Blog/News Section

How To Build Your Business with Blogging in 2012

When you’re involved in search marketing and local SEO as long as I have been, you start to notice trends and patterns.  I’ve read a lot of content, I’ve attended trade shows and conferences, seminars, and workshops that buzz about how to write great articles.  They push trends in content marketing and deliver on endless strategies for creating “headlines” that people will click through.

A lot of it is pretty tired, and dated, but some of it still works for the most part.

When you’re creating content, you can draw on those swipe files and tried-and-true practices that work but the key is to be different.  To do something innovative, because too much of anything is never good.  When it comes to business blogging and local SEO, success is going to depend on you and your audience – not how well you reused old ideas.

Here are some tips to boost your business blogging efforts in 2012 and get some results.

Avoid Regurgitating Old Content

When you recycle stuff that’s already been done and said, it gets old.  There are two ways to look at this though;  on one hand you have content that is relevant to your audience which should be shared.  How to info, guides, walkthroughs, tips and industry advice that is always useful to someone entering your market for the first time.

Then there’s the content that’s already been written over and over.  There difference between the two is subtle.  Essentially, it boils down to whether or not you mimic someone and regurgitate the content or if you take the concept and turn it into something with your own style, your own face and your own message.  Fit it to your audience.

If you’re a business in Mobile, figure out how a core concept would adapt to your local seo efforts and your customer.  Find ways to expand on the idea in order to improve your fan base.  Repurposing and regurgitation are two different things.  Remember that.

Why Giving Gifts is Important

The old adage of giving in order to receive applies to your local SEO efforts.  If you merely post content, you might hit on something of value to someone but the takeaways are usually pretty slim.  It doesn’t really inspire engagement or return visits.  Instead, think of each piece of content you share on your business blog like an opportunity to give something to the reader.

• Tips are easy to give away, especially when related to personal experience (use storytelling) where you can drive the benefit home through a real story and outcome
• Reviews that help people make a decision
• Creating a path to a solution in order to solve a common problem
• Links!  Links to great resources like other sites, white papers, images, free trials, etc.  as long as its relevant to your target audience, there will be people who will appreciate it.

Remember that if people are going to give you some of their time, and read what you’ve written, then you need to give something in return and try to make it worth their while.

Business Blogging that’s Readable

One of the worst mistakes you can make blogging with corporate gobbledegook and industry jargon.  I could talk to the ends of the earth using big words and SEO banter, but a lot of my audience wouldn’t necessarily understand it.  You have to appeal to a wide audience of people with different levels of reading and comprehension.

Write too much “101” material and you lose the mid to advanced readers.  Write too much advanced material and it goes right over the heads of your basic, entry level audience or customers.

Stop Talking About Yourself

Your customer is a unique individual, and they’re also extremely self-centered.  They really don’t care about you, or your product, or your company.  The only thing about “you” that might resonate with them is a personal experience or story, but even then it better be a good one they can relate to.

If you want to talk about you, then go start a Blogger blog and talk about you.  When it comes to business blogging, keep it relevant to the interests of your customers and your audience.

Lastly, do your research.  The knowledge you have a particular subject in your industry is only your side of it.  See it from different perspectives, with different facts to back those, and you’ll be able to not only expand your own knowledge on key issues but you’ll provide more relevant information to your audience.