Why Your Company Needs To Blog

 

The digital age has presented additiona        ur host is Greg Brey, In this post Greg looks at the advantages of having a blog connected to your company.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog. 

l business opportunities to increase awareness of your products/service in a cost-effective way. Blogging is a tool that some companies don’t utilize, often due to the lack of knowledge behind the impact a blog can make for their company. Here are five reasons for your company to blog.

• Search engine optimization (SEO) is seen as arguably the top reason for companies to publish a blog. When you search a term on Google, the most relevant sites appear at the top. Most people, when searching keywords, do not have a specific company or webpage in mind (otherwise they would simply bypass the search engine). The best practice to get to the top of a Google search lies in SEO. Blogs are a tool for good SEO because they give your website more “meat” to grab on to. The more keywords that your site has related to the target keywords you want to show up for, the more likely you will appear higher in search engines (i.e. if you sell garage doors, the more words on the website that discuss garage doors the more likely you are to show up in search engines).
• Expert Advice. You need to prove to your audience that you are an expert, if you aren’t considered an expert why would someone do business with you? They wouldn’t! Putting your expert advice on the internet for your customers and potential customers to see can lead to (more) trust. Blogs help companies gain loyalty from customers by communicating in a personal tone.
• It’s easy and “free!” If the first two points aren’t enough to start a blog, the third point should put you over the edge. Blogging is free….generally. Upon your discretion you can purchase domain names for your blog, or you may have to pay more through who manages your website. Trust me; the impacts of a blog will outweigh the minimal price time and time again. Once you get a blog set up, you can post anything – videos, pictures, writing, links etc. Blogging is not meant to be hard, that’s why there’s a blog to cover virtually every topic.
• Cross promotion. A blog can help promote your website, or other social media sites. The internet truly is a “web” of topics that is waiting to get tapped into.
• Buzz. Have something innovative that will change your industry as we know it? Apple is a company that uses this tactic very well. Most companies would send out press releases to promote a product. Not Apple; instead the company spreads their buzz via blogs – at least blogs happen to hear about their product launches. Apple successfully doubles up their coverage when most companies would unveil the product at the launch; Apple chooses to release small details along the way increasing suspense.

Bottom line, if your company doesn’t blog, then they are in the minority! Amazing, right!? If your company isn’t blogging, what are you waiting for? Get started! Set a goal of sending one solid post a month, and try to increase the amount of posts once you get comfortable.

Is your company blogging? What impact does the blog have for your company?

How To Leverage On LinkedIn To Socialize Your Blog

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Guest Post - Our host is Richard Franklin, in this post Richard looks at the advantages of LinkedIn for Bloggers.See How To Become a guest author on Spice Up Your Blog. 

There’s no need to sugar coat. When someone mentions LinkedIn, it does not elicit the same giddiness or excitement versus the more famous social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+. In fact, for a novice social media company, LinkedIn may not hold any marketing value and may be perceived nothing less than a digital resume.

This is the uninformed way of looking at it. However, an experienced social media company may see LinkedIn from a different point of view. In fact, LinkedIn may serve a special role in a well-rounded online marketing strategy.

First, let’s look into some of the LinkedIn numbers:

• Currently, LinkedIn has a 150-million strong membership comprised of professionals from all over the world
• Approximately a million new members are generated every week
• A survey showed that in terms of trust, LinkedIn members find the information uploaded on the site more reliable compared to other social networking spaces

Digging deeper, one can see that LinkedIn has a niche role in a social media marketing mix capturing a specific set of audience and fulfilling specific business objectives.

LinkedIn is Advantageous for B2B Marketing

LinkedIn caters to a primarily professional, business and entrepreneurial audience. This means they are very discriminating and discerning when it comes to consuming information. For a social media marketing agency with a huge base of clients involved in business-to-business communication, having an expertise in LinkedIn is extremely beneficial.

Establishing Thought Leadership

What is thought leadership? In a nutshell, this is a marketing tactic wherein a brand positions itself as an authority when it comes to industry news, development and issues. It is an indirect marketing technique meant to develop trust and credibility among peers, hoping that it will have a halo effect on consumers. Having a good network in LinkedIn reading a brand’s company updates, blog, newsletters and other B2B marketing materials will definitely push the brand’s credibility. Also, keep in mind that Google assigns significant authority to LinkedIn so getting your marketing messages propagated in the said social networking site can also help in boosting organic traffic to your site.

Tips on Maintaining a LinkedIn Account for Your Blog

It would be best to tap into the expertise and services of a reputable social media marketing agency to set-up a LinkedIn profile for your business blog, but here are a few tips on how you can push your brand in this virtual gathering place for professionals:

• The quantity and quality of the connections. Marketing messages in LinkedIn spread like viruses, a process of contagion. However, you should also look into the profiles of the professionals you are connecting with.
• Keep a professional, yet accommodating tone.
• Update your profile regularly.
• Build your own community by starting a group.
• Solicit recommendations to boost your credibility further.

So, review your online marketing strategy and check where LinkedIn can come into the picture. It can be proved as a boon for an online business which needs to enhance its online presence in a pocket friendly and secure way.

How do I use a custom domain

How do I use a custom domain name for my blog?

Blogger offers two free publishing options for your blog: hosting on Blogspot (example.blogspot.com) and hosting on your own custom domain (www.example.com or foo.example.com). You can change your publishing option at anytime, and your content will always remain unaltered regardless of which of these options you choose.

Whether you want to purchase a new domain through Blogger or publish on a domain which you already own, we’ll walk you through the process of setting up your blog for a custom domain.

What would you like to do?
  Buy a custom domain through Blogger.
  Host my blog on a URL that I already own.