Small Business Blogging: 10 Ways to Use Blogs to Increase Business

April 8, 2009 by Cara · Leave a Comment 

Business Week magazine has claimed, “blogs will change your business.” The Wall Street Journal has stated “the blog as business tool has arrived”. Yet, less than 10% of small businesses use blogs to promote their products and services. This cost-effective promotional tool is more often overlooked, rather than used to its full potential.

While millions of people are starting blogs, both personal and professional, those who use to blogs to promote small businesses are still very much in the minority. Creating a blog, and keeping it updated allows you to stand out as an informational resource in your field, a powerful perception in your customers’ eyes.

Here are some strategies for using blogs as a promotional platform for virtually any business.

  1. If you’re hosting an upcoming sale or special promotion, gather the details, and post them to your blog. This lets customers know when to take advantage of the discounts.
  2. If you want to move a specific product, post a tip on how to use it, or include a picture of a completed project. Then let customers know they can get that product from you.
  3. If you’re interested in enticing more teens into your store, give a teen “guest blogging” privileges, and have her post her top five favorite products each month.
  4. Keep your content fresh with timely announcements, such as when the new service is available, or when a new employee has been added to your staff.
  5. Offer reminders: when class registrations start, and end; holiday countdowns; and saving items for an upcoming charity drive.
  6. Advise customers when products sell out, or are backordered
  7. Tempt customers with listings of new product arrivals.
  8. Report on the latest scoop from trade shows (these can even be blogged while on the road!)
  9. Educate your customers with links to helpful informational websites and project instructions.
  10. Open a discussion: ask customers to post their favorite organizational tips in the Comments section, for instance. Or offer a question of the week, and encourage customers to respond online.

Many small business owners struggle with too much to do, and not enough time. Although creating and maintaining a blog is easy, many professionals don’t have the time to dedicate to researching the how-to. For these situations, consider seeking out a blog and marketing consultant who can walk you through the steps of setting up a blog – like me!  I can help you better understand how to use the blog to most effectively market your business.

Filed under: Site Tips
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Local Search Gets Really Promising For Small Business Owners

April 7, 2009 by Cara · Leave a Comment 

As the leading search engine, it’s important to pay attention when Google makes changes. And this recent change is huge for local small business marketing! Google’s latest changes brings local results up in the search – without geographic modifiers like city, or zipcodes.

What it all boils down to is that getting listed in Google Maps is more important than ever, because now local search will be shown even for wider searches, like pizza, restaurant, and hair salon. With local search you can appear in the first page of Google organically.

This is significant because consumers are already coming online are performing local searches. Local search accounts for about 66% of online searches and in a recent study by TMP Directional Marketing, 82% of those searches lead to offline action, including in-store visits, phone calls, e-mails or purchases. Why not take advantage of a free way to attract some of that traffic?

To see how this works, simply visit Google.com and enter a search phrase for dentist. You’ll notice at the 4th or 5th result is “Local business results for dentist near…”. This could be you!

There are few businesses out there that couldn’t benefit from getting listed in Google local, even if you don’t have a website. Use Facebook or Squidoo in the time being while you sort out what you want in a website. If you don’t have plans for a website, then you and I should talk, seriously.

Filed under: Traffic Tips
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