Chris Cardell Review

In the last few years, the world of blogging has taken the web by storm, but it’s only recently that business owners across the world are taking advantage of this Marketing strategy to build phenomenal relationships with their customers. Businesses are reaching out to a much wider audience by blogging about their products and services, thanks to Social Bookmarking and online networking. They are not only creating great PR every time they update their blogs, they are building a priceless relationship with customers and connecting with them in a way that was unheard of in the past.

By opening a ‘two-way’ conversation with your customers, you are building a community around your business, so they feel involved, relevant and cared about. Gone are the days of ‘sterile’, bland marketing messages. People want authenticity and knowledge. Blogs give you the platform to deliver all this and more, whilst attracting and building a regular audience.

Top Tips on How to Start a Successful Business Blog:

1. Set up a blog about your business. You can use a free account at blogger.com or there are many upgraded paid versions such as typepad.com and movabletype.com
2. Write a great ‘About Us’ page. This will be one of your most read pages, make sure you make a great impression and get readers excited about your business.
3. Set up an RSS feed such as feedburner.com to capture email addresses. This is a free, but powerful way to build a list.
4. Write a post every day for about a month to give you some content and to get you into the habit of blogging regularly. You can scale back to twice a week later on.
5. Make your blog posts short and easy to read. Use colloquial language and add personality. Readers need a reason to stay and dull blogs just don’t work.
6. Don’t go for the hard sell. Readers find this off putting. Write about how your
   products/services are improving lives, solving problems etc…
   
7. Use your keywords in your post titles and content.
8. Encourage your readers to comment and always reply to comments. This builds a ‘community’ feel to your business and is a great way to find out what your customers think about your products/services
9. Remember the Call to Action. Have plenty of links back to your main site, or sales page.
10. Comment on other popular blogs in your niche. This establishes you as an expert, and gives you powerful backlinks that help with SEO
11. Use social bookmarking tools like stumble upon and Digg to spread the word.
12. Have fun! Your blog is a great opportunity to connect with customers. Run polls, and competitions, make it interactive.
13. Put your blog link on your email signature and all your PR and marketing literature. A lot of readers prefer blogs to websites when they want to research a company.