The term 'web log', which became 'weblog' and was broken to 'we blog', was finally used as 'blog' by the end of the 20th century.
Today, we have blogs that are multipurpose tools, used in continuation to one's main website.
Business blogs allow online companies to engage with potential customers in an informal manner.
Some of the top advantages of business blogs are: • They can be easily integrated to the existing marketing and communication plans • They can be used for long-term relationship building • They help a business to have an insight into the customers' needs and • They can be used to direct the traffic to the main business website.
If you are about to start a business blog, taking time to read the following discussion would do you good.
Preparations for Having a Blog Though it looks simple, the desire to have a good business blog may fall flat if you don't take care of few things.
Here are some preparations required to have a blog: • Understand your audience, what they need to be told and what would make them interested in your blog.
• Consider the design of your business blog, as it plays a crucial role in attracting targeted readers.
Use professional templates and learn how to customize them to suit your needs.
• Learn how you will position your blog for various search engines and on various website directories.
Content is King Online users are hungry for information and that too, in a simple, effective and interactive manner.
That's why blogs are chosen over other types of websites to get engaged with the readers.
Good quality content is what works for a personal, as well as a corporate blog.
If you are successful in providing good content, you are going to maintain a huge list of blog followers.
Here are a few tips to help you: • Tell interesting stories framed around the products and services your main website sells.
• Highlight the products and services that are specific to your business niche in the blog posts.
• Use news feeds to have a constant supply of informative content to your blog.
• Update the content regularly.
Now that is very important to keep the readers interested in your blog.
• Restrict the number of authors for blog posts.
Once the readers become used to your blogs, they would not prefer any change in the style of writing.
In addition to content, use the following components as well: • Use images to make the blog posts more interesting.
• Prepare videos to show demos of different products and services, and use them with different blog posts.
• Involve user participation through comments, polls and surveys.
• Use RSS feeds to help readers follow updates on your blog.
Blogs are meant to be less formal in nature, so you need to integrate a social aspect with your business blog.
Even while talking about the products and services of your main website, you must focus on being sociable and personal with the readers.
Linking to the Main Website Here's where you need to be clever in your approach.
After triggering the interest of your readers in your blog posts, you can inspire them to follow the path to your main business website.
Don't use blogs as a link farm; rather, let the links appear naturally.
Also, it is suggested to have one blog per each category of business products and services.
You should not confuse the one group of audiences with another by talking about anything and everything.
Also, it is important to make your business blog popular and search engine friendly.
Apart from using Search Engine Optimization techniques, you should distribute the links of your blogs on social networks, social bookmarking websites and blog directories.
Business blogs, if created and maintained well, can open doors for web traffic to your business website.