Boost Your Traffic With a Blog

The primary goal of Internet marketing is to get targeted traffic to a website. Social media has really changed the way that many marketers see the Internet, and blogs are a huge part of the early foundation of social media marketing. A lot of people don’t realize that blogs were really the first widely-used tool in the social media movement. Blogs are an excellent way to provide regularly-updated content to your visitors and give them a way to interact and share your content with others. This article will focus on the traffic strategies that can be used in conjunction with blogging that will help you to increase your traffic and your sales.

The Pros of Blogging
Usually when you see a list of “pros” you also see a list of “cons,” but in this case there really isn’t a downside to blogging other than having to come up with unique content on a regular basis. Adding fresh content is something you should be doing anyway.

Blogging is extremely easy – writing a post and adding it to your blog is as easy as sending an email.

Adding interactive features to your site is extremely easy with a blog due to built-in comments and add-ons via plug-ins and widgets.
Blogging is very affordable – most blogging platforms are open source, which means “free to use,” so the only out-of-pocket costs would be a custom design and installation.

Blog posts are added to categories and utilize keyword tags, making them extremely SEO-friendly.
Blogs streamline and deliver fresh content via RSS feeds, which can be used to share content on other websites or provide readers with email updates when new posts are added.

Types of Blogs
There are a lot of different types of blogs. The type of blog you choose to use will depend largely on the type of business you do and on the type of content you want to post.

Traditional blogs are text-based and can feature the occasional photo or graphic image. Most of the blogs created today are text-based. They can contain tips, articles, news and other types of information. Most traditional text blogs consist of 300-600 words per post, with larger articles broken down into smaller Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, etc. type posts.

Photo blogs are used by businesses that focus on images more than text. They can include a line of two of descriptive text included in with each photo, but they are primarily photo-based. Photo blogs are a great idea for someone that works with photography or sells products that they want to showcase.  Photo blogs are also great to use in place of a photo album for special events, conventions or other workplace gatherings.

Video blogs are sometimes known as Vlogs and are used to post and categorize video-based content. Again, like with the photo blogs, video blogs can contain a line or two of text as a description, but will usually consist primarily of videos. Similar to the photo blogs, video blogs are a great way to showcase company videos, commercials, instruction sessions, seminars or anything else you want to make available.

Blog Traffic
The traffic that you get from your blog can help to boost your site’s popularity, rank and conversion ratio. Blogs are a great platform for showcasing specific products or services in a way that your visitors are familiar with seeing on other websites. Posts should be made at least once daily in order to catch the attention of the search engines. Once you get picked up by Google, your posts will also appear on Google Blog Search, which will really help boost your site’s relevance and visibility.

There are a number of ways that you can increase traffic to your blog, but the best tip is to get into a habit of posting regularly. Even if you only post once each day, pre-program your blog admin to post your daily blog at the same time every day. Consistency with blogging is key. Link to your blog from your main website and vice versa. Submit your blog to various blog directories and exchange blog links with relevant blogs. Explore all of the widgets, plug-ins and other cool add-ons that can help you make the most out of your blogging experience.

If you would like to receive a free consultation and professional evaluation of your current Internet marketing efforts, contact New Bedford Internet at 508-415-8646.