Blogging for business purpose is a marketing strategy that must be included in each small business marketing plan. Already there are more and more entrepreneurs that find this strategy as something very successful in their business. Some small business all their marketing activities base on and around their blog.
What is Successful Blog for Business Purpose?
This is a question that is frequently asked. Before all we must know what will be a successful blog for business purpose. The successful blog is the blog that achieves established objectives for the online presence of the business. What we want to achieve with our blog? If we achieve that things that we want to achieve then we can tell that our blog for business purpose is successful.
Everyday on the web space there are born new business blogs. Some of them are as a static web page and some of them are a combination of static web pages and blog and some of them are like blog posts. Some business blogs are very successful at their business purpose and some are average.
All businesses have different blogs for business purpose. However, there are some layers on which every business blog must be developed.
Layers for Successful Business Blog
To build the successful blog you must build your blog on the five layers, starting from first to the fifth, the last layer.
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Layer 1: Objectives
The first layer that each blog for business purpose must be based is objectives that the blog must achieve. This is an important layer because all other layers will be based on these objectives. In the Online Objectives for Marketing Your Business we separate two different objectives:
Primary Objectives:
- Brand Building.
- Advertising.
- Selling.
- Providing Product or Services Information.
- Providing Business Information.
- Providing Customer Service and Support.
- To Improve Interaction with Current and Potential Customers.
Secondary Objectives:
- Web site should be designed to be search engine friendly and to encourage repeat traffic.
- Web site should have a viral marketing incorporated in it to encourage visitors to make a recommendation of the products, services or Web site to others.
- Web site should enable visitors to stay longer on them.
- Web site should be able to encourage interest about your business, products and services.
- Web site should convert visitors into potential customers.
- Web site should have incorporated e-mail marketing that will convert potential customers into buyers.
Layer 2: Technical
When we establish the first layer, we can start establishing technical layer of our business blog. This layer must be based on the objectives that our blog must achieve. When we talk about technical layer we must decide about these questions:
- Which blogging platform will be used?
- Static or Dynamic Home page?
- What design we will use for our blog?
- What graphics will be used?
- What Plug-in will be used?
There are too many blogging platforms that you can choose for your blog, but my own preference is WordPress platform that is really easy to install, personalize and use. When we talk about blog then it is logically that we build a dynamic web site for our business. But, if we use blog platform for both static website and blog content then we have possibilities to setting up home page to look as a static web page and to have a blog tab where each visitor can access to the blog posts.
If we choose WordPress blog platform then we can choose different free WordPress themes to build our business blog. With small customization, we can make really impressive look of our new business blog. Another professional theme for this purpose that you can choose is Thesis Theme that is really so easy to customize and to make a real impression to the potential customers. You can find Thesis Demo Site and See the Thesis Theme in action! When you choose the theme another thing that must be decided in this layer is graphics and plugins that will be used. Plugins are additional elements that can add additional features to your web sites.
Layer 3: Content
Third layer and most important layer is the content of the blog. Content is a King! Yes the content layers are something that can bring back repeatedly visitors and that can be transformed into buyers for your business. The question that must be answered here is about what will be blogged in the business blog? In the previous post named 10 Blog Topics that You can Blogging for Your Business, we give the following ideas for business blog:
- Blog about your products or services.
- Blog about your industry.
- Blog about your expertise.
- Blog about experience of satisfied customers.
- Blog about customer problems.
- Video presentations.
- Blog about results from surveys.
- Blog about current events.
- Answer questions from comments.
- General blogging.
Layer 4: Marketing
This layer is all about marketing function of your business blog. All previous layers help in building this layer with the following elements needed for successful business blog:
- Reputation. Blogs are really excellent tools for building good entrepreneurial and business reputation. This element is a part of differentiating your business from competitors. The reputation is a simple opinion of a person, group or organization that has about you or your business.
- Credibility. Credibility is the believe that some entity has expertise and knowledge and can be trustworthy to make business with them. If we use the blogs in the right way we can build very good credibility for us as entrepreneurs and for our business.
- Branding. The really good place for building strong recognizable brand for your business is your business blog. Each blog post must have something that will communicate your personal and business brand to the visitors and readers of your blog posts.
- Connection. Your blog will connect you with too many individuals and businesses that may to become your customers or your business partners.
- Relationship. One possibility of blogs is making good relationship with visitors and readers. Commenting is one blogs option that makes building this relationship really easy for every business.
- Viral element. Blog posts are viral and each post can be sent to a friend. Good blog posts will be viewed from a big number of potential customers.
Layer 5: Business
Let’s be real for a moment. The purpose of every business blog is to make a business with the potential customers. Because of that the last layer in development of business blog is giving the business character to them. Our business sells something and the purpose is to increase our selling. Because of that business blog must include these possibilities:
- Make people easily to contact you.
- Products and services to be presented in the form of customer benefits.
- How they can buy the products and services?
- Customer service and support.
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