Blog is short for Weblog and it started out as a sort of online journal or diary where writers could share daily updates with their readers. Today though, we think of blogs more as content management systems. Tools like WordPress make it easy to create, expand, and update a website. Blogging makes creating web pages as easy as writing emails.
The more important question is how can you use a blog to grow your online business, and do you really need one if you already have an online store, or even a physical store with an online presence. The answer to both questions is yes. How you go about using your blog to grow your business is what we’ll briefly go over in the remainder of this article.
You can use your blog to connect with your target audience. This could include existing customers, people who are on the fence on buying from you, and even new people who are finding you for the first time through your blog. Your blog is a great place to share your expertise and introduce the products and services you have to offer.
Your blog is also a great place to show your customers how to best use the products they’ve purchased from you. This will result in greater customer satisfaction, more return business, and lots of positive word of mouth advertising. Helping your customers consume your products is always a good idea and your blog is the perfect venue.
Since blogs are very search engine and social media friendly, it’s easy to grow your reach and find new prospects through your blog. In other words, it’s easy for you and your readers to share your content. As you write and publish your posts and grow your blog, some of the things you’ve been writing will start to show up in search engine results, and new readers will find you. Let’s say you’re selling a gadget that helps people work out in their living rooms during commercial breaks. To support your product and to help your customers make the most of their exercise gadget, you write a series of blog posts about working out during commercial breaks. Other people searching for easy exercise ideas at home, or more specifically ways to move more while watching TV, will come across your blog posts and learn about you, your product, and how it can help them reach their fitness goals.
Since blogs make it easy to share that same content on social media, they may then end up sharing your post on Facebook with their friends or in groups they are members of. That one piece of content on your blog can end up reaching quite a few new customers, while also supporting and helping anyone that’s already bought from you. That’s pretty powerful stuff, isn’t it?
To learn more, get my ebook on Blogging for Business here!Click Here to Get “Blogging for Business Made Easy!”