Why Blog?

Why blog for your business?

Blogs have been around for quite a long time, in fact, they have been around since Justin Hall created Links.net, widely accepted as the first blog, in 1994.

Today there are well over 2m blog posts created every day! (http://www.worldometers.info/blogs/)

So, why blog for your business? There are many reasons, each will be considered in turn:

Visitors and visitor conversion

By having a blog, it shows your visitors that your website isn’t dead. It shows them that you value your website and your business. It also shows them you know what you are talking about when it comes to your products or services. By building a level of trust, visitors to your website are more inclined to buy your products or services. This leads to a good visitor conversion rate from your website.

Establish authority and your brand

By writing good content that people really want to read, you are setting yourself and your business as authorities in your field. Let’s face it, you got into the business because you passionate about your products or services. It is this passion that you need to show in your blogs. If you have a great product or service, tell people why they are great.

As you publish more and more blogs, your visitors will come back, to see the next post in the series, or to see what new content you have. This all helps you to establish your authority in your market and promote your brand.

As your visitors communicate with your through comments and receive good quality answers, you will be building a good relationship with those customers. They will see you as someone who cares enough about your products or services and customers to take the time to discuss them. Good customer relationships build good customers for your business.

A good way to release news

Have a piece of news you want to share or launching a new product? Your blog is the perfect way to reach your potential customers. It is far better than your local newspaper for the simple reason that the internet reaches far more people than any traditional newspaper could ever dream of. That is why most newspapers these days have a very active website.

You can build anticipation for your new product by releasing teasers in the days before. This will encourage visitors to keep checking back to see what the product is. This is done very successfully by big companies such as Samsung and others. In conjunction with other advertising, your blog is the perfect place to launch new products or share news about your company.

Help keep your content fresh

You will have visited a website that had old out of date information. In some cases of really old websites, they will even have the ‘last updated’ message showing, often this is years previous.

This is actually the mistake of many many business owners. Pay a lot of money to have a website developed and then leave it sitting there hoping it will bring you money. It won’t!

Like everything in business, the success of a website is determined by the effort you put in. Nobody pays you to do nothing. It is the same with an old website. You will, as many others before you have seen how old the website is, or that the content hasn’t been updated since the year dot. Like those previous visitors, you will just leave without interacting with the business. Not even sure if your email has been sent from the website. This type of website can be compared to the shop that has been closed for weeks. Eventually, people will stop checking if it is open.

People like new things. It is the same with content. If your visitors see that you change and/or update your content regularly, they are more inclined to return to see what is new. This is the exact opposite of what was happening above, where visitors http://imagineear.com/pharmacy/ just weren’t returning.

Google also likes to see new content. Google crawls (its program indexing a website) a website that is kept fresh regularly, even daily. Web sites it determines aren’t updated often may only be crawled 6 monthly or even annually. There is a distinct correlation between how often your site is crawled and the importance Google places on it. The more important websites are moved higher in the Google rankings.

It is vital to keep your content fresh. Both for your visitors and to help improve your Google rankings (other search engines are available). A blog is a perfect way to keep your content fresh. By regularly writing a blog you are ensuring the new content on your website.

How often you blog is up to you. There have been various studies to show that the more you blog, the higher you will be in the Google rankings. But nobody wants to be a slave to their blog! Niel Patel has a blog post to help you decide how often to write a new blog post. Visit the article here: 5 simple steps that’ll help you determine how often you need to blog.

What to include in your blog

As well as your content it is always advisable to include some extras with your blog to make it easier for your visitors to read and to help Google index your blog.

Social media

Links to social media at the bottom (or top) of each post, allows your visitors to share your content if they find it useful. You should always include social media links for Facebook, Google+, Twitter and LinkedIn, together with an option to send the post as an email or to print it.

High-resolution graphics

The old adage that a picture speaks a thousand words is true. You should include graphics that help get your point across. In today’s HD and Ultra HD world, they should be high-resolution graphics or they will look very nasty on some of the larger screens.

Keywords

Simple subject keywords will help you rank higher. But a big note of caution, Google has some very strong metrics to work out if you are just trying to spam those keywords in your blog. So keep it realistic, for a 300-word blog, you should use your keyword 4-6 times at the most. Instead, the keywords should be used naturally in your blog.

Call to action

Every single thing you do in advertising and marketing should have a call to action. A call to action asks your visitors to do something at after they have read your post. Such as, enquire about your product/services, ask for more information, make a purchase and so on.

It is the call to action that turns visitors into customers.

Final thoughts

A blog can actually be a fun way for you to engage with your customers. As you become more confident with writing a blog, you will find it much easier. It may even be the case that you want to write it more than you had originally intended.

Your blog can help your website stay current with regularly updated content, it is a great way to release news about your business and establish your brand. By including a blog with your website, you will establish yourself as an authority on the subject matter of your business. It will also bring you new visitors to your website that will become regular customers.

Do you want a blog on your website? We can help you. Get in touch now to discuss your blog and your website https://esthetig.com/contact/

Social Media

Venturing into Social Media

Communication has always been the most important part of any business.

Communication conveys your business ideals and goals, lets the customers and other companies know that you are there and have a product or service to offer.

Communication is vital to growth, without it a business will either stagnate or die. Advertising is a form of communication and advertising can be as simple a banner on the side of a vehicle, a magazine advert to something more involved such as a television campaign. The wider the audience you what to advertise to; the more expensive it becomes.

As long as there have been businesses there has been advertising.

Looking around ourselves I doubt we even notice how much advertising there is. It has become a part of our every day and just melts into our sub-conscious. We take a lot of forms of advertising for granted in today’s fast paced world but I bet if asked to look at and name brand logos we could name more than we realise. Many of the top brands communicate to us what is represented by their logos, whether it is taste, quality, reliability or value.

Communication, as already mentioned, is vital. but it is also fluid. Developing and changing with each generation to meet individual company needs to let the consumer know what is available.

Use of computers and the internet has grown in use in a relatively short space of time and has been accepted and amalgamated into the lives of businesses and consumers alike. In most every business a piece of technology is used to assist in the running of every day transactions, whether it be a computer system or an app on a smart phone used to place orders. Likewise, a growing number of consumers use either a laptop, tablet or smart phone to engage with the business world.

The engagement of consumers is not just limited to placing orders via their computers. Since the “invention” of social media, consumers are able to communicate in a real time way with businesses.

Traditional advertising means are still of use because this is a visual aid that is used to identify individual companies but now businesses have to “up” their game. They must engage and use social media to have a chance to grow.

Social media is not perfect, it can be a love it or hate it relationship and as there are numerous different forms of social media it can be confusing as to where to start. I believe there is no doubt every company should use some form of social media if only to “keep up with the Joneses”. We are embracing technology at a fast pace and serious consideration must be given in every business plan.

Where do you begin though? I typed “how many social media sites are there?” and picked the top listing from Google, which was Wikipedia (Jan 2017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_networking_websites

Go look for yourselves, it’s astounding. Some of them are specialist and some are country-based, many of them I’ve not heard of. Even if you just searched for the “top social media sites” there is possibly anywhere from 15 to 25 depending on the website result you look at.

If you want to use social media to advertise your business, there is not enough time in a day to use the top 10 never mind the top 15 or so.

What do you do then if you want to start getting your business involved in social media? Pick the top 3?

Personally, I would pick one to start with. Pick the one you are most comfortable with, the one that you find the easiest to use. One you already use regularly when you’re not working and if you are one of the few that don’t use social media at all, ask your family and friends what they use.

Being comfortable with something familiar makes using it for business easier and not a “must do chore”.

Of course, there are companies out there that can take over your social media campaign. They are specialists, who know their market and how to use it. But I’m speaking to the small business owner here, who may not have the budget or even be sure if it would improve his ROI (return on investment).

Look around at other business, see what they are doing, see how they use social media to promote their business. Each have their own individual style, there are no right or wrongs.

One thing they all have in common though is consistency. They post items, pictures and comments regularly. Social media is a platform on which to talk about your business, communicate what you do and interact with both your customers and potential customers.

social media

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