The fact is, your blog WILL attract customers. GOOGLE will find it! Then the customers interested in what your blogging about will search on Google and Google will send them to your site. There is no immediate gratification and the results for the amount of time you could put into it might be dismal. But that's not why you should blog anyway!

You blog because you have a PASSION for something! This is your place to express yourself and your passion for your business and your customers. You blog because your customers have things to say about you and your business - we call them blogamonials. You blog because you know something that nobody else knows about you or your business. You blog because it's fun - it really is!

So our blogging advice. Jump in and do it. Once you get a feel for it...here's how to make your blog work for you.

10 Things to blog about:

1. Post customer testimonials in your blogs

2. Answer frequently asked questions with your blogs

3. Blog about things that you think your customers need to know about what you're doing for them

4. Blog about your community involvement

5. Promote other businesses that you like in your community

6. GIVE testimonials to other businesses that have worked for you

7. Blog about new products and services that you are offering

8. Blog about your business marketing and best practices that have worked for you

9. Blog about announcements and events relevant to your business.

10. Blog about your dog

10. Blog about blogging : )

 

10 Ways to Promote Your Blog

This is the part that will separate you from the rest. Don't expect people to find your blog. PROMOTE your blog. Here's a few ways to do that.

1. If you get clients asking you questions frequently. Blog the answer if you think it will help others too. Then send that client to your blog for the answer to his/her question.

2. Make your blog a newsletter. In 2015, our blog became our first newsletter. The cool thing is that we have built this right into the website. The newsletter will be sent after every 5 blogs or so. That's your website working for you!

3. Call attention to your blogs in social media. Post your title, a picture and a teaser (not the whole blog) on your social media sites and link that post directly to your blog.

4. Answer forum posts with a short answer and complete the answer on your blog. Link your forum post to your blog.

5. Guest blog. Other businesses will let you blog on their site if it's relevant to what they do and you'll get to post a link back to your site.

6. Invite other businesses to guest blog on your site. (It works both ways).

7. If you've done blogamonials - post testimonials on other sites and link them back to your blogamonials.

8. Blog on other sites that allow it...especially if you can link back to your own site. Examples: facebook!, ActiveRain.com (Real Estate),

9. Post links on bookmarking sites: StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit come to mind.

10. Add your blog to your email signature. Even better if you could update your signature every time you post a new blog (but that requires a little more work).

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This is not all or nothing. Find your comfort zone. The important thing is to start blogging. Once you get that habit established you'll find ways to promote it even beyond what I've posted and people will find their way to your blog. So the message is simple:

BLOG BLOG BLOG!