We started a blog, now what?

Many people are under the misconception that starting a blog will automatically increase the amount of traffic coming to your site. Wrong! A blog takes time, content and links in order to really start driving traffic. It could be weeks to months before your first reader comes along.

So what do I do to get more blog readers?
There are lots of things you can do to get more blog readers. The most important thing above all else though is to ensure that you are writing quality content. Content that means something to your target audience and isn't just a link to another post you've read, or a short one paragraph post. If you want to attract readers, you have to give them something to read!

Another good way to attract readers is to see if you can get a guest blog writer to write a post or two for you. This person should be someone who has something of value to bring to your readers (or potential readers). For example if you have a blog about surf boards and surfing you wouldn't want to get a guest writer on there talking about the newest computer software. However, you might very well want a guest writer who will write something about the ocean and the scientific aspect of the tides. This may not seem relevant to a surfing website at first, but surfers live by the tides and if they know a little more about how they react to certain things then they'll probably get some better surfing days.

How long should I wait for visitors to my blog before I give up?
That question is up to you. My feeling is that if you have something worth reading and you enjoy writing it, keep going. Even if you aren't getting tons and tons of visitors from your blog postings, you are creating new content and sharing your thoughts on your industry.

I often refer to a blog as an "online diary". It's a place that the blog author writes his/her thoughts, critiques, ideas, issues, etc on his/her industry or passion. Would you stop writing in your diary (or journal for you masculine guys), if you knew no one was ever going to read it? Then why stop writing your blog?

What if I run out of topics to blog about?
Then you aren't thinking creatively enough. There are a thousand different things you can talk about within any field. I promise you, if you asked a colleague or friend what they would want to know about your industry you would get some very interesting post ideas.

To use the surfing reference again, you don't just have to talk about surf boards and pro surfers. You can talk about the technology of the surfing industry, the locations of the surf events, etc. All you have to do is take a step back and think about your industry on a little bit broader view.

Remember: Write because you have something to say, not because you want to drive more traffic.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

A case study for knowing your audience

Last week I read a very interesting blog post at SEOMoz. The post was titled "Colloquial Copy: When Perfect is Wrong" and was written by jkellygarrett. It is one of the most interesting and educational posts that I have read to date at this site, and most of their posts are very interesting and educational.

The post talks about jkellygarrett's brother who is in the long haul trucking business and was upset that he couldn't find a website that used to be extremely helpful for his travels. With some creative searching they were able to eventually find the site again and realized something very important. The site was SEO'd but for the wrong audience! Seems a bit like an oxymoron, that you could SEO a site for the wrong audience but indeed you can.

Instead of thinking like a trucker the company or person that did the SEO for the site was thinking and writing like you and I would write. What they must not have realized was that truckers have their own language of sorts. This language carriers over to the internet when they are doing a Google search, and they aren't about to start using other words to find what they want.

So what does this tell us? Well for one thing you have to know your audience. You have to know where they come from, how they speak, what they want, and how they search to get what they want. It's not enough to do keyword research and get a list back that tells what words the search engines find relevant for that group. It's not enough to look at statistical data. You have to realize that perhaps the group you are optimizing the site for is too small to show any relevance on those statistics or keyword lists.

In this case truckers are a group of their own. They use a different language to communicate and they probably use the internet a little differently then you and I. To optimize this site to it's fullest potential the company should have taken the time to really get to know the industry as much as possible. Then they might have realized that the direction they were thinking of going would have lead the site to a dead-end.

Remember, your audience is your customer, don't leave them out in the dark.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization

Knowing Your Audience...

Everyone has heard this saying a million times "Know Your Audience", but it is probably one of the most important sayings in business. As a business owner, blog writer, employee, marketer, or any other job where you interact with customers you need to know who they are.

I don't mean you need to find out what type of food they like to eat, or what color is there favorite color. When they say "know your audience", they mean know what level and what style you are writing or speaking to them in. You never want to assume that whatever you write or say is coming across as clear as you may think it is.

Take for example a small mom and pop shop on main street USA. If they have a website for their childrens toy store and they write a weekly blog you would expect that the language would be simple, fun, and easy to read. You certainly would not want to read about the technical specifications of how each toy is put together (or at least most people wouldn't!). On the reverse side if you are a major manufacturer and your clients are engineers you would want to be sure to have technical information on how your product/service works.

Knowing your audience also helps with the search engines. The search engines pick up text from your website to display in their results page. If you are that mom and pop shop you would want to give searchers a good feeling from the moment they find out about your website (the search engine results). You only have one chance to make that first impression and every little bit counts.

Choosing your style is just that, your choice. With this blog, we have chosen to keep the style more casual and informative. Being a blog about marketing, business and internet related businesses we could certainly get into technical specifications of a website, or the statistical data about each and every market, but that is not the style we chose. You cannot please each and every visitor that will come to your blog, but you can please the type of visitor that you would like to get as a client. Sending people away isn't always a bad thing, especially if that visitor was not your ideal customer.

A good approach to take before ever writing your first word is to do some field research and see what else is out there. Take a look at the blogs and sites you like and don't like and see why it is you feel that way. Once you've done this, you should have a good idea of the style that will work for you and your business. Most importantly, have fun with it and the people reading will most likely come back to read more.

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Ignite Media LLC, Ignite Your Site™
http://www.ignite-media.com/
Website Design & Development eCommerce Development Search Engine Optimization