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Why should I
use blogs for my business?
1.
Communication with your customers.
Blogs provide
a way for you to communicate with your customers directly. And it
is a two-way communication. You can post a message on your blog and
your visitors can easily respond. Staying in touch with your
customers regularly means you can build long-lasting relationships
and develop their trust.
2. Search
Engine Marketing
Blogs give you an increased presence on major search engines, like
Yahoo! and Google. If you use Blogger (Google’s Blogging Tool),
every message you post creates a new page on Google so in a very
short time you could have a lot of pages pointing to your website,
bringing you lots of new visitors.
3. Stay Ahead of Your Competition
Blogs are still relatively new and chances are your competition does
not yet use them. So you will be seen as an expert in your industry
when you post your knowledge and expertise.
4. Media &
Public Relations
Blogs are excellent PR tools. You can post your Media Releases and
articles and have them picked up by the media.
5. Free or
Low Cost
Many Blogs are free to use. Two such blogs are:
Blogger –
www.blogger.com
Clearblogs -
www.clearblogs.com
6. Easy to
Use
If you can
type and press a “Publish” button, you can use blogging software.
The software allows you to follow easy step by step guide and
provides great online help.
What should I
publish in my blog?
1. Articles
2. Media Releases
3. Industry News
4. Photos of your products or from a tradeshow
5. Surveys – so you can get feedback from your customers
6. Testimonials
7. Instructions on how to use your products/services
8. Product Reviews
9. Interviews
10. Case Studies
11. Business and Employee Profiles
12. Links to complementary businesses
13. Frequently Asked Questions and Problem Resolutions
14. Inspirational Quotes
15. Research Findings
and anything
else that may be of interest or help to your visitors and customers.
To see what a
blog looks like, go to:
http://websites4smallbusiness.blogspot.com/
Remember you
can have as many blogs as you like, so you can easily reach niche
markets.
How do I get
started?
Simply sign up
for a free account with Blooger, for example. Go to
www.blogger.com. Then go
to Getting Started in the Help Section and read it. There are lots
of useful tips on how to make the most of your blog.
Once you’ve
created a blog and added a message or two, don’t forget to put a
link to it from your website (if you have one).
What should I
do with my blog once it’s created?
Beside
adding regular posts, you should add RSS feed (Really Simple
Syndication)
to your blog.
RSS is a method of distributing links to content in your blog that
you'd like others to use. In other words, it's a mechanism to
"syndicate" your content.
How does
RSS syndication work?
Say you publish a new blog posting about a particular topic. You
want others interested in that topic to know about it. By listing
the page as an "item" in your RSS file, you can have the page appear
in front of those who read information using RSS readers or "news
aggregators" RSS also allows people to easily add links to your
content within their own web pages. Bloggers are a huge core
audience that especially does this.
Blogs
provide you with many benefits and they are free to use. So why not
try them out – you have nothing to lose!
If you’d like
to learn more about setting up, promoting and making money from
blogs, you need to read “Blogging
For Dollars” -
Click here to read article about
Blogs published in
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