If you attended the John Jantsch / Duct Tape Marketing Seminar on “Using the power of the Internet to promote your local business” in Grande Prairie on February 11, you’ll know the value of having a blog for your business. A blog is a powerful tool to share information and expertise with your customers, and used wisely it can be one of the best sources of traffic to your website. Read on to learn about how you can use a blog to help you market your business online.

What is a blog?

The word “blog” originally came from “weblog”, which meant an online journal of sorts (think “captains log” from Star Trek). It was originally created as way for just about anybody to start publishing information quickly and inexpensively. Over time, however, businesses started seeing that their customers were reading blogs regularly – and realized that blogging is a way to quickly and easily communicate to and interact with their customers. Blogging for business exploded as an idea and has been growing ever since. These days many businesses, both big and small, have a blog and use it to find and build customer relationships.

Why are blogs so effective?

When it comes to search, content is king. The more relevant and useful content you have on your website the more likely it is to be found by your customers.

Statistics say that over 50% of people on the Internet today search by asking a question. How many times have you searched for something using terms like “How do I…” or “How to…” on Google? Chances are that many of the results that showed up were posted in blogs. Do you think if you posted answers to some of your customer’s questions in a blog that maybe your website will be the one that shows up?

The other reason why blogs are so effective is they are designed to be search-engine friendly, making it as easy as possible for the information in them to be indexed and found.

How can I use blog for my business?

At its essence, a blog allows you to quickly and easily publish information to your website. You can post anything you want, whenever you want! But to get the best results, you should be posting things that are relevant and valuable to your customers:

• Keep them informed of upcoming sales, promotions and events
• Provide useful tips and advice
• Show how your product(s) and service(s) provide a solution (e.g. case studies)
• Post links to interesting and relevant content
• Post testimonials from your customers

The most effective content is often content that educates the customer. Posts that directly answer a “How to…” or “How do I…” question, and show the customer how your product(s) and service(s) can help them solve their problem, are the most valuable.

But… I don’t have time to write a blog!

You don’t have to spend hours every day doing it. You just need a conistent system to manage the process. Set aside as little as 15 minutes every morning to work on your blog. Or maybe one hour per week. It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s important that you do something. Not every article has to be an essay. A quick post about what’s happening with your business (e.g. a product launch, new location, new employee, upcoming events, something funny that happened today) is sometimes all it takes.

Share your thoughts!

Are you already using a blog for your business? How? Let us know by posting your comments.