This seminar worksheet was prepared for the Benefits of Business Blogging seminar held Monday, June 2 at the offices of mhn Internet Marketing Communications, in Elgin, Illinois.
Part 1: Introduction to Business Blogging
Part 2: Business Blogging Success Stories
Part 3: Getting Started with a Business Blog
What is blogging?
Blogging is nothing more than a method of indexing a series of articles about a specific topic. In the past, blogs were an online journal and "articles" consisted of personal information and the type of information that in the past would be confined to one's personal diary - except now it has been published online for anyone to read.
Today, the concept of blogging has expanded and today bloggers write for a variety of reasons. Some are similar to journalists (without a large corporate structure and restrictions on when, what, and how to print stories). Others are passionate about a topic and simply want to share their knowledge freely with the world.
Then there are the commercial bloggers who write to make money. For some, the business is the blog, they pick topics and write articles to make money off of advertising and affiliate programs. Others are business owners trying to promote their business and reach new markets with Business Blogs.
What is a Business Blog or Company Blog?
A Business Blog is a blog created by business owner to help promote his or her company. The nature of blogs and the community of bloggers world wide makes blogging a great way to quickly distribute information across the internet in a matter of seconds, vs. the days or weeks to takes for a typical website to have a new page indexed.
A Business Blog typically contains articles that are designed for search engine optimization, to augment the existing website with articles about specific topics that wouldn't ordinarily fit on the website itself. Then ideally, the blog is able to convert people into customers through a call to action.
How can a business blog benefit my company?
There are a variety of ways almost any business can benefit from blogging. The following are some of the major benefits.
Search Engine Optimization - well written articles placed on blogs can rank well and be indexed extremely rapidly. They can also place targeted links pointing to your corporate website - especially internal pages that will both make your corporate website pages more valuable in the eyes of the search engine, but will also drive traffic to them from your blog.
Open Communication with Your Customers - by projecting your corporate image online you will be able to attract new customers and also promote new services to existing customers. For instance, I might write an article about Facebook Marketing on my blog and an existing customer could read it and ask me questions about it and how I can help them benefit from that aspect of our expertise. In addition, a prospective customer might be searching for that service and come to me to learn how I can help them.
Lead Generation - As I mentioned above, Search Engine Optimization and Communication with your prospective customers can be a key benefit of blogging, but also there are some times when you have an "all or nothing" situation with your company. For instance a bookstore owner simply can't feature all of the stores books online, but could certainly feature a "book review of the week" on a blog.
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