Business blogging has become a critical part of inbound marketing and is definitely something that you want to make sure your company is succeeding in. According to Hubspot, in 2011 about 65% of businesses were using a blog, making companies that aren’t blogging a significant minority and according to ignitespot 77% of Internet users read blogs. Blogging has proven its success by being able to effectively turn traffic into leads. A business blog promotes your company and its products in the online community by establishing trust and consistency amongst your viewers. As long as your company’s blog is properly placed and shared on the Internet, blogging can be a great way to share your expertise while generating profits.
So you have put in the time, effort and consistency into your blog and your still not seeing results? Wow, there must be something really wrong. Just kidding, the solution is very simple; you need to learn how to properly promote your blog. Here are three ways you can promote your business blog:
1. Social Media
Social media seems to be the key for many marketing solutions these days, and it certainly plays an essential role here. Initially after creating your business blog you need to make a public announcement on your social medias pages that will let all your viewers know about your blog launch. From there you need to make sure you are consistently using these social media pages, which should include Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and email newsletters, to post links on them, which will direct your viewers on these pages to your blog. Additionally, it’s not a bad idea to pick 5 or 10 friends or family members and ask them to help share your blog a couple times on their personal social media pages. This will expose your blog to a whole group of new viewers and potential customers, which will further expand your online presence.
2. Become more active within the online community
Have you ever moved to a new town and felt like you needed to introduce yourself to your neighbors and attend community events in order to get to know everyone? Well you can treat this step very similarly to that. Simply establishing yourself online isn’t enough. You need to find other companies and bloggers that post similar information to your blog and check out their posts. You can step in where it is appropriate and add in your opinion in their comments section. This is a way for you to be able to voice your opinion and share your expertise with new viewers. By doing this you will boost your online presence by increasing your exposure and allow more people to see you online. Just like introducing yourself in a new town, you will slowly start to make new friends and create connections.
3. Google-fy your blog
This step essentially revolves around becoming search engine friendly. There is no better search engine to make sure your blog is thriving on than Google. In order to achieve this step you must target your customers by finding out what they are really interested in. You can use Google analytics to see how people are finding your blog now and if a certain subject is driving the most traffic. Once you know this information you can focus on it in your blog posts. Additionally, you must use keywords in your blog titles and within your content in order to increase your SEO. Other then that, good content and social shares (ie. Facebook likes and Twitter re-tweets) will also help boost your rankings on search engines. Another important tip that isn’t always utilized is that you should also be adding relevant keywords to the images you use in your blog posts as images pop up on search engines too.
