Sunday, August 24, 2008

Is Your Blog Working As Well As It Should?

Just as with any other marketing strategy, once you create a blog to promote your business, you need to keep track of your results. Doing so will allow you to see how effectively blogging is working for you and also let you see what changes you need to make to create a better blog.

Step One: Keep Track of Your Blog Results
The first step in deciding how well your blog is working as a marketing tool is to evaluate your blog’s effectiveness:

·Keep track of wins. Winning contests, reviews, and positive notices for your blog not only ensures that readers are looking at your online project, but it suggests that you are doing something right. Entering and winning design contests and “best of” blog contests can help ensure that your blog works better as a marketing tool.

·Keep track of other blog mentions. A blogroll refers to the practice of linking similar blog pages from one article. Just as you will want to link to other blogs from your blog, so others may choose to offer a link to your blog. This sort of linking ensures more hits and ensures that your blog will strand higher in rankings – much as a much-quoted web page will gain high rankings in google.

·Keep track of all online mentions. You should not just look at mentions of your blog in other blogs. Keep track of where your company name and blog name appears online – in forums, webpages, and in publications. What sort of publicity are you getting for your blog and your company? Has there been a difference response to your business since you began the blog?

·Do some market research. Ask your customers where they heard of you and why they chose you. Ask your customers and readers to rate your blog. The responses may be very telling.

·Count hits. Depending on your blog software, you may be able to count how many people view your blog. This can be an important way to measure how many people you are reaching. Try Google Analytics.

·Place your blog in context. Consider your other marketing and advertising strategies. Compare the amount of time and money you spend on your marketing efforts and the results you get from each effort.

Step Two: Make Your Results Better
Once you have considered how your blog is affecting your business, you should be able to see what needs to be done. If your blog is not getting enough hits, try advertising your blog more through online groups, emails, and links. If the response to your blog is not great, then you may need to make some changes in content and style to lure in more readers. If you find that your blog is not getting the results you want, though, make sure that you have given the blog a chance. Do realize that it takes longer to build a solid loyal audience with a blog than with other forms of marketing. If you do build a regular audience, though, the promotional potential of your blog will be quite high.

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