Blog consultants - Ways a blog can help promote YOU

10. Blogs are one of the least expensive methods to create buzz and get the word out to the world on you, your company, and you areas of expertise. When compared to almost any other form of marketing, blogs are so reasonable to start and maintain that it is almost silly not to add the creation of one to your marketing mix. They don’t require you to learn HTML or to hire a designer or developer. They are template driven and so even the best bloggers that were recognized this year by Forbes Magazine, for example, used a templated tool that cost under $100 a year to build and maintain.

9. People doing key word searches via search engines will find your blog, not necessarily your website. Search engines index your ongoing knowledge sharing from your posts (entries). A blog should be full of activity, constantly updating with fresh information, key terms and search terms in your titles, body-text and permalinks, creating more ways for the search engine "spiders" to find your blog and lead customers and prospects to you.

8. Blogs humanize you and create an organic, powerfully evolving user experience. The personal nature of a blog helps humanize you and your organization. People who like and connect with what you have to say, your thoughts, feelings and beliefs, will want you speaking to them about your offerings on a regular basis. You can post daily or even just twice a week and still create connection with prospects and customers.

7. Blogs are an amazing tool and platform to showcase your knowledge and expertise interactively. A blog can be an incredible tool for sharing information and expertise regularly. Kathleen Goodwin, CEO of iMakeNews, says business blogs "Can offer organizations a platform where information, data, and opinions can be shared and traded among employees, customers, partners, and prospects in a way previously impossible: a two-way, open exchange."

6. Prospects are constantly searching the web for information, deals and opportunities-will they find you or your competition instead? No one listens anymore to sanitized marketing messages anymore (which most of us have on our websites). A blog allows you to grow trust and credibility with your customers and prospects by providing timely, important information that shows them why you are the one to choose over your competitors.

5. Develop yourself as the thought leader in your industry. If you know the best strategies for blogging, you will be able to grow your thought leadership exponentially. Just as with any amount of practice, the more you blog and know about blogs, the better you will be at it and, in doing so, you can become one of the top people blogging in your field. After all, if your prospects are the kind of prospects you would want—leading edge companies with fast growth that want leading edge thinking, you will find your best customers and keep them for life with tools like blogs.

4. The winners in the blogosphere will be those who host the very best content and conversations. You have to have great content and inspire conversation. A blog offers the best conversational vehicle for getting and staying connected- imperative to growing new business with your prospects and customers.

3. A blog allows you to be the producer and star of your own show-a business celebrity. This is the day and age of the business celebrity. You want to be the expert, the one people turn to for information. With today's digital technology, you can create your own combination of magazine and talk show quality messages to highlight yourself with a blog.

2. The shelf life of blog posts can remain on the web forever. Remember when the only choice you had for marketing was either to send out expensive direct mail pieces or advertise in a newspaper or magazine? What was the shelf life of those marketing pieces—a day or, at best, a month? Now the investment of good content on a blog is forever.

1. If you aren’t out there, your competitors will be. As you wait to decide what to do about blogging your competitors are out there connecting with your prospect base and growing loyalty positions for business today and tomorrow. They are also taking the time to find out what your other competitors are up to and matching or beating offerings.

Derrick Sorles

http://www.businessbloggingtips.com

derrick@networldingbusinessblogging.com