Business Articles
Effective Business Blogging 101
A professional blog brings a multitude of benefits for most organizations. If managed effectively, an organization can greatly benefit from having a company blog.
We received several questions from start-up businesses and smaller organizations that are trying to understand how to blog effectively.
Blog Setup
First step is the setup of the blog. Even though there are several great applications for blogging, WordPress hands down is the #1 application for professional blogs. The functionality is unmatched in the industry. The blog application should be installed and made part of the main website navigation with the URL showing as “www.companydomain.com/blog”.
Blog Customization
Once the application is installed and the database configured, the next step is the customization of the blog. Changing the look, structure, and design of the blog itself. If the blog is part of the main navigation of the organization’s website, the design of the blog should match the main website.
Blog Writing and Posts
When an organization posts blog entries, the entries should focus on helping the reader. The blog posts and topics should focus on the visitors. The posts could offer free useful information, how-tos, best ways, resources, and so forth. Basically, free information the visitor and reader can use to improve upon something.
Blog Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
When using WordPress as a blogging application, it allows the operator to download for free and install several SEO plugins that enable the operator to effectively optimize content for search engines such as Google. Once plugins are installed, all pages, categories, and every single blog entry can be optimized for search.
Blogging - Return On Investment (ROI)
Business blogs gather traffic. They enable an organization to continuously upload new content to their website, keeping visitors coming back and Google too. If blog visitors are digesting the content AND visiting another page on the business website, then the business blog marketing strategy is working. Of course, the website must make the case for the visitor to call. The selling is left to the main website, not the blog.
Blogging Conversion Optimization
A company must find the most common page visitors read next, after the business blog posting. To find out which pages these are, a company should use and install Google Analytics.
If the website visitor crosses over from the blog to the main website and that page does NOT call out for action or the visitor is not inspired to take action, the conversion is a failure and therefore the marketing program.
An organization must constantly modify the specific page optimizing it for conversion and repeating the process over and over until the desired goal is reached. Google analytics is used for the reporting and tracking while the specific pages are optimized which is called conversion optimization.
