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Blog Marketing 10 Great Tips to Get Readers to Keep Coming Back to Your Business Blog

Guest post by: Zeke Camusio

Article Overview: These days anyone can have a blog, from high-school students to grandmothers who gush about their grandchildren.

Blog Marketing 10 Great Tips to Get Readers to Keep Coming Back to Your Business Blog

But if you’re using your blog to connect to others in your field, to contribute useful knowledge, share your expertise, and ultimately promote your business and services, you have to do things that high-school students and grandmothers don’t take the time to do. These things could boost your blog’s traffic and give your business more exposure than you ever thought possible.

1. Get a Personal Domain Name
Your business will definitely seem more professional and serious if your blog’s URL doesn’t end with blogspot.com or wordpress.com. It is extremely affordable (only $8 a year!) to get your own domain name. It makes even more sense for a business if you compare this expense to traditional marketing costs.

2. Always Include Related Posts
Consider that with one visit, someone may actually end up seeing 2, 3, or 4 more articles. And might even end up finding an article they enjoyed more than the one that brought them to the blog in the first place. You can show related posts in two ways: a) reference previous articles with links included directly within the body of the text, or b) use a plugin to automatically generate them.

3. Hint at Upcoming Content
Post great, valuable contributions, then promise Part 2. Develop a series of in-depth related articles for one really great topic. Or simply give them a taste, a teaser of which fascinating aspect of the industry you’ll cover next. Make the reader feel that if they don’t subscribe, they’ll be missing out on something.

4. Exchange Guest Posts
Contact a blogger from within your industry and offer to contribute valuable insights, with of course, the offer to reciprocate. Think about it. You can have a guest blogger (a writer/author/specialist with a serious, professional rep is always the best, or at least someone with some experience in the industry) and make an appearance in another’s blog to not only share your interesting contributions, but also direct readers back to your own blog.

5. Interact with Your Readers
Read and reply to comments. Try to get to know your audience. After a while you may see the same names keep popping up, so acknowledge them, thank them for their remarks, and tell them you appreciate them. More importantly, answer their questions. You may even dedicate a few posts to frequently asked questions/doubts. Soon you’ll develop a loyal following.

6. Comment on Your Readers’ Blogs
This will give your blog more credit and a more serious standing in the community, as people get the idea that you’re not the superstar of the blogging universe, and you take the time to read and find out what others are saying about the topics you cover.

7. Start a Web 2.0 Marketing Campaign for Your Blog
The main goal of any marketing campaign is to spread the word, create a buzz and get people talking about your blog. There are social networking sites where you can promote your blog. Among the most popular today are Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Flickr, just to name a few.

8. Offer a Print Version of Your Posts
Although most people read content directly from their computer screen, it’s always a great idea to give users the option to print your articles. Those that appreciate this will surely keep returning to your blog.

9. Encourage Readers to Subscribe Via E-mail
Naturally, you can have people subscribe to your RSS Feed, but e-mail subscriptions are all the more effective. Your loyal readers will be able to receive word about your latest post, the moment it’s posted, directly sent to their inbox. It’s a great way to remind them about your blog and keep them coming back for more.

10. Do not Restrict Access
Do not, in any way, shape, or form, set obstacles for your readers, like requiring them to log on before leaving comments. This will only discourage them, and they´ll never come back to your blog.

The importance of having a loyal following cannot be overstated. Loyal readers will not only come back for more of what they like, but will also spread the word about what you’re doing and what valuable contributions, guidance, insights, you offer to the community. Can you think of a better way to promote your services?

Related Articles
  Three Tips To Get You Started Blogging for Business
  Five Steps To Increase Traffic To Your Blog
  Blogging - One of the Best Internet Marketing Strategies
  WordPress Blog Tip - Make Your Blog Work For You
  A Blog Blog, Question Mark

Article Tags: appearance, blog, blogger, grandmothers, high school students, insights, knowledge share, personal domain name, professional rep, related articles, share your expertise, traditional marketing, traffic, two ways, useful knowledge, writer author



Related Forum Posts
Re: Best Internet Marketing Strategy - Hi David, I agree about the Blogosphere. You have a smaller group that Blog, but do so on the premise that they think they should, but have never really considered the purpose of their Blog. Then I think there are a few SEO or Internet Marketing types that see Blogging as just another link building strategy. But the largest group of Bloggers, tend to be people who enjoy writing and discussing their topics of interest. Blogging is good for link building, but the true Blogger is a breed apart from the rest. They want to dialog, to debate, to have feedback and they are very willing to link to other worthwhile conversations that are relevant to their topic. I agree with you. These group of Bloggers obviously are passionate about their writing and together, they create huge conversation trails interactive and travel from Blog to Blog. But the evidence is clear with this group that loves what they write about. With comments enabled on a Blog and having a Blog tuned to a specific purpose you already have the evidence of original Social Media.
Re: Alexa Ranking Goals - That's great GT! What method did you use to put up the Entrepreneur Blog Network in your Wordpress Blog? We're always looking for the easiest methods to help bloggers who are not techies get involved.
EvanCarmichael.com suggestion - Maybe I missed it but I would like to suggest that a Blog be created to support the Forum. The idea is that in the blog you put in snippets of some of the biggest conversations with a 'read more' link to the forum itself. Setting up the Blog and clipping some conversations onto it wouldn't take very long.
Jen's Blog - Spam protection - Jen, I like the Blog and just posted a comment to one of your articles. From my experience you need to implement some sort of SPAM capture tools. i use them on my Blog and it's been a life saver as I'm getting hit by spam atleast 5 times a day. I use Wordpress and they have plugins like Captcha and SPAM Karma installed.
Blog Marketing Anyone? - Hi Kevin I suppose you could use the same SEO principles on a Blog as you can for a website but the more content you have within your Blog, the better rankings/traffic you would receive. Would you have time to write a full length article with tips in it every day or second day to get the article count rolling over every week? I would also like to know if anyone has had any experiences with marketing blogs and the traffic they received.


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