Using Your Blog To Build Your (Small Business) Brand

We have all heard of blogs and when I come to run through a business consultation with many of my small business clients, they often do not see the link betweem putting the effort into setting up and maintaining a blog and how that can have a positive effect on the brand of their business and on their ongoing revenue streams in the long run. So for the purpose of this short report, let's take a look at some of the things which can be done in using a blog strategically to build your business.

Host your blog on your own domain/server - there are many free, hosted blogs out there where you can sign up and get going within minutes and being blogging. The point that must relayed to businesses is that from an overall internet and search engine perspective; you want your website to be getting all the attention (incoming links) and traffic. When you host your blog on someone elses system, the traffic goes there first and then you have to take steps to redirect the traffic. Best if the traffic comes to you first and then over time you will be building your online Real Estate.

Optimise your blog - I recommend you install a Wordpress blog. If you have a website, then you most probably have Cpanel from where your blog can be installed within minutes (ask your webmaster about this). We manage multiple blogs and they are all Wordpress blogs. Whilst it is tempting to go rushing off looking for a pretty template, the thing to do is to make your blog search engine friendly. There are some kep plugins which should be added to your blog to enable it to become more visible on the internet.

Register your blog with the blog search engines - after you setup your blog you should register it with the blog search engines. Now, everytime you update your blog the search engines will know.

Update your blog frequently - in the early stages I recommend 4 to 4 times a week in order to get going and to build your online content.

Develop a system - this system consists of updating your own blog and of also finding other blogs in your field and making comments on their posts and leaving a reference back to your site. If you develop a process to say comment on another blog twice a week and, to update your blog say 3 times a week. You will surely see a surge of traffic coming to your blog and from this you should have specific stragies in place from which to monetise this traffic.

These are a few pointers from a top leve which you should be able to use to begin using a blog strategically within your business. Hope this helps, I've been using these and other techniques very successfully so hope you can take this and tweak it and make it yours.

I'd love to hear from you, wherever you are in the world with any questions or comments you may have.

To your success,

Stephen C Campbell