Can You Describe Your Blog To A Potential Reader?

Once primarily a medium for everyday people to express themselves, blogging has become a powerful tool for the online business entrepreneur. And, due to the fact that it is inexpensive requiring only a domain and a hosting account to get started, there are a lot of blogs out there.

Blogging is a great way to keep your customers up to date on news, products, opinions, or just about anything. But you need people to read it. If you were chatting face to face to a potential lead or customer how would you describe your blog? Would it make somebody want to read it?

How Would You Describe Your Blog?

Nowadays, you see businesses claim that they know you or tell you that coming to them is like coming to a friend or neighbor. But because business has become so big and technical, customers are often treated like a number instead of a person.

This is especially true online where there is often little or no personal contact. People like the feeling of knowing someone they’re buying from. If they feel like you’re a friend to them, they’re more willing to trust you, buy your products, pay more, and tell their friends about you.

A blog is a great way to make your customers and potential customers feel like they know you and can trust you with their business. Sure, it’s not a real face-to-face conversation, but blogs give you regular contact and are generally much more personal than sales letters and regular display advertising. They turn you into a person, not just a business.

FREE Download: 21 Days To A Better Blog
 
How To Define Your Blog

If you’re having difficulty trying to describe your blog, think about how you would describe yourself. After all, there’s only one of  you in the universe. Even if you consider yourself  ‘normal’ or ‘average’, you’re uniquely different from everyone else on the planet. And your blog can be different too.

Don’t try to make your blog something you’re not. Be who you are. Consistency establishes a strong brand. If you keep chopping and changing your personality, tone and delivery style, your prospects and customers will become confused. But if you’re consistently thoughtful, funny, controversial, or serious then your brand will get stronger.

Good Content Matters

Be honest about your blog. If you describe your blog as a provider of valuable information for your audience, and it’s really just fluff and waffle, you’ll lose readers quicker than you gain them. But if you have a good blog with great content, you can get people talking. If you foster an open environment on your blog, you can get great discussions going on your website.

Eventually, people will start talking about your business. And the more people talk about you, the more people hear about you. The best part is, when they talk about you, they’re also going to link back to your site, raising your search engine rankings so even more people can hear about you.

Be Yourself

Blogging is a medium that internet users can relate to. Blogs are usually less formal in tone than business websites, giving you an opportunity to really connect with your target markets. The ability to comment on posts adds to the community aspect.

Communicate the way you do with your friends. There are a lot of people out there who will connect with you and want to buy from you because of who you are. You can’t make that connection if you’re not honest about your personality, likes, dislikes and other personality traits.

Establish Yourself As An Expert

If you do it right, take time, and research your blog topics, you’ll be able to develop a reputation. People talking about you is great, but it doesn’t necessarily make them think you’re credible. A blog can help you build a reputation as an expert in a field. This is especially good if you’re thought of as a helpful expert.

Thoughtful and well-researched blog posts let readers know that you’re serious about your business and know what you’re doing. This confidence in you will not only make your audience more likely to buy from you, it will also give them a reason to spread the word about your blog and your business.

Build Relationships

A business blog is essentially a relationship-building tool, and an effective one at that. Blog readers from your target market could find your blog through search engines or links, read it, and decide to see what your business has to offer. Prospects might arrive at your blog from your  website, and reading it could give them the push they need to become paying customers.

Blogging is great for public relations. It can help you build your brand, and it gives you an outlet to refute any false or damaging claims that others might make about your business online.

How To Describe Your Blog To The Search Engines

The search engines love blogs. Due to their ease of navigation and frequency of updates, Google and company crawl them very often. This gives you plenty of opportunity to get search traffic. You can describe your blog to the search engines by adding links to your blogs to forum signatures, social networking pages, and blog directories, These all boost your search engine rankings and get click-through traffic. And if you’re targeting your efforts properly, that traffic will translate to sales.

Free Checklist: 21 Days To A Better Blog

If you don’t already have a blog, you’re missing out on an opportunity to grow your business.  The best part about blogging is that it’s easy. While you’re working on a large project, you can write short blog entries on your breaks. You can write a couple blog posts before you go to bed. Or, if you’re writing a large piece, you can reword parts you write as you go and save them later for blog entries to promote the topic.

For more ways to help you describe your blog so that your audience know exactly how your blog can benefit them, download my free checklist, 21 Days To A Better Blog. It’s packed with 21 simple one-a-day tasks and activities for getting more traffic, more prospects, more customers and more sales.