Marketing A Local Business-Write Better Blog Articles
Marketing a local business is taking on new forms today. For example, you can promote your local business everyday by writing short useful blog articles that relate to the theme of your small business.
We are not talking about writing Pulitzer Prize quality articles either. Just short, to the point articles your readers would enjoy reading.
Here are 5 tips to help you write better blog articles and then quickly promote them online for your local business.
1. Create a swipe file for ideas for your future articles. These are ideas you get from your customers questions, TV., newspaper, your competitors websites and so on.
Your articles can be anything your readers would find interesting. It has to be worth their time to come back to your blog or to subscribe to your RSS Feed.
2. Do you really understand your audience? Developing a profile of your customer base will help you create short blog articles that fit their profiles.
You always want to write about things from a needs-benefit standpoint. Be sure what you are writing addressing their needs and then keep in mind how it benefits them specifically.
3. Stay on point and keep your articles short. Blog articles only need to be 100-200 words to get your point across. If you find yourself writing more consider breaking it into 2 articles.
As much as you would like to think you are really impressing your readers you can impress them more by valuing their time. Get to the point and wrap it up.
4. Write in a friendly tone. Be conversational and informative. When you are writing to someone like you are talking to them you keep their attention better.
One strategy that does work is avoid using big words that try to impress people. Just write like you talk and you will never have a hard time writing.
5. Proofread your article for spelling and grammar. Microsoft Word is good for this. So is Open Office which is free to download. By just taking a minute to look your article over you can quickly catch mistakes and correct them.
One final point is bookmarking your blog articles to social directories where they can be found. Using a bookmarking tool such as OnlyWire.com is helpful for hitting more directories with one click.
If you are going to bookmark manually try and get your article into your Facebook, Twitter, and Stumbleupon accounts. This is where the people are hanging out online today. Facebook has over 400 million members and building a friends list is easy to do.
So is building a followers list on Twitter. Bookmarking to Stumbleupon is quick and you can choose the category for your blog article to be placed in.
These are 5 points on marketing a local business by writing better blog articles and taking that extra step to successful bookmarking. If you do this on a consistent basis more people will read your articles and the search engines will reward you as well.
Jeff Schuman helps people make money online and his local business website helps small business owners grow using the internet.
Why Should You Start A Blog On Your Business Site?
In the early days of the Internet a business site was a simple brochure of products and services. More likely than not, it included a contact form and a phone number if the site visitor wanted to request more information. As time went by, Web sites evolved to include online ordering and full e-commerce capabilities.
While most Web sites evolved to include a lot of information for the visitor as well as easy e-commerce ordering they were impersonal. There was a certain anonimity to all Web sites. For all you knew, you could be buying your widget from a guy in his underwear living in his moms basement or from a huge multi-million dollar corporation.
Say Hello To The Blog.
I don’t remember the first time I heard the word ‘Blog’, but I am guessing it was around 2004. Regular people used the blog as a personal diary of sorts and shared knowledge and memories with friends and family. As blogging caught on, the SEO value began to resonate in marketing minds.
High search engine rankings fueled by a new style of web design often drive the masses towards adoption of concepts the average business owner would not ordinarily consider. The blog is a prime example of adopting a concept one would not necessarily pair with a business Web site. Finding suitable website hosting is also a concern.
How Can A Blog Help Make Me Money?
Most business owners will ask how can a blog help increase our sales? The answer is simple – transparency. Letting potential customers get to know you and your staff personally creates a special bond that’s very hard to create on the anonymous Internet.
Imagine creating an open and friendly environment. Imagine telling customers what your plans are. Imagine asking customers for feedback on new idea’s and engaging them to participate. Most business owners cringe at the idea of exposing company secrets or how they maintain a competitive advantage. In reality, it seems that Web sites who feature an open and informational Blog see increased sales. Some Blogs like Google’s Apps even have a following and new feature requests from readers.
Most Blogging software also offer the ability for readers to obtain RSS feeds through their email clients such as Outlook. This is very important for one simple reason: People read email every day, all day. Customers who subscribe to RSS feeds from your blog don’t even have to visit your site to be informed of a new product launch or service upgrade.
Start Blogging Today.
I encourage you to add a blog to your existing Web site if you have not done so already. If you have one and have not updated it in awhile, aim for once a week or month. WordPress templates make it incredibly easy to not only start a Blog, but also manage a Web site. WordPress is a good low cost alternative to hiring a web designer. In fact, you can find a lot of cheap WordPress templates that look fantastic.
For Blog Web Hosting with an easy one click blog software install – We Recommend searching FindMyHost.com for a suitable provider in their blog web hosts marketplace.
Finding The Right MLM Prospects For You Business
In this article I want to talk about how you can approach finding the right MLM prospects for your business. Not everyone is qualified to be in your business nor are they worthy of your time.
The sooner you take the approach that your time is valuable the faster you will begin to find the right MLM prospects for your business. You do this by establishing a posture in your business that people are lucky to work with you.
Today this is commonly referred to as attraction marketing. You make yourself seem more attractive to your prospects and they will want to follow you into your business.
However to get to that point you need to do some things to make yourself more attractive. There are things you can do to establish credibility and have people jumping all over themselves to be in business with you.
1. One thing you can do is sort through prospects using an auto responder. This is a fast way to capture a lot of names and email addresses to keep in touch with.
You establish your credibility over time by offering helpful information and requesting nothing in return. The more people begin to hear from you the more your credibility is enhanced to become an attractive sponsor to them.
2. As you become successful you want to let people know about the success are having. This doesn't mean you are bragging, but rather you are just offering support and letting them know what is possible.
For this reason you should use your own website or blog and not rely strictly on the company provided website or blog. Blogging is actually a very easy way to brand yourself as an expert and sort through prospects.
Many network marketers do not know how to do HTML coding to build websites, and with a blog you don't have to do that. This means you can constantly update your blog and encourage people to subscribe to your RSS feed via email.
3. You should put the sign up form on your side bar at the top of your blog. This way they automatically go on every blog post that you have made in the past too!
Think of the sign-up form as a mini landing page and offer a couple of incentives for people to join your mailing list. Then again link that back to your autoresponder and start following up with them right away.
Taking this approach you can then concentrate on promoting your blog and let the visitors identify themselves as the right MLM prospect for your business. Your blog will enhance your credibility and the number of quality prospects will ultimately increase!
Louis Martel is the owner of one of the most popular mlm business opportunity websites online today. To learn secrets most business home mlm opportunity seekers will never know visit it right now. http://www.LouisMakeMoney.com
Are You Thinking Of Starting A Weblog? Do You Have A Wordpress Blog That Needs Freshening Up?
If you want to keep your Weblog fresh and interesting, then you need to post often. You can create different types of posts to keep your readers engrossed. This will also keep you from getting bored with your own Weblog. Whether blogging to make money directly from the Wordpress blog, or blogging to drive traffic to an Affiliate product, you should keep these five types of Blog posts in mind.
1. The Review Post
Review weblog posts can help you to monetize your Wordpress blog. You will take a close look at a product and give a review of it. This can include an affiliate link to the product. When reviewing, be sure to mention BOTH positive and negative comments about the product. Even if you totally loved the product, keep your study balanced by mentioning a few things that could have been improved. Your readers will appreciate your honesty and be more likely to trust your suggestion.
2. The Quick Tip Post
In between your longer posts you can do a "quick tips" type of post. These are normally 150-250 words. Sometimes we have a lot of information about our niche that we want to share but it may not be commendable of a full length post. In that case, post a quick tip. This should be focused on ONE key area of the niche. For example, "How to Plant a Tulip Bulb" would be a quick tip article for a gardening Blog.
3. The List Post
Blog readers love lists! The most popular Blogs make good use of lists. You can create lists that fit with any topic conceivable. This is a great way to convey information online because it can be easily scanned by web readers who are "skimmers." You can also create lists of different ways to accomplish a goal in your niche. "10 Ways To Prepare Your Soil For Planting" would be a great list for gardeners.
4. The Interview Post
Interviews will require some preparation, but they are very valuable to your Blog. Interview someone in your niche and then share the results of that interview with your readers. This will not only provide important content for your Blog, but will also bring more traffic. Most likely, the person you interview will also make known the event on their Wordpress blog or Website, directing traffic to your Weblog.
5. The Instruction Post
This is related to Quick Tips as you are providing your readers with precious information. However, these Instruction posts will go into much more detail on a certain topic. Sometimes your instructions can even be divided into two or three posts or courses. Look at comments and questions from your readers to find what topic would be most beneficial to your readers.
As you Wordpress blog, remember that your readers like selection. Do not always write the same type of post. Put a little variety in your Blog to keep it fresh.
If your going to do any type of internet marketing then you have to have a wordpress blog. GVO or Global Virtual Opportunities is my number one recommendation for hosting all your blogs and getting all your internet marketing tools.
Do You Really Need A Niche Blog?
Blogging is a word you are probably familiar with. However you might not have heard of the phrase and niche blog.
Let's analyze whether you need a niche blog of your own to make money online today.
I have seen one of the most successful Internet marketers today earn a seven figure income without a blog of their own. They do it with a small website of a few pages and a email marketing list of close to a million people.
Do you think you can build an email marketing list of a million people? It's doubtful, but obviously it is possible!
Most of the best Internet marketers have a niche blog today that they utilize in numerous ways. One of the ways is to build their own email marketing list.
Another way is to create fresh content that becomes popular with the search engines. This content ultimately ends up on page 1 of search engines such as Google giving them free traffic for many years to come.
A niche blog is a great way to meet people on the Internet. Social networking has proven to be a great way to make money online and a niche blog can help you do that.
Targeting a tight niche is a key to having a successful blog that makes money. A niche is really nothing more than taking a broad theme and narrowing it down some.
Blogs are a great way to zero in on a specific niche. Let me give you an example.
Today the Internet marketing niche is extremely crowded. This is a broad term that can cover many numerous things.
A successful niche blog might be a way to earn money on the Internet as an email marketer. Email marketing is a tight niche in the larger theme of Internet marketing.
A person who would be successful with this type of blog would be somebody who really enjoys email marketing. They would consider themselves to be an expert on it and would want to pass on some of their knowledge to their blog readers.
Unless you are planning on making money on a short or term basis a niche blog really is the way to go. It allows you to build a long range income using the Internet in ways you could not do without one.
As you can tell in my opinion you should have a niche blog. This is probably why you see a new blog started almost every second somewhere in the world.
If you take a long term view of your blog, and target a specific niche, you can have a lot of fun and make a lot of money niche blogging.
Jeff Schuman invites you to visit his make money online website for JV With Jeff free training, his top pick as the #1 network marketing business, and free paid survey opportunities.
