PostRanger.com

10 Ways Blogging Helps Brand Your Business

We all wear many hats when it comes to running our businesses, but perhaps the most important one for effective branding is that of blogger.

Whether you plan to do your own blogging and social media or to outsource the task to a third party, make sure that articulating your brand is a chief consideration with every post you publish.

There's another reason I mention hats when it comes to blogging for your business though.

A few years ago, when I was still in the newspaper business full-time, I wore a trademark hat, usually an old fashioned stetson in gray, black or brown with thick band and even feathers giving me the look of a real old-time reporter.

Though I was known for my tenacity in investigative stories and, I like to think, for my balance and fairness too, the fact is that hat was a defining part of my persona, my personal brand, if you will.

Add traffic to your Website with a blog

A blog will add traffic to your Website.

Woman's Home Blog Book
Originally uploaded by
Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Whether it is part of your site or on a separate site with its own URL (or Web address), blogging is simply too powerful a promotional tool these days to ignore.

Blogs edge out more traditional static Websites with their regularly updated content attracting attention from search engines and readers.

Free options for blog hosting include:

• Blogger, a user friendly but somewhat clunky platform associated with Google
• Wordpress, a more technically sophisticated platform that requires a bit more technical skill
• And other offerings ranging from SoulCast, LiveJournal, Vox and Tumblr to blog platforms on other social sites like MySpace

Or get your hosting, unique Web address for your blog and professional posting handled at a low, reasonable cost with a professional blogging service. More on why your business needs blogging below:

Promote your blog or other Website like a rock star

Promote your blog or other Website like a rock star with social media and comments on popular blogger sites.

Star trails over a rock
Originally uploaded by Sam Meztli

Once you've created your professional blog or other site and posted it online, there is plenty left to do, even if you've done a good job of Search Engine Optimization.

That's because the material on your blog may take time to develop an audience and a conventional Website will soon look stale to search engines without additional inbound links from other popular sites and additional traffic flowing through those links.

To promote your blog or Website, it's a good idea to create profiles on some of the more popular and active social Websites--Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr--as well as on some of the more popular social bookmarking sites--Digg, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon.

Once you've created your profiles, don't simply promote yourself with repeated links back to your site. 

Instead, contribute to the community by leaving helpful links to other sites related to your topic, commenting on posts from other members and occasionally posting photos of events or products. Soon, if you're lucky, you'll notice a slow but steady trickle of people visiting your profiles to find out more about you.

You can also comment on popular blogs related to your topic. If your comments are thoughtful, helpful, contribute to the overall discussion related to the latest post and are not overly promotional, visitors to the blog may follow the link back to your site and a blogger may be inclined to link to your site in a future post.

Blogging important for small businesses

Blogging remains important for small businesses and professional blogging can be one way for overworked small business people to take advantage of this opportunity.

Bloggeur
Originally uploaded by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Thanks to Wayne Liew of WayneLiew.com, a fellow member of bizSugar.com, for pointing out this great post on blogging for small business at Chris Brogan's blog. Chris writes:

I can’t think of any simpler website technology to start and master, and there are cheap and free platforms readily available. Why a blog? Because they’re easy to create, because they’re easy to update, because they encourage repeat visits, and because you can use them in many flexible ways.

Of course, there are any number of reasons you may want to outsource blogging especially if writing is not a key component of your business:

• Blogging takes time to master. While it's true what the gurus say about blogging platforms being easy to learn and use, it's a fact that striking the proper tone to communicate with clients and would be clients is a skill all by itself and learning the details of using keywords, anchor and text and links to build traffic, fans and search engine ranking requires time and practice.
• Blogs take time to maintain. Even after you've mastered the ins and outs of Search Engine Optimization and can blog with the best of them, a good blog takes time to maintain. If you're a busy attorney or the guy or gal who makes the best bagels in Brooklyn, you may not have time to maintain a stellar blog as well.
• Blogging distracts from your main business. While your surfing the Web for the best links and photos or trying to get that post to look just right, who will be looking after your business? You can't be two places at once and certainly being the best blogger in your niche will replace being the best and whatever your core business happens to be.

Outsourcing a non-core part of your business like blogging makes perfect sense and can be much less expensive than you mighht at first believe. Let us or another skilled professional blogging service show you how.

Blogging for your home business

Blogging for your home business can be an effective and inexpensive method of promotion.

Blogging
Originally uploaded by vanessaeducation

You can certainly create your own blog through a variety of tools available online.

Or hire a professional blogger to create a site especially for your business and partner with other small business entrepreneurs to help grow your business.

Blogs can:

• Get Website traffic increasing sales of products, leads for new clients and potential revenue from AdSense or other online advertising
• Improve PageRank with increased inbound links creating more visibility for your Website on search engines
• Build your brand by sharing with potential customers more about who you are and what you do

For more on how to grow and market your blog through social networking watch the video below:

The Value of Social Networking Relationships from Justin Smith on Vimeo.

Business blog can raise awareness

How can a business blog help your company?

Updating the blog
Originally uploaded by Marcin Wichary

Well, David Kirkup, a partner at B2B CFO, thinks the most important aspect may be that blogs can raise awareness of your company and what it does.

In a recent post at LinkedIn, Kirkup explained:

I am a Partner with B2B CFO and we provide CFO Services to emerging growth and mid size companies. We have over 120 partners and have set up a blog capability so that each partner can write about topics like small business, financing, growth, profitability etc. I personally write weekly - and like to inject a bit of Brit humour into my blogs - sort of here's the sugar to help the medicine go down. I planned a "B2B Swarm" (get it?) recently when several partners took one blog and posted it to all their LinkedIn groups. The original blog received over 5,000 hits in one week. I think the benefit we get is exposure and awareness building about our unique service for small companies - Fortune 500 expertise at an affordable price on an as needed basis.

Some recent blogs include:

Sopranos - Business Lessons
How to Speak Bank
From Russia with Love
Lose 10lbs of Ugly Fat - Cut Off your CFO's Head!

Check them out at http://www.b2bcfo.com/partners/dkirkup/blog

Below, Andy Beal of MarketingPilgrim.com talks more about business blogging and how it can benefit your business:

Part time business ideas include blogging

Blogging places among the top 10 part time business ideas in a recent article from BusinessWeek and Yahoo! Finance.

Now go blog about this
Originally uploaded by nightthree

The article  by Jeremy Quittner and John Tozzi estimates an average income of around $24,355 a year presumably from online advertising.

In addition to blogging, other money making ideas presented include:

• Baker with an estimated inclome of $41, 000 per year
• Ebay seller with an estimated revednue of $22,196
• Floral designer with an average of around $$21,700 annually
• Jewelry designer, about $30,000 per year
• Pet sitter, around $22,183
• Photographer at $26,249
• Translator or interpreter, bringing in about $21,541
• T-shirt vendor, an amazing $48,000 yearly
• Web designer again high at $42,104 

The last job on the list could also be handled by bloggers, who share many of the same HTML and other coding skills and can use blog platforms to create standard Websites.

Feel free to tell us about your success story earning from your blog...or about things that did not go quite right. Here's more on how to get started!

Business blog key to global marketing

A business blog can be the key to your global marketing strategy.

Mumbai Bloggers Meetup Jan '08
Originally uploaded by Gauravonomics

Weblogs, blogs for short, can also be effective for spreading just about any other message including information about your non-profit or other organization to a worldwide audience.

This blog, for example, boasts visitors from 35 counties on five continents.

Blogs are successful at targeting global markets because they:

• Are created in a format that optimizes them for search engines making them among the most visible on the World Wide Web
• Contain keywords that can be used to target specific groups of customers anywhere in the world or those specific to a particular region or country
• Remain one of the cheapest means of media marketing available offering global reach without prohibitive cost.

Certainly other options exist to comprehensively target global markets as the video below demonstrates, but few, if any, share the cost effectiveness of even a professional blogging service.

Blog helps with Flipping the Funnel

A blog can help with what marketing guru Seth Godin calls Flipping the Funnel, giving fans the tools necessary to promote your business or organization to others.

Below, Seth explains the basic principle behind the idea of flipping the sales funnel:

Blogs can help you build your army of enthusiastic volunteer promoters by:

• Creating a feed that others can post on their Website, subscribe to via e-mail or share with a friend.
• Using search keywords and phrases to find those interested in your topic who might share your individual posts, URL or even a link to your feeds with others in their social group
• Using posts with helpful information related to your business that other bloggers and Internet users may link to or bookmark drawing increased referral traffic to your site
• Providing regularly updated information giving your fans something to go on talking about and news about your company or organization they can share

Blogs provide a great means of sharing information about your company, product, service or message with the world but also give others the tools to help you share that message too.

What a blog can do for you

Blogger, Dresden
Originally uploaded by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

A blog can help your business or organization in many ways.

Blogs can enable you to:

• Reach decision makers searching the Internet for a way to solve their problems
• Target customers already looking for your product or service and help them find you
• Educate existing and potential clients about your services and what you can do for them
• Share news and information about your organization that can be easily syndicated and shared with existing clients, potential clients, those interested in your service and the general public online via the World Wide Web.