionally, speak in your own voice, so your customers get to know your company’s personality.
5. Welcome comments from your readers, offer to answer questions. Be sure and have a contact email or phone number, and action links within the content of your blog post.
Girl Friday is committed to helping small-to-medium sized businesses and entrepreneurs impact their customer base and sales using Inbound Marketing techniques. You might even say it’s our MISSION! So, contact us today and get going on your marketing plan…positive action will create positive consequences, and we really mean that!
