When it comes to reaching out to your customers or building up your customer base, a blog is a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, many companies do not take advantage of these benefits and they are missing out on some very powerful marketing techniques that are not only cost effective but useful. Let’s take a look at a few of the reasons that a corporate blog can make a difference for your company.

First, you’ll be able to start building brand awareness right away. Most consumers don’t feel a connection to a new brand right away and if you’re only using a static site to attract them, they may not be impressed. Your goal is to become an immediately recognizable force. By using a corporate blog to attract attention you can easily accomplish this and establish yourself as a leader in your industry.

Next, when it comes to search engine optimization, a blog is one of the easiest ways to guarantee that search engines are going to index your site and rank it higher in the results. This is due to the fact that you’ll be publishing content on a regular basis and that your blogs can contain keywords that will help improve your ranking. For those in a very limited niche that is already crowded, this can really make a difference.

You can also use a blog to reach out to your current customers in a time of crisis. This can be a very powerful tool when you are trying to put your best face forward. Normally, many companies do not have the opportunity to explain their side of the issue. With a corporate blog you’ll have that forum you need to get your message across in any crisis situation.

A corporate blog can be used to promote new product launches or new services. This is a very powerful aspect of a blog. You’ve got a way to instantly connect with your customers and provide them with breaking news about your company’s products and services. Since your audience is already targeted, you’re guaranteeing that your readers are going to be interested in what you have to say. Although many prefer to keep their blogs non-commercial, this is a very powerful way to increase sales as well as reach out to customers in a cost effective manner.

Lastly, you’ll have the ability to closely interact with your customers and see what is really on their minds. If you allow comments on your blog, you can really see how your company is perceived and what you could be doing differently to attract the right kind of attention.

Running a corporate blog can be a bit complicated if you want to avoid the common pitfalls that plague business owners. It is recommended that new companies or those trying to establish a blog for the first time work with a professional to ensure that all of their needs are met. This helps ensure that a company’s new blog will be successful and noticed.

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Originally posted 2008-07-14 05:20:18. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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An important part of promoting your corporate blog is making sure that you have plenty of good inbound links coming into your site. This can help increase your overall popularity, as well as how search engines rank your site. While there are some methods of building links that promise the moon, they are generally considered as bad links by search engines and they should be avoided.

So, how do you go about getting quality inbound links for your site? There are few techniques that you can use that will dramatically impact your site’s links, but they will take some work. It is important to remember that you’re not going to see instant results, but over time, these link building strategies will work.

The first step is to create content that people will want to link to. This means posting breaking news, funny lists and other content that is generally referred to as “Linkbait.” Once you start publishing content like this however, you’ll have to take one more step to get results. This means submitting that post to sites like Digg.com, Reddit.com and other social bookmarking/news sites. You may need to try a few different posts to see which ones get the most results. When in doubt, pay attention to the posts on these sites that make the front page and see how you can implement the same techniques.

Next, you’ll need to start submitting content to other sites. While you’ll want to stay away from most article submission sites, EzineArticles.com generally gets some pretty good results. Make sure that you include your blog’s link at the bottom of the article. Pages like this are generally ranked very well by search engines, so this will be seen as a “quality link.”

Another key is publishing content that people want to read, content that affects them on an emotional level. They will be much more likely to link to you and share your content if you can do this. One of the biggest mistakes a corporate blogger can make is being too “corporate.” No one really wants to read boring posts that do not affect them personally. Find a topic that is suited to your blog that will produce an emotional response in readers.

Memes are another great way of getting links, but results will vary. Techmeme.com is a good example of one of these sites. There are hundreds out there, but you’ll want to focus on the most popular ones. Submit your site and try to be the first to break news on an important subject. You’ll likely get many links as a result.

One technique that is little used is to submit answers to discussion groups/Yahoo Answers and other sites where users try to find information. Make sure to include your site’s link at the bottom of your answer if you do try this and always remember that what you say could affect your company down the road. When used properly however, this is a great way to get a lot of easy links back to your site.

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Originally posted 2008-09-28 05:28:17. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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