Are You Afraid to Blog?: Why You Shouldn’t Be
When we are working with a client and re-vamping their website, or building a new one from the ground up, we always ask “Would you like to blog on your website?” We have found that question is one that many people are very quick to say “No.” But after we explain the benefits [original content, content, content is king in the eyes of Google!] and the idea resonates for a while, we usually get the “What does blogging entail, how hard is it and is it REALLY going to benefit myself and my business? question.
Blogging is one of the best ways to grow your business online. There are also many things that blogging can do for you and your brand;
- Blogging can increase your audience. These days, everyone is online and trust me, they will find you and read what you have to say.
- Blogging can help you gain links. The more links you have pointing back to your website/blog will build your Google ranking and authority.
- Blogging is a great way to establish yourself as an expert [Don’t be afraid, this is what you want!] in your industry and is a great way to answer your audiences’ questions.
- Blogging can be an organic traffic generator. I find that the more I blog the more traffic I receive. Every blog post gives you the opportunity to target a different set of keywords or phrases.
- Blogging can get you mentioned on another blog or TV [even better for your business!].
- Blogging gives you content [your own original content] to tweet and share on Facebook, LinkedIn & Google+.
- Blogging gives you a place to send your customers/clients to get more information about your brand/niche/industry.
These are some great advantages, but I know some of you are thinking, “But no one cares what I have to say Meg!”and “I don’t want to put myself out there like that.” and “I don’t want strangers reading my stuff.”Maybe and maybe not, but you won’t know until you try and I am willing to bet you money that if you stick with it, you will see the results you always wanted.
Put aside all of the things you are afraid about when you think about blogging. Privacy [You don’t really have any these days anyway, so you might as well just let that one go. 😉 “But I’m not a writer wie bekomm ich viagra.” My response to this one is, “If you can think, you can write.” We all enjoy to talk and my tip to people that are really unsure of getting into blogging is to just write the way you talk. When you read someone’s blog, you don’t want to feel as they are just talking AT you in the way you would if you were writing a report for school, right? If you do that, no, you won’t get people to come back and see what you have to say. Blogging isn’t like writing a research paper so don’t panic! Try to think of it as one big long Facebook status update. We can all do that, right? And no matter what, you are always going to offend someone, so you might as well get over that fear. You can’t please everyone… Ever, no matter how middle grounded you try to be.
Blogging does take a serious commitment and nothing is worse than starting a blog and then abandoning it. So set the time and make the commitment. It usually takes about three months of blogging weekly to begin to see the effects, maybe sooner depending on your following.
If you want to talk about getting a blog started for you or your business, or you already have one that you want to get back up and going let us know. We can consult you by helping to generate blog topic ideas and keyword research that will grow an audience and get your blog found by the search engines.