When you first start your corporate blog, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of coming across a new marketing medium. You suddenly have access to millions of readers that are just dying to know about your products, right? Wrong! Your readers are out there, but they don’t just want to read about what you have to sell. They want to read content that enriches them, makes them laugh, makes them think or simply informs them.

There is a fine line to walk when you are corporate blogging for marketing purposes, and with practice, you can become a pro. There will a few bumps along the road, there always are, but with time, you can develop a solid method of marketing that works on your corporate blog. The key is knowing what to do, and what not to do.

Do: Provide your readers with a resource that will enrich them in some way
Don’t: Post endless commercials about your products that provide no actual value to a reader.

Do: Find ways to integrate your products into posts that readers enjoy.
Don’t: Spam your readers with endless product pitches and hard sells.

Do: Develop a balance of selling products, telling a story, and reporting news
Don’t: Ignore the fact that no one likes a blog that is nothing more than an endless commercial.

There is a trend that is obvious right off the bat with these do’s and don’ts. First, the key is knowing how to market to your audience. Second, you have to find a way to quietly market your products while still providing interesting content. Third, you have to avoid coming off like you are actually marketing your products – even if that is precisely what you are doing.

It can take some time to develop that balance, and there are a few ways to know when you are striking the right chord. Watch your site analytics, pay attention to comments and feedback. If your traffic goes down, or your comments drop off, chances are you are either selling too hard, or not providing your readers with what they want to hear.

Another don’t that bears mentioning is writing your blog solely for the purpose of search engine optimization. Yes, SEO is vital. Yes, SEO will benefit your site, increase traffic and has the potential to increase your sales.

What SEO cannot do is force people to buy your products. Search engines don’t have wallets. Search engines will not buy your products – but people will. You need to write for them – not for the search engines. Find ways to enrich your content with keywords, but keep it readable by human beings. Avoid practices like keyword stuffing, auto generated content, and gibberish. It may take a little longer to get that ranking you want, but along the way you will be appealing to humans, not machines, and it is the humans that you need to reach first and foremost.

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