Blogging as an Advertising Tool
The new PR and article creation and distribution service, offered by Zero-One Design, has been quite a hit; there has been a lot of interest and the enquiries keep coming in. Along with these requests for press releases and articles, we have had questions about blogging.
You’ll remember from a previous article we posted about this service that we were discussing how businesses need to keep blogging? Well, a lot of calls have come in from business owners who have asked if we provide a blogging service too. They are saying that they have never blogged and are unsure how to start, some have a blog set up but just don’t have the time to keep on top of it. Can we help? The short answer is yes, we can.
The Writer in All of Us
The greatest thing the internet has achieved is the global communication and sharing of ideas it can facilitate. Since web logs or blogs were invented suddenly everyone is a writer, they can let the caged birds of their creativity fly! They say everyone has at least one novel in them; therefore, how many frustrated novelists must there have been out there? Blogs are a release for those frustrations, not all are particularly good and not all have much relevance to many other people, but the fact that they can express their hopes, fears and desires is enough for them. It’s a romantic view perhaps but there you go.
An overwhelming percentage of blogs are just for the above reasons and the authors find others who share their interests. Some are sad, some are funny (our favourite at the moment is www.bonesdiary.wordpress.com) but all have meaning for someone.
Then there are the business bloggers who use their blogs to inform and educate within their chosen niche. These bloggers aren’t writing to work out some pain they feel since their boyfriend/girlfriend etc. left them; they are advertising themselves.
Blogs are amazing tools for indirect advertising: say, for example, your company produces an electronic component for washing machines; you don’t write “Buy our washing machine parts”, rather you write an interesting and well-informed blog post about how washer-dryers have become so much more economical in the past ten years since the invention of….. Just an example, I’m no expert on washing machines but you get my point. Now, people who are building washing machines will read all this and think that you really know your subject, you must be the “go to guy”. Lo and behold at the bottom of this post is a link to your website, et voila!
Whatever industry you are involved in, whatever product or service you provide; use your blog to highlight topical news stories and give your opinion on them, include references to your firm and include links back to your website.
Build a following
You can be the greatest writer on any given subject but unless you have an audience then you are wasting your time. So how do you get an audience? They won’t just happen to find you, go out and find them. No matter what your niche is, others out there in the blogosphere are writing about it right now. Look for them, read what they are saying and comment on it, ask them a question, invite a response. There will be a link to your blog there and in many instances they will follow it out of curiosity. If they like what they find at your site they will talk about it to their audience, they might post a link to your blog if it compliments theirs, and you are posting links back to their site and discussing them.
Some bloggers in your niche might have huge followings and they could start filtering down to yours. Some invite guest bloggers, then you have the attention of their audience too, who will follow the link back to you. The most important thing to do is to keep writing, this new found audience may have a short attention span so if you go quiet for too long, they’ll go find someone else to follow.
Here’s the best bit: Google, easily the biggest and most influential search engine, not only reads your blogs, it has started indexing all these comments. What this means is the little search engine spiders we discussed before, are crawling over the comments you make on other blogs and following the links back to yours, which means a higher ranking.
Where do I find the time?
Here lies the problem, you’ve got a business to run, no time to sit down and tap away. So, how about getting someone else to do it for you? A professional blogger can produce the blog posts you need to succeed in your niche. Telling everyone about your goods or services is vital for growth, especially in the current economic climate, and blogging is a must-have element in your marketing efforts.
The Bronze service consists of a professionally written article of around 4-500 words, which will come in an email that you can copy and paste into your blog. If you don’t have a blog we’ll set one up and do it for you.
The Silver service consists of the benefits of Bronze plus setting up a social media presence if you don’t already have one and posting links back to your blog site.
The Gold Service is the most intensive; it consists of the elements included in Silver and Bronze but also takes on the workload of trawling through other blogs and commenting on them as discussed above. Often time-consuming, often laborious, yet it is vital to building your audience.
If you are interested in building an online presence and taking your marketing to the next level, contact Steve at Zero-One Design Limited on 01827 300820 or email info@zod.uk.com
You’ll remember from a previous article we posted about this service that we were discussing how businesses need to keep blogging? Well, a lot of calls have come in from business owners who have asked if we provide a blogging service too. They are saying that they have never blogged and are unsure how to start, some have a blog set up but just don’t have the time to keep on top of it. Can we help? The short answer is yes, we can.
The Writer in All of Us
The greatest thing the internet has achieved is the global communication and sharing of ideas it can facilitate. Since web logs or blogs were invented suddenly everyone is a writer, they can let the caged birds of their creativity fly! They say everyone has at least one novel in them; therefore, how many frustrated novelists must there have been out there? Blogs are a release for those frustrations, not all are particularly good and not all have much relevance to many other people, but the fact that they can express their hopes, fears and desires is enough for them. It’s a romantic view perhaps but there you go.
An overwhelming percentage of blogs are just for the above reasons and the authors find others who share their interests. Some are sad, some are funny (our favourite at the moment is www.bonesdiary.wordpress.com) but all have meaning for someone.
Then there are the business bloggers who use their blogs to inform and educate within their chosen niche. These bloggers aren’t writing to work out some pain they feel since their boyfriend/girlfriend etc. left them; they are advertising themselves.
Blogs are amazing tools for indirect advertising: say, for example, your company produces an electronic component for washing machines; you don’t write “Buy our washing machine parts”, rather you write an interesting and well-informed blog post about how washer-dryers have become so much more economical in the past ten years since the invention of….. Just an example, I’m no expert on washing machines but you get my point. Now, people who are building washing machines will read all this and think that you really know your subject, you must be the “go to guy”. Lo and behold at the bottom of this post is a link to your website, et voila!
Whatever industry you are involved in, whatever product or service you provide; use your blog to highlight topical news stories and give your opinion on them, include references to your firm and include links back to your website.
Build a following
You can be the greatest writer on any given subject but unless you have an audience then you are wasting your time. So how do you get an audience? They won’t just happen to find you, go out and find them. No matter what your niche is, others out there in the blogosphere are writing about it right now. Look for them, read what they are saying and comment on it, ask them a question, invite a response. There will be a link to your blog there and in many instances they will follow it out of curiosity. If they like what they find at your site they will talk about it to their audience, they might post a link to your blog if it compliments theirs, and you are posting links back to their site and discussing them.
Some bloggers in your niche might have huge followings and they could start filtering down to yours. Some invite guest bloggers, then you have the attention of their audience too, who will follow the link back to you. The most important thing to do is to keep writing, this new found audience may have a short attention span so if you go quiet for too long, they’ll go find someone else to follow.
Here’s the best bit: Google, easily the biggest and most influential search engine, not only reads your blogs, it has started indexing all these comments. What this means is the little search engine spiders we discussed before, are crawling over the comments you make on other blogs and following the links back to yours, which means a higher ranking.
Where do I find the time?
Here lies the problem, you’ve got a business to run, no time to sit down and tap away. So, how about getting someone else to do it for you? A professional blogger can produce the blog posts you need to succeed in your niche. Telling everyone about your goods or services is vital for growth, especially in the current economic climate, and blogging is a must-have element in your marketing efforts.
The Bronze service consists of a professionally written article of around 4-500 words, which will come in an email that you can copy and paste into your blog. If you don’t have a blog we’ll set one up and do it for you.
The Silver service consists of the benefits of Bronze plus setting up a social media presence if you don’t already have one and posting links back to your blog site.
The Gold Service is the most intensive; it consists of the elements included in Silver and Bronze but also takes on the workload of trawling through other blogs and commenting on them as discussed above. Often time-consuming, often laborious, yet it is vital to building your audience.
If you are interested in building an online presence and taking your marketing to the next level, contact Steve at Zero-One Design Limited on 01827 300820 or email info@zod.uk.com
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