The fast-paced environment we live in demands that we adapt, and do so quite rapidly and effectively. This, of course, translates into the online market niche as well. Webmasters should always be on the lookout for the things that can generate them more traffic and grant them a stable place in the industry.
Blogging was initially conceived as a way for people to share their ideas in a sort of public online journal. Of course, it started that way but then, in time, migrated towards other uses as well. Nowadays, it’s still mostly used by people to express their thoughts and life experiences on the online medium, but it’s also used for marketing purposes.
Say you have an online shop that sells computer parts. You website is design professionally, you have all the information about the different parts you’re selling and the cash is flowing steadily. But, as anyone would – you want more. One solution is advertising. Send your website’s link to other websites in your industry and have them display a banner or an ad for your site. This, of course, will most likely cause some considerable expenses on your part. And said expenses will increase proportionally with the popularity of the website you wish to promote your own on.
But there’s an easier way to generate more exposure and drive visitors and potential customers to your website. And that is creating a blog: but not just any blog – one that is particularly focused on what you’re selling. So let’s continue with the example presented before – you have an online computer parts shop. The blog you’ll create will need to contain information and articles on computers and their parts: maybe how to fix your computer, how to troubleshoot it or how to replace one part or the other.
Having this blog will grant you that extra bit of credibility and leave your visitors with the impression that you mean business, simply by proving to them that you really know your own. Of course, it’s preferable that you yourself write the articles, just to make sure they’re on the same page (not literally) as your website. But freelancers can be employed as well, as to diminish costs and to generate a constant amount of content for your blog.
Another great quirk about having an attached blog is that you can send it, along with your website to a web directory. The site, in this case, would fall under a shopping category for computers. The blog, however, will fall under a computer repair category. Thus, you’ll have two links in a directory which will generate even more traffic.
The same can be done with advertising campaigns. On a website, you’ll want to promote your main site. On specialized blogs, you’ll want to promote your blogs. It literally doubles your exposure on the internet, especially if all your articles link to your main page.
Last, but not least, the most extraordinary thing about a blog is that it’s completely free. No maintenance is needed, given the many free blogging platforms out there. The tools and other useful stuff are easy to implement and you don’t need much at start, aside from good content.
