Advertising your Blog
So you have started a business blog. You are creating useful and interesting posts, but no one seems to know about it. How can you bring attention to your blog? And how can you engage clients and potential clients in your brand?
Some think that finding readership for a business blog is not important. For this subset of business owners, the blog is a tool to increase the SEO of the main page. The only benefit of the blog is the frequent updates of pages with keyword laden words, helping your website to stand out against the noise when your keywords and services are searched for. However, while this is a valuable purpose of a business blog, stopping here is neglecting its full potential. As with everything else in business, failing to realize potential profit is simply a loss.
The business blog can also be a tool for engaging your user base and helping to spread your brand. Helping to bring people to identify with your brand and lifestyle values will help to ensure that your customers are loyal and proud. Additionally, engaging viewers can mean that they are more likely to share your posts across social media. This not only is free advertising, but having your posts shared across social media and networking sites can also increase your SEO. So, having an unread and uncared-for blog will help your SEO, but having a well cultivated and lively one will increase it even more. So even if your only goal is SEO, take the time to find an audience and you will be rewarded.
So how do you actually advertise and find readership? There are two main places to start. The first place is social media. Social media is ideal for finding readers because this audience is already in a position to look at your content immediately. If you can advertise your post about 5 solutions to a common problem on social media, you have a reasonable chance of finding people experiencing that very problem who are willing to give your advice a try. If it works out well for them, they are likely to remember where they got the information, and come back the next time that they need help.
Secondly, if you are able to bring in individuals who are interested in your content, their networks are also likely to contain individuals receptive to your message. Often, they will know who these people are, and can spread them without any of your intervention. This is why a bit of advertising on social media can be worth a lot: if you are creating quality content, then others will soon do your advertising work for you.
The other place to advertise is in your place of business. This is mostly effective if you are a public place, such as a shop or a restaurant. In this scenario, there are two main paths to take to get visitors to view your online presence. The first is by bundling deals or coupons onto your blog. Then you can have signs around your property mentioning that there are great deals only available at your blog url. Frugal and fervent customers will jump at the opportunity to save some money by visiting your content. Once they are there, it is up to you to keep them captivated and interested.
Alternatively, you can advertise some of your content which is present on your blog. This is particularly relevant if you create content targeted to solving your viewers problems. For example, in a produce store, you could have a poster saying something like “need recipe ideas for this ingredient? Check out 5 healthy recipes you can make in 15 minutes at our blog”. In this case, your blog can entice shoppers to try different ingredients, while also encouraging them to visit your blog. Like most good advertising, accomplishing two goals at once is a great way to spend your efforts.
You will notice however, that all of this requires you to be producing quality content. If you are making schemes to draw people to your website but you know you have no interesting or relevant content, you are simply trying to create click bait. And while this might increase any ad revenue that you have, it is not a long term sustainable business strategy. If you want to realize the full potential of your online presence, you will need skilled writers producing quality content that stands out from the other content your customers see.
In the end, a good business blog has three steps. First, understand your customers, their needs, and their interests. Second, create content which caters to these. Create posts which solve their problems, answer their questions, and help them feel good about themselves. Finally, use advertising to draw them to your content, relying on its quality to retain them.
