Selling Consuting Services On Line

New consulting practices spring up every day.  With so many new and qualified professionals now looking for new employment, many seek to offer their services independently as consultants.  Many of these emerged from large companies that employed a sales staff, accounting and management and executive level functions.  Unfortunately for many of these new consulting entrepreneurs, all of these tasks now fall to only one person.

Perhaps the most difficult task facing a new enterprise is attracting sales and clients.  A worker building a consulting practice may not have a deep list of clients or access to testimonials.  How then does one reach out to attract new business?  There really are only a few options; personal selling and marketing.  Personal selling really isn’t rocket science as the consultant simply contacts those he knows that might have a need for what he/she does.  In the end personal selling is necessary to close any new business deal, but acquiring new leads through marketing is the key to ultimate success.

By far the most popular way of prospecting or acquiring new leads is through internet marketing.  Research has shown that prospective buyers will conduct pre-purchase research on line prior to buying goods and services.  Connecting with those in the research stage of the buying process is a highly effective way of attracting clients.  

Internet research is primarily done via the internet search engines such as Google and Yahoo.  An entrepreneur or new consultant that posts a web page that these search engines can recognize and find, increases the chance that the page will be found by those doing pre-purchase research.  And once connected with prospective buyers, it is possible to close new deals.   Accordingly, on-line marketing has emerged as the main process used by new businesses and consulting practices to build a client base.

On line marketing of course requires a web page.  These are not difficult to produce and many web designers are available at fairly reasonable fees to construct one for a new practice.  Once built, there are three essential elements to On Line Marketing that the web page should either address or contain.
·    Optimization
·    Including supporting content
·    Establish value

Optimization:  Also known as Search Engine Optimization or SEO, the web page should be constructed in such a way that the search engines can understand the value and content of the page.  Accordingly, when users are searching for that bit of information, the search engines will display the web page as a result on its search results list.  SEO isn’t difficult, but does require some preparation.  Several Low Cost SEO options and strategies are available to a new consulting business as well. 

Supporting Content:    A web page is highly useful for providing more detail than an entrepreneur would normally have time for during a face-to-face conversation.  Inviting others to visit the web page can provide the extra information that a prospect would need to make a buying decision.   A good web designer will interview the business owner to find out details about the enterprise and design a page to address the reasons why investing in the consulting service will return value to the hiring organization.

Establishing Value:   This can be tricky.  Usually, a web reader will only give a few seconds of attention to a web page before moving on to another.  Therefore, the entrepreneur’s message must quickly establish the value of his service in the headline and in the first sentence or two of text.  Capturing reader interest through bold statements of value – such as “cut manufacturing costs by 35% by….” work well.

A note seems appropriate here about Twitter and other social network methodologies.  Typically, these can work, but require a great deal of time to work the system.  Remembering that you are competing to get your message out with thousands of others doing the same thing makes it a constant challenge to keep one’s message in front of prospective readers.

Of course each of these key areas can involve extensive effort and research.  But by breaking down on line marketing into a couple key components, a new entrepreneur or consultant can use the internet to establish a new client base.

Technorati Tags: eCommerce for Smal business, On Iine marketing, SEO, SEO for Consultants, Small Business marketing

Denver SEO Consultants provide Low Cost SEO services to businesses nationwide.  Many businesses are applying blog techniques to acquire new business as well.  For any questions about using a business blog to acquire new business or revenue, please click the ‘contact us’ tab above, send your contact information and we will be in touch soon.

Contact us today to get starting using the internet to attract new sales and new customers!

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Getting the Most out of Wordpress

Wordpress is a hugely useful tool in internet marketing and blogging.  It makes running a quality website possible for people with limited experience, and allows almost anybody to get whatever content they want onto the net. Not only is it easy to use, but it has everything you need to bring targeted traffic into your site, as long as you know how best to optimize. By offering a suite of SEO features, using Wordpress will help ensure that you receive relevant search traffic, which will increase the value and authority of your website

Search engines mainly use automated routines to rank websites; with Wordpress you can optimize your sites to best suit these programs. This gives Wordpress a huge advantage over standard HTML sites, where you largely just hope you will rank highly with search engines. Whether you’re hoping to attract visitors from Google, Bing, Yahoo, or other search engines, you’ll be certain to see a boost by utilizing certain Wordpress features. What follows are some simple steps to take in setting up your Wordpress blog that will help you achieve a high ranking.

Tags are a critical part of any blog running on Wordpress. Many developers overlook the importance of creating tags for each and every post. Tags help search engines to properly index and rank your posts by keyword. Tags are nothing but keywords that are one or two words long. These have to be relevant to your post and describe it.

So how exactly do the search engines utilize tags?

Tags are used to index your posts quickly, and place them in appropriate categories. Tagging really isn’t a big deal, it can be done when you’re done with a post and it doesn’t take long. Another way to improve your ranking is to add some internal links within your posts. Cross-reference other related posts within your own blog by linking to them in new posts. This can be done with a plugin tool, so you can easily do it yourself. When you create a post that you feel should be seen by a lot of people, you can assign it an importance by linking it to many other posts.

By adding categories to your blog that are relevant, they can arrange and clean up everything. If you want both search engines and visitors to be able to navigate your site intuitively, having your content correctly organized is critical. It’s just a matter of cleaning up the clutter and making sure the information is organized. Another great way to add even more keywords to your blog is to take advantage of the permalink function which adds the category of the post within the URL itself. Not only will this give yet another boost to your SEO, but it will also help your readers see right away what they can expect from the post simply by reading the URL.

One of the most overlooked search engine optimization features is revising the Wordpress site’s permalink structure. How does it help? The default uses numeric values that are not beneficial for search engine optimization. Ensuring that your post title appears in your URL is an easy way to circumvent this. You can do this by customizing the permalinks in the option settings of your Wordpress blog.

Author’s Links:

Taking the help of certain items can help you to expand yourself in this area, such as by using IM Eye Review

Technorati Tags: Blog SEO, SEO, SEO for Blogging, WordPress Features, wordpress techniques

Denver SEO Consultants also provides Blog consulting services.  Advising clients on content and construction, we can help the business or social blog attract attention from internet users world wide.  for more questions about SEO and Blog Optimization, please click on the Contact Us tab above, provide your contact information and we will be in touch very soon.  And don’t forget to ask about the Low Cost SEO options!

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Social Networking to improve Blog Traffic

There is no doubt that blogging is qucikly becoming even more popular. This creates additonal competition for attention!  The battle for the highest ranked blog or the most frequently visited blog has never been more intense. 

What is necessry to increase blog traffic? The main thing to do is simply to maximize one’s networking skills. That’s right! No need for additional special skills – just plain old networking skills. So how do you start?

First you need to have a constant appearance online. You can visit other blogs as well, in that manner bloggers will see your blog entries as well. It’s more like a give and take relationship. You can also participate in blog forums and recommend your blog to those people who are seeking information which your blog provides.  Aside from forums, you can also chat with other bloggers online.

You can visit other blogs as well, in that manner bloggers will see your blog entries as well. It’s more like a give and take relationship. You can also participate in blog forums and recommend your blog to those people who are seeking information which your blog provides.  Aside from forums, you can also chat with other bloggers online. Advertise your blog online. It requires no extra complication as a matter of fact, all you need to do is to maximize your networking skills.

That’s right! No need for additional special skills – just plain old networking skills. So how do you start? It requires no extra complication as a matter of fact, all you need to do is to maximize your networking skills. That’s right! No need for additional special skill, just plain old networking skills. So how do you start? First you need to have a constant appearance online. You can visit other blogs as well, in that manner bloggers will see your blog entries as well.

It’s more like a give and take relationship. You can also participate in blog forums and recommend your blog to those people who are seeking information which your blog provides.  First you need to have a constant appearance online. You can visit other blogs as well, in that manner bloggers will see your blog entries as well. It’s more like a give and take relationship. You can also participate in blog forums and recommend your blog to those people who are seeking information which your blog provides. 

All you need to have a constant appearance online. You can visit other blogs as well, in that manner bloggers will see your blog entries as well. It’s more like a give and take relationship. You can also participate in blog forums and recommend your blog to those people who are seeking information which your blog contains. 

You can visit other blogs as well, in that manner bloggers will see your blog entries as well. It’s more like a give and take relationship. You can also participate in blog forums and recommend your blog to those people who are seeking information which your blog provides. 

Author’s Links:  Advertise your blog online.  improve your blog’s traffic.

Technorati Tags: blog advertising blogging, SEO for Blogs

Time is always at a premium – especially for the new enterprise operator or consultant trying to build his business.  Time spent with sales and marketing duties, bill paying and accounting can easily consume a good portion of a work week.  Adding to this the necessary time commitment to deliver the service and a consultant is soon overworked and out of time.

Success though, depends on the consultant’s ability to reach out to others to establish a network of industry contacts who may one day become customers.  The business blog is perhaps the best outreach tool available to the consultant to help him expand the practice.  But, the business blog takes time to manage and composing unique and valuable material on a regular basis is a challenge.

Highly specialized consultants such as Utility Consultants and even Low Cost SEO Consultants can usually carve enough time out of every day to reach out to their niche communities and build this network of professional contacts. Establishing relationships with those in the community that may one day become customers is imperative to the long term success of the enterprise.

In spite of the investment of time required for a successful consultant blog, building a sales pipeline via blogging is quite possible and conceptually simple.  Here are four simple but essential rules for managing a consultant blog:

• Write Daily
• Deliver Value
• Answer Requests
• Use Longer Titles

Publishing new and fresh content each day is a ‘must’ to keep luring readers back to the blog site.  Content can be written by the consultant himself or procured through a number of free article sites such as ArticlesBase or eZine but original content is the key element.  If users find new material on the site each time they visit, they are more likely to return in the future.  Content does not have to be complicated or even presented in long form.  Usually, a post of about 500 words (about one typewritten page) works well.  In fact, longer pieces may drive off prospective readers who are in a hurry.  Many blog owners schedule time at the end of each week to schedule out composition topics for the following week just to keep content flowing.

Each article or post must contain a kernel of value as well.  This isn’t to say that one reveals trade secrets on a regular basis, but remember that the internet is primarily used for research purposes.  If the blog post provides one tidbit of useful information that not many outside of the niche know about, the chances are improved that readers will return more frequently.   The search engines love to see traffic to your site and repeat readers will add to your visitor count.   In the long run, sharing value will establish the blog site as an “authority” site within the niche.

As the internet is a huge conduit for information, the consultant blog can be set up as a hub for exchange of useful data.  This provides an opportunity to build relationships with others in the industry.  Those that comment on the blog are reaching out to the site owner to exchange information, so always reply and answer requests made via the blog. People that are highly interactive with others are the ones that attract traffic and ultimately sales orders, so be sure to respond to every communication or outreach.

One thing that attracts new readers from search engines such as Google and Yahoo are the use of longer titles.  The words used in the title are catalogued by the search engines.  When a user is looking for information about that topic, the search engine is able to recognize the article and help the internet reader to find it.  Search engines are a key part of building the consultant’s network as new readers can be attracted to the blog when they are searching for information.

Attracting readers is a difficult challenge once the site is built and establishing the network of readers is no easy job.  Once the consultant blog is built, though, that isn’t the end.  Consultants should spend time interacting with other industry blog sites by leaving comments and links.  These links back to the consultant blog site build recognition with the search engines which will then refer more new readers. 

Patience is a key virtue in operating a consultant blog.  It may require several weeks of effort without seeing much improvement in readership to establish the site.  Over time, though, steady increases can be realized by continually posting new and valuable articles and by interacting with others in the industry.   In the end, it requires time to develop relationships with others and to build trust so that these readers may be converted into clients.

Technorati Tags: blogging, Business Blog, Consultant Blog, Consulting, Increase Sales

Competing for new readers is a never ending battle faced by business blog operators.  So how do successful bloggers continue to compete?  Delivering value in a positive manner – using humor when possible – is a simple formula for success.  Unfortunately, this turns out to be a difficult challenge for many blog owners.

Giving readers a solid reason to return to the business blog or website is the central tactic to earn repeat traffic.  However the website must first attract the reader to the site to begin with.  Low Cost SEO options are available to help, but once the reader finds the site, what should the blog owner do to capture reader interest and to encourage her/him to return?

Value and content are imperative to deliver for each post, article or webpage.  Frequently updated information and copy attracts readers for future visits to the site.  It is also somewhat important to remember that blogging is at least to a small degree, a form of entertainment.  Most entrepreneurs are inundated by dry, boring business material, so a blog post or article that can at least make the content more interesting is a site that will be remembered.  When readers remember a given site, the chances are better that they will return to it in the future.

Leading a story with a comic or joke might not be the way to encourage readers to return though.  Serious subjects require some degree of serious content.  Still, humor is disarming to the reader and allows her/him to enjoy the composition.  It is helpful if humor can be worked into the theme.  In the end though, the real reasons that viewers will return to a blog or website are fundamentally simple, so blog authors should ensure that each composition includes:

• Value –  providing something of unique value to the reader
• ‘Move the Ball’ – showing how a reader can quickly make small improvements
• Support – inspiring the reader to keep facing down challenges and in effect, ‘cheerleading’ helps establish some degree of credibility within the community

Value:
Client success stories or testimonials are hugely valuable and should be included in blog posts or on the main web page as frequently as possible.  Potential clients and customers want to see how the company has helped others.  Story telling is highly useful in this environment, but the author should keep the stories as short as possible – perhaps in the neighborhood of 500 to 700 words.  Readers are probably time-constrained, so don’t overrun the reader’s attention span. 

Limiting discussion to single points of interest is probably a good idea.  This helps keep the composition fairly short.  Bold but believable declarative statements are useful to communicate the single point of value as well.  Statements such as “save 20% on office overhead by ______” are a meaningful statement that should inspire most site visitors to continue reading.   It is also useful to state the value claim early in the piece as that should provide a reader a solid reason to continue to the end of the piece.

‘Moving the Ball:’
At the risk of overusing an old football metaphor, ‘Moving the Ball’ refers to achieving incremental progress.  Small steps forward or small improvements that an entrepreneur can take to quickly improve his business – even on a micro level – are important and helpful.  Sharing this information with a reader allows him to achieve significant progress over time and also small improvements in the short term.  Outrageous claims of massive income with little work or investment (which we have all seen!) is simply not believable and only repels visitors. 

Support:
Keeping entrepreneurs motivated and pursuing their dreams is a key element to success of the site.  Most enterprise operators occasionally feel overwhelmed so it is important to demonstrate within the blog post that you have the expertise to not only meet their business need, but may also have the ability to help meet unexpected or unique industry challenges.  Humor can also be useful here.  The site that offers this is one that readers will look to for expert advice and understanding as it addresses challenges faced by most within the industry.

It is also necessary to specifically invite readers back to the site.  Telling readers what to expect next week or offering a teaser about what bit of value they will get if they return in the future is a highly useful tactic. 

Being mindful of these simple inclusions for each page or post can establish the organization’s blog site as an authority site – which both readers and internet search engines love.  The web page and blog can be turned into effective business sales engines by first attracting readers to the site and then by encouraging repeat visits.  Over time, many of these readers can be converted into paying customers.

Technorati Tags: Blog Tactics, Blogging Techniques, Effective Blog Writing

SEO Consultants Denver

Blogging for Black Friday – Turn your Black Friday Green

Although 2009 is a difficult year for making new sales, what opportunities there are may appear the Friday following the Thanksgiving Holiday.  This day marks the single best opportunity to attract customers prepared to purchase.  How do you access customers who are ready to buy?  Of course appearing highly ranked on a search engine result is extremely important. Studies have shown that up to 80% of all consumers considering a big-ticket purchase, will research that purchase on line prior to visiting a store or making the purchase. 

Customers want a slightly different shopping experience during the holidays.  For some, the excitement of visiting shopping mall is worth the effort and outweighs the inconvenience of dealing with large crowds.  Others prefer watching football at home and doing their shopping on line.  The key to making ‘Black Friday’ work for your business is to present quality products or services to the customer at the time the customer is looking to buy. 

There are three considerations then to Black Friday marketing.  These aren’t much different from marketing themes throughout the year, but there are a couple twists worth discussing.   So before examining how these considerations should impact your business blog, take a moment to review them.  The main considerations are:

• Understanding what the customer wants
• Offering Immediate Value (adjusted for seasonal impact)
• Deliver (make sure you have inventory and availability to meet demands)

Customer Desires:
Understanding what the customer is really seeking requires examination of your customer base with special attention to changes in past buyer behavior during the Christmas shopping season.  Some shoppers who would never venture to a major shopping mall during the year enjoy the color and excitement of the Christmas season.  These folks are willing to fight for a parking place once a year to hit the mall.  Here, the shopper is after the excitement of the experience – not necessarily a specific product or deal.

Identifying exactly what customers want is frequently ‘guesswork’ though.  Some businesses work for years to find the right formula for attracting customers during the holiday shopping spree.  Free cookies or cider attract families with kids, a holiday sale tradition might bring in those that fancy themselves to be “king bargain hunters.”    What works throughout the year may not work as well during the holidays, though, so keep in mind what changes occur in your customer base during this time. 

Value:
Of course this is a ‘no brainer.’  Without significant value either in the product or service element, it will be difficult to convert a prospect into a customer.  The perceived value may change through the holidays though along with changing customer behavior.  Understand the value you offer in the context of the Christmas shopping season.

This offers an interesting challenge for service industries and b2b organizations.  Salespeople working the insurance industry are challenged by lower customer cash-availability.  Prospects may be less likely to make a purchase of a common good, choosing instead to use their disposable income on holiday shopping.  Service and support industries that can identify unique customer needs to serve during the six weeks or so between Thanksgiving and the new year can keep their sales moving.

Delivery:
This also is a ‘no brainer.’  Once you make a sale, ensure that the customer is happy afterwards.  And be prepared to tell customers how you will keep them happy after the purchase.  Also, make sure you have the service capacity or a plan to meet all sales requests.  Nothing is worse than luring a customer to your place of business and being unable to serve her/him for a period of weeks.  Holiday shoppers want immediate value – not a promise of value later.

So after considering these elements, what now?  By converting these into blog posts about your product or service, you can reach out to potential customers in the context of the holiday season.  Here are three tips that might set your organization up for good ‘Black Friday’ business.

• Compose and release blog post on Tuesday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week.
• Blog on other sites about it Tuesday and Wednesday
• Carefully target each composition with title and headline tags

Posting your article or statement of value to the blog on Tuesday allows the search engines to read fresh content in time for Wednesday and Thursday of Thanksgiving week.  Having a fresh message to customers in place elevates the chance that search engines will pick up your post when shoppers are planning their Friday excursions.

Once posted, set back links by blogging other sites on the Tuesday and Wednesday of Thanksgiving week to strengthen your overall web presence.  These changes and improvements will be noticed and should improve your traffic.

When composing your article, carefully include keywords and phrases within the title of your post.  This is a common rule, but for this season, considers something like “After Thanksgiving Sale in Spokane.”  This will make the article currently relevant and users searching for Thanksgiving sales in Spokane will be more likely to see your page.

In the end, marketing via the internet simply requires acknowledgement of the traditions and consumer behavior surrounding the holiday season.    Carefully compose your message to work with these traditions using your business blog and you could develop your page into a powerful sales tool.

Technorati Tags: Black Friday, black Friday blog, Blogging for the Holidays

SEO Consultants of Denver is currently setting up its blogroll of SEO Experts, SEM Consultants and Small Business Marketing enterprises.  If you would like to be included, please click the ‘Contact Us’ tab and provide your website or blog information. 

SEO Consultants of Denver has also converted its blog to a ‘Do Follow’ format to provide a little additional strength to listed links. 
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Setting up the Blogroll – Benefits and Techniques

Connections with others via a blogroll in your industry niche are very important not only in building website traffic, but in establishing your on-line leadership reputation.  The blogroll is also an important part of a link-building campaign as you can offer a ‘hard’ or semi-permanent link to those in the web world that have helped you get started or assisted in the generation of new business.  Of course, the purpose of the blogroll is to create an avenue for a fair exchange of information and traffic.  One doesn’t want to link to direct competitors unless there is a very good reason to do so. 

Building the Blogroll isn’t complicated but can be time-consuming as it involves communicating directly with other site owners.  The ultimate objective is to inspire good sites within your niche to link to you as part of your link-building campaign.   Reaching out to other site owners is usually best executed after you’ve commented on their blogs over a period of time and have established yourself as a reasonably thoughtful and reliable partner.  You can also look at who has commented on your blog posts to see who might be interested.  Repeat visitors are very good targets.

Another good technique is to establish a blogroll of sites that you would like to be linked to on your blog or website first.  Then when you write to ask for links, you can provide your URL and show that you’ve already posted their link on your site.  Even if yours is a new site or one with a low page rank, others will be reluctant to say ‘no’ if you’ve already taken the initiative to set them up.  Larger established sites will have their own internal rules and regulations, but you should always at least ask for a link in return for setting an outbound one. 

Blogrolls take time to build.  (This site has that process currently underway!)  But they can provide a strong source of traffic and link power to your SEO efforts.  And if you are willing to help others in this same endeavor, you will identify several that will help you.  Here are a few other considerations and ideas for setting up your blogroll:

Categorize:
 Just labeling a blogroll “Blogroll” might not be helpful should you list many different sites.  Categorizing the types of pages in your blogroll might be a useful way to help readers sort through a great number of sites.  One might separate the list into “supplier,” “retail” or “service” sections.  This helps readers find links classified by useful category or type rather than scrolling through the big list and guessing which would be relevant to their interest.

Relevancy:
Ask your respondents how they want their link labeled – this is important to their SEO efforts and makes your site a more powerful contributor to their success.  In return, make sure you ask your respondent to set a link to your site that would utilize a keyword or keyword phrase.  These become much more relevant links the more page rank power the pages involved achieve over time.

Strength:
When looking for sites to include in your initial blog roll, it is a good idea to reach out to sites that have a good or strong page rank.  Several free tools are available to provide a general idea of the relative Page Rank.  The stronger the site that links to you, the more powerful the reference in the eyes of search engine robots.

Some sites just might not lend themselves for inclusion in a formal blogroll or within a category that you have arranged.  This doesn’t mean that you would ignore them.  Other places for links include footnotes and left-rail or in-article links. 

In the end, if you assist other site owners in improving their site, they are much more likely to help you.  Remember that internet marketing may utilize the latest in technology and communication tools, but all business is interpersonal – meaning that the better you work with others on a personal level, the easier success is achieved.

Technorati Tags: Blogroll, Blogroll Techniques, SEO Tips

Do Follow Blogs – SEO Consultants Denver is Now a ‘Do Follow’ Site

After some consideration, we have decided to pull down the ‘no follow’ parameter on the blog to provide a bit better value to the SEO community.  A ‘Do Follow’ link allows the search engine robots to swim through all the links placed on this site and pay them a visit.  This can be an important part of your link-building strategy – especially as the page rank of this site improves. 

Of course this also invites the SpamMeisters to take advantage of the site.  We will just be operating on the honors system here and will manually delete comments that appear to be spam.  Should this effort become too time consuming, we will reconsider the ‘Do Follow’ policy.

For now, please leave us a comment and add SEO Consultants Denver blog to your list of external links!

Cheers!

Matt

Technorati Tags: Do Follow Blogs, Do Follow Links

SEO Consultants Denver assists business in constructing relationships with those in your niche community – many of whom are likely to become customers if what they receive is useful, informative and convinces them that you are the best organization to meet their immediate need. 

Contact Matt at 303.506.1158 today or visit our SEO and SEM Home Page to find out how to start turning your internet pages into a sales-generating machine!

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SEO Consultants of Denver Blog Post for October 29, 2009

Blog Message Strategy – Using the Blog as Your Main Business Page II

Using your blog as the main interface between your organization and prospective customers on the internet requires understanding the prospective buyer’s level of internet activity.  Do your customers use the internet frequently? Do you have a consumer profile?   Smaller businesses may have to do some one-on-one research with current customers to get an idea, but a general understanding of how your customers use the web is important for structuring your communications strategy.

A good communications strategy will establish:

• Credibility
• Leadership
• Depth of knowledge
• Confidence

Understanding how your current customers use the web, you can build your messages to address points that establish you as the leader in your line of business.  Here are a few techniques.

Credibility:
Little known facts about your business or industry are useful to the consumer.  Areas and news about product features, lifespan, durability etc. are all important to the buying decision.  Putting these out in your blog messages puts you on the same side as your customer – in effect arming her/him with information helpful to a purchase decision. 

When future questions arise, these readers will remember your ability and willingness to provide useful help and information.  If your customers frequently use the web to research product features or location, you can address concerns about product reliability, ease of acquisition (shipping or delivery features that you provide).  Understanding the reasons your customers use the internet is important to structuring the credibility message.

Leadership:
Customer case studies or statements from satisfied customers establish your organization as one that has experience meeting consumer needs.  References are also helpful to offer. (You don’t have to post the reference’s contact information, but just ask the viewer to contact you for the names of a few satisfied customers)  For newer businesses just starting out, a lack of sales history could be a problem.  Still, you can provide references of those who have worked with you in the past and can speak to the level of personal commitment you bring to the relationship. 

Story-telling is very useful in establishing a leadership image on your business blog.  The downside is that the story has to be told and retold in different ways to keep the content fresh.  But….if you focus your story telling about your accomplishments or the ability of your product to solve customer problems, the story shouldn’t get old.  Besides, over time you will acquire more and more testimonials that will make useful content for future stories.

Depth of Knowledge:
This can be difficult to establish with the reader without boring him with details.    Still, building trust with your reader that you have the depth of knowledge to solve her/his problems is essential.  Again, story-telling or case studies are useful.  Occasionally, technical details may be discussed, but a particularly useful technique is to simply answer your customers’ questions on line.

Customer questions regarding your product or service are probably very meaningful to prospective customers as well.  Your ability to handle customer concerns of course builds confidence that you are both able and willing to stand behind your product/service and are able to clearly define its value. 

Confidence:
Nothing establishes consumer confidence more than successfully delivering value.  Defining that value I a useful technique here.  For instance, if you provide a business service, find out from your customers exactly what using your service meant.  Did you deliver a solid Return on Investment?  If so, what percentage?   In what time frame?  Making bold statements on the results you deliver are important, but must be backed-up by facts and by customers willing to validate your claim.

Customers don’t mind making investments in products in service if the purchase can deliver value.  Stating what value you’ve achieved for others is a good starting point in establishing confidence in the minds of prospective customers. Telling these stories communicates the results your prospect may expect by purchasing from you. 

By focusing on one of these objective areas in each blog post, you can keep your page fresh and accomplish at least one communication strategy objective.  In the next few days, we will review techniques to keep your communication strategy organized, discuss a good structure and volume for each individual post and review ways to post your information to attract the most possible traffic from the search engines.

Technorati Tags: Blogging for Business, Business Blog, Business Blog Content Management

SEO Consultants Denver provides expertise in driving new business sales to your organization via the internet. We carefully analyze your product offering and craft a web outreach solution unique to your organization.  Contact Matt at 303.506.1158 today or visit our SEO and SEM Home Page. 
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SEO Consultants of Denver Blog Post for October 28, 2009

Building an Effective Business Blog – Using the Blog as Your Main Business Page – Part I

SEO is the essential ‘art’ of presenting your company and organization to the world over the internet in a fashion that enables your business page to appear as a result to a user-provided search or question on common search engines.  The search engine connects potential customers with your web site.  This establishes a unique position for your company to both provide useful information and to build credibility.   A company that is knowledgeable, helpful, has credibility and conveys useful information is first in line to make a sale to the consumer reading the page.   SEO Consultants of Denver utilizes a blog environment to attract client business and can put this experience to work for organizations of all sizes. 

Maintaining both a strong web page environment as well as a blog is very time consuming – frequently too time consuming for many entrepreneurs – particularly small business operators that do everything from invoicing to advertising.  Business leaders then must choose how best to invest their time to attract new business and improve sales.  Given your time constraints, what is the best use of available time and resources?

Over the next several days, posts here will discuss the advantages and techniques of using a business blog page to represent the organization on the internet.  Simply put, a business blog can be optimized to drive new business to the organization in the same ways a standard web page can.   For businesses facing the challenge of getting all the work done in a day, operating a blog can keep your business generating revenue by providing useful information to prospective customers and attracting readers – without a huge investment in time or personnel resources.

Operational Advantages of a Business Blog
First, a bit of background…  There are three main operational reasons to operate a blog to attract new business.  Specifically, good operational reasons for operating a blog include:

• Posting and updating a blog is relatively easy,
• A blog environment is easy to maintain– with little or no technical skill required,
• Blog platforms usually format your text so that it can appear as a search result – just describe your posts in the tag section,
• And a fourth little advantage would be:  it is usually free!

Standard Blog Functionality
Blogs are intended to be frequently updated, so most blogging platforms enable easy posting of new information.  These platforms then catalogue your posts and will optimize them to some extent so they will be searchable.  Main web pages are difficult for non technical operators to update and keep fresh.  As the search engines check for changes and updates, keeping the site updated is important to keep your page appearing as results on common search engines. 

Blogs of course allow frequent content posting, but they also allow the author to ‘tag’ or describe the article individually to specify the content.  It is important to think of each blog post as a separate web page that should be accurately described for users as well as search robots to easily understand. 

Attaching a blog to your business environment is as simple as opening an account with a blog platform provider.   There are other, more technical ways of establishing a blog on your home web server environment, but these usually require hiring outside help.  As we all know, ‘outside help’ can be expensive. 

For those that don’t currently have a business blog, it is relatively simple to build one include it in your web environment.  One complication will probably be in making the look and feel of your main web page match the look and feel of your blog.  If you have a custom webpage template and want to use that for your blog, you will have to ensure that it is enabled for the proper plug-ins and upload it to your platform.  This usually requires some technical expertise. If you are inexperienced at this, the help desk can usually guide you through the process.   Or… to keep it simple, you can select a standard blog template from your provider.  Most of these are free a well.

Three Common Reasons for Establishing a Business Blog
In deciding whether to use a blog to attract new business and revenue, consider the following advantages.  A blog can:

• Build credibility,
• Enable frequent communication with your customer base,
• Establish a leadership image as part of your company identity, and
• Ultimately, increase sales and revenue.

Blogging can be a successful way to attract new business if you can create a site that becomes known for providing useful information for your target niche community.   There is no substitute for being the business ‘expert’ or best source of information.  Build this over time and viewers will return often. 

A high number of returning viewers are an important strength, which pays of when promoting your product or service.  Especially if you established a network of folks in the niche community that have set links to your site, your site will appear to new customers searching for specific product or service information.  Your blog page then becomes the spokes-person for your company and also the ‘go-to’ industry expert.  Of course when readers become buyers, yours will be the trusted company to fill the need.

Will Customers Use My Blog?
Customers will generally use web pages as legitimate sources of information.  Still, customers have to know the page is available.  In deciding whether or not to operate a business blog, consider the buying behavior of your target customer group.  Generally, the more time customers take to consider a purchase in your industry, the better chance you will have of using a business blog to capture new revenue.  As readers often utilize the web for product research, a blog that provides product insight and information would be very valuable and may be configured to appear as a search result when the user is seeking information about a specific product or service feature.   Understanding customer behavior also plays an important role in constructing each blog message or post.

Please check back for Part II tomorrow where we will discuss a Blog Message Strategy and sound Structure of the Business Blog.

For more information, please contact SEO Consultants Denver - Matt at 303.506.1158  

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