This is a great summary by Karen Rubin from Hubspot about how to manage and plan content for your business blog so you can keep coming up with useful blog topics that attract targeted traffic. The video is 29 minutes long but definitely worth the time if you have your own business blog or are considering starting one.

See our Blog Set Up & Management Services

[business:Adept Marketing]

Branding in any media in not just about visual representation of your logo and colours, it’s also about the personality of your business and it’s people. Online media provides some unique ways to effectively share and reflect your brand image that allows engaging and interacting with your customers at a one to one level. Businesses can really use this to set themselves apart from competitors with how they communicate and manage relationships.

Here are some ideas that businesses can use to build and manage their online brand:

• Have a blog on your website – this will show your personality, expertise and interests, read more about the benefits

• Be part of the conversation – check online regularly with searches of your business name in blog posts and social media, you can use free tools like Social Mention or Technorati (for blogs). Wherever possible, get involved in discussions and reviews about your business.

• Create a Facebook page and build some “fans” – this will allow you to start any conversation and easily let them share their thoughts, photos and videos with you. LinkedIn is popular for business to business and career profiling.

• Get Tweeting on Twitter – an easy and quick way to build a strong online profile, great for connecting with people as well as driving traffic to your website and blog.

• Be active online – contribute to content by commenting on relevant and high profile blogs in your industry or area of interest.

What online activity has helped build your business brand? Keen to hear any other suggestions or examples of successful online branding.

You may think that having a blog on your website is just for professional bloggers or people who are experts in something, but in reality the functionality of a blog opens the door for your business to easily add fresh content to your website and allow online interaction with your customers.

Some of the key benefits of a Blog page are:

• Basically it’s a way to share any relevant information of interest with your target market. It may simply be a “News” page where you can add any recent or upcoming events, or news and tips about your business products and services.

• Because blog posts can be less formal, it can help to show the personality of your business and how you interact with customers providing an open way to communicate.

• Search engines like websites with fresh content and you can effectively grow the traffic of your website as each blog post can appear in search results. Particularly if you ensure you use the blog title in the URL name, e.g. this blog post URL includes: the-benefits-of-a-blog-on-your-website/.

• Blogs work in perfectly with social media as each blog post can be announced on Twitter or promoted using sites like LinkedIn or Facebook. These tools become an effective way to regularly attract relevant traffic to your site.

• For the above reasons, it can really make you stand out from your competitors online and build a stronger online profile.

• If you use a blog tool like WordPress you can manage and update your entire website with a full content management system that is free.

So if you are looking for a way to enhance your website and traffic then add a blog! Interested to hear any additional benefits or successes businesses have experienced by having a blog page so add your comments or questions.

See our Blog Set Up & Management Services

[business:Adept Marketing]