There are millions of blogs out there, partly because they are just so easy to set up! Most blogs however, get very little traffic.
Setting up and maintaining a blog for your small business is definitely worthwhile, but it is also the easy bit. The big question is, how do you get anyone to read it. Here are some suggestions:
- Use social media – rather than coming back to your blog every day to check to see if there is new content, many people like to be able to ‘subscribe’ to your blog using social media. For example it is quite easy to set up a Twitter or Facebook account that will let followers or friends know when new content is available
- Allow readers to subscribe by email – using a service like Feedburner, you can allow visitors to your blog to subscribe via email. This means that they will be sent an email everytime you post a new article
- Send out a monthly highlights email to your subscriber base – going a step further than just subscribing by email, why not send out a monthly email newsletter to your customer base made up of the top posts from the blog that month
- Feature the blog on your homepage – it is quite easy to add a little widget to your homepage of your main website, showing the last few posts from your blog. This will make more people aware that the blog is there and will encourage them to click through and read more
- Participate on other blogs – leaving comments on other people’s blogs is a great way to build up a following in the blogosphere. If you read an interesting post somewhere, then why not blog about it on your own site – they might then return the favour at a later date!
- Make sure your headlines are engaging – writing a great headline is tricky, but if you get it right, it will encourage more of your subscribers (either on Twitter, Facebook or through your website) to click through and read the article. Study tabloid newspapers as they are adept at writing really great headlines that stand out and grab readers’ attention
- SEO your headlines and posts – search engines can be a great way to get traffic coming into your blog. Make sure your headlines contain plenty of keywords and link any relevant parts of your site through to your blog posts
What else is there? What other tips do you have for increasing traffic to your small business blog? Let us know in the comments! And don’t forget you can subscribe to this blog via email (see above) or on Twitter.
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