Nobody who has
an online presence, or who is involved in any form of
online marketing, can afford to ignore blogs, or web
logs as they were previously widely called. It is now
pretty obvious that any entrepreneur, who insists on
continuing to ignore blogs, is bound to live to deeply
regret the decision.
In recent times blogs have quickly climbed up the ladder
of importance in online marketing to a point where no
serious online marketer will fail to include blogs in
their arsenal of key marketing weapons.
Blog power
Actually, there is no denying the sheer power of blogs.
For instance the growth rate of websites has declined
in recent times and most of the growth online is now
being driven by this new kid on the block. It is estimated
that a staggering 40,000 new blogs are being launched
daily.
Then there is the fact that blogs seem to almost effortlessly
gain traffic very quickly in the sort of volumes that
websites take years to achieve. Part of the reason is
that blogs seem to link to each other very easily and
virtually at the least excuse. It is amazing how quickly
the average new blog accumulates links to itself. Links
and traffic are naturally close relatives because people
mostly use links to get to a site or blog. Little wonder
that many blogs gain traffic at such a breakneck speed.
Blogs are also now threatening the media establishment
as we have known it for years. Two recent examples that
have clearly underlined the importance of this medium
were the last American Presidential elections and the
tsunami tragedy in Asia which were both widely covered
in blogs.
But then how does an online entrepreneur or marketer
seeking to effectively promote their business online
benefit from blogs and all the advantages they seem
to come with?
Actually there are several ways.
Use blogs to drive traffic to your website
The most obvious way an entrepreneur can use blogs,
is to drive traffic to their site. Many online marketers
have been very successful in using blogs to direct heavy
traffic to their websites.
There are in fact two main kinds of blogs being used
to drive massive traffic in the direction of various
websites. The first is the sort of blog that is closely
related to the subject of the site it links to. The
other type of blog will tend to have a popular topic
with little or no relation to the website topic. Here
the idea is to attract huge volumes of traffic and then
direct as much of it as possible to the website using
attractive and catchy headlines on links situated at
the blog.
Both types of blogs work pretty well and what s more,
there is nothing to stop an online marketer from using
both types of blogs at the same time to win and direct
even heavier traffic in the direction of their website.
The fact that blogs are easy to maintain makes it simpler
for virtually any small business to have several blogs
successfully running alongside their main website.
All you have to do with blogs covering unrelated topics
to the site you want to direct traffic to, is to be
careful to ensure that it attracts the kind of people
who qualify as prospects for your site. For instance,
it will not help if your main site focuses on a product
for women and yet your popular blog attracts mostly
men and very few ladies.
Use blogs to test your ideas
As vital as it is, research has never been cheap. Now
blogs have made it virtually free. Online marketers
are using blogs extensively for testing purposes. What
makes blogs even better research tools is the fact that
visitors can leave comments under posts that they make
on your blog. These comments can be invaluable in gauging
public reaction and can help any online marketer to
tailor their products better to fit client demand.
Even by simply using your existing blog stats, you can
collect valuable research data. For example you can
check which pages and posts are most popular with your
visitors.
The secret behind the leading online marketers is the
fact that they usually test extensively. It is the only
way to constantly improve something. Blogs allow you
to test all the time and are therefore extremely valuable
to any top online marketer.
Use blogs to finance your marketing efforts for your
website
These days the blogs fairy tale has gone even further.
If you have a reasonable amount of traffic, you can
apply to post Google Adsense pay-per-click ads. Every
time visitors to your blog click on the ads, you get
paid.
Now this opens up a wide range of different opportunities.
For example you can finance a huge chunk of your online
marketing expenses from your Google income from the
blogs. So launching a blog or blogs alongside your website
will not drain your scarce resources, if anything it
has the potential to pay for itself and give you a profit.
There is no doubt that blogs are set to make an even
larger impact in our lives in the future. No online
marketer should be left out of these exciting developments.
Article
by David Callan. David Callan is a search engine optimisation
consultant and is currently working closely with Red
Sky's Web
design Ireland team optimizing their clients sites
from the ground up. |
