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Secrets to Success
Deborah Cole Micek
and John-Paul Micek
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Take the time to set up a business blog
WHAT'S a blog to a business owner anyway? Blogging is at the core of the "new media" revolution. It's a powerful tool for online influence and persuasion, so it's critical for you to understand what a blog is to business owners and marketers.
To keep it real simple, a blog is a tool to get you:
» More targeted traffic to your Web site or store.
» More prospects, clients, and raving fans.
» More sales and profits.
Being a specialist in persuasion, I read quite a bit of what self-appointed blogging experts advise. Mostly, their advice is only important to "professional" bloggers. I see that as a major hindrance for business owners and sales people looking to dip their toes into the "new media" marketplace.
For example, one of the things that blogging evangelists push as critical for measuring your blogging success is RSS subscription numbers. (RSS stands for Real Simple Syndication. It's the part of your blog that automatically delivers your content to subscribers and blog directories.)
I frankly don't care how many people are subscribed to the RSS feeds on our business blogs. There aren't enough people using RSS to focus on that as an accurate measurement.
What matters most is the bottom line!
What I am concerned with is the positioning of our business blogs by search engines for our top keywords. One of our main marketing goals is for prospects to find us when they go to a search engine to try to find specific solutions to their problems.
Marketers are (or should be) concerned with providing solutions and relevant information to people looking for answers at the precise time they are looking for those answers.
That doesn't necessarily mean you need to be posting content to your blog multiple times per day, as some blogging evangelists tout. With the right strategy, blogging for business doesn't have to be that way.
Recently, Deborah and I traveled to the mainland for a real-estate investment project, to sign a deal with a New York publisher for an upcoming series of books, and we spoke at a publishing workshop for authors.
Obviously we were pretty busy and we were not using our blogs regularly. When we returned home, I was pleased to see that our subscriber lists had grown by the hundreds, with our targeted keywords still in the top 10-20 positions on dozens of search engines.
Those results are what count. Those are results that can be monetized. Those results generate targeted traffic, which brings in more prospects, sales, and profits.
So don't let too many rules stop you from blogging for business. Take the time now to find out how you can set your own rules to successfully blog for your business.
John-Paul Micek is the lead business coach at RPM Success Group Inc. Reach him at
JPM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.
Deborah Cole Micek, chief executive officer of RPM Success Group, is a business success coach and life strategist. Reach her at
DCM@RPMsuccess.com or toll-free at (888) 334-8151.