Do You Have a Business Blog?

Donna,

You might want to check out this related post: https://www.alignable.com/insights/how-often-do-yo...

-Alan

Blogging can be a tedious task if you don't enjoy it. And its always a time-suck. But I do think its worth the effort.

As a photographer, I felt it necessary to create another space to display my work. And the original intent was primarily to drive viewers to my main website. Once I created the graphics that suited me, and got rolling with writing stories, I was hooked. I love it.

I make at least one post per month trying to weave together interesting content with keyword tags. Of course, I have an advantage over some business with a wealth of images from which to choose. Looking back, the least successful posts were the ones that lacked interesting content. They read like a string of keywords –– very dull.

My three most recent posts were all monumental and time consuming: "Pissing Hummingbirds" - Yes, actual shots of peeing hummingbirds in flight. In "Roughneck" I illustrated dignified images of oil and gas workers while writing a short essay on mind-travel and climate change. And probably the most challenging article I'll ever write was the biography of my acclaimed father.

So after those three, its time for me to get back to writing a blog post directed at keywords and SEO. Weather or not actual business is derived from blogging is tough to gage. A blog is just one cog in the network of social marketing.

When I write a decent blog article, it gets linked to Facebook, tweeted and posted on Linkedin. Its always curious to see that comments from readers are posted on those other sites instead of on the blog itself.

Now I was reprimanded by an Alignable moderator once for posting my site link in a comment. So If you want to look at my blog, you just have to gooogle my last name :-)

Good luck Donna, It will be interesting to hear about your decision. Keep us posted.

What a great many of you are overlooking is The Rule Of 7. This is a marketing rule that says prospects must see your advertising message at least 7 times before making a contact. That's why TV commercials repeat endlessly.

So, how do you conform to The Rule of 7 with a Website? With a blog.

If you have a static, never-changing Website, you have a tombstone on the Web. If you have a blog that you update once every full moon, you have a tombstone on the Web. Tombstones never get business.

If someone comes to your site, likes what they see and comes back later for another look, what do you think will happen if your site is EXACTLY the same as it was during the last visit? Well, they'll never be back again because they've seen it all and you have way too much competition on the Internet. Did you get at least 7 visits? No, and now you have a tombstone.

Some of us really enjoy writing, but most of us don't. It has been estimated that over 85% of Websites are tombstones that will never be able to get business.

So, how do you deal with the agony of updating a blog 3 times weekly, if you hate to write or your creative juices just don't flow?

If you have a WordPress Website, look for autoblogging plugins. These are plugins that will take blog posts that are feeds available to anyone, select by topic and post it on your blog. You can choose the frequency you want content posted.

You'll see quite a few folks warning you never to use anything automated. These are probably the same folks that miss horse-drawn carriages. You'll usually see those warnings from people who sell blog posts.

Is there a real risk using automated blog posting? Look at my BLOG

I have been doing autoblogging for about 5 years and probably have over 6,000 posts in the blog at any one point. Every January I delete the oldest 12 months of blog posts. I have never had anyone ever ask how the posts got there, but I get over 1,000 visitors to my site monthly and Google Analytics shows that I am doing well following The Rule Of 7.

If your business is strictly within a local area, just don't include blog posts from your state. All the posts usually end with an ad and a link, so you don't want to be advertising your competition. On the other hand, if you're a chiropractor in Florida, for example, no prospective patient is going to bother calling a chiropractor in Chicago because they saw their link in your blog.

There are really two major reasons people cannot get business from the Internet. The first is the rather dumb belief , verified to be so over and over again, that SEO will get you new customers. SEO is advertising on the Internet and does NOT get new customers. It is designed to send traffic to your Website and your Website is supposed to be converting visitors to customers. If you are not following The Rule Of 7, you have found the second reason why people cannot get business from the Internet. Tombstones never get customers.

Here's a simple rule that will improve your Internet success greatly.If you are getting traffic and not making sales, fix your Website. If you cancel SEO, you're canceling advertising because you're not making sales. How stupid is that?

I post a blog each week-day. I have over 700 on my web site. Most of them offer general business and/or sales ideas. Each touts my business. I have received great comments and it has opend doors to conversations with prospects. I find the preperation of the writing very helpful to me, as the writer, in that I sharpen my skills.

Alan Rock

HoldMasters

www.holdmasters1.com

I'm an accountant and I write two blogs...one for business owners and one for individuals. I add a new entry once a month to the business blog. I also include my blog entry in my monthly newsletter, which I recently started doing. Because I've only been in business just over a year, it's hard to say if it's made a difference. From what I've heard, though, updating your website often helps your SEO. Stale websites get lower rankings. So maybe in the long run, updating my website once a month with new blog material is helping my SEO ranking, making it easier for people to find my business online.

I have a blog and I write for several blogs. The most important part of a blog in my opinion is that you need to publish 1 blog at least every couple of months. This tells your prospects you are ready and open for business, you care about your Industry, and you have taken steps to help others. You will get very little SEO value if any, unless you really embark on an SEO effort which is a whole different story.

One of my clients, SurfCityDentist.com..would also love to know the answer to this. How do you attract new patients from the web?