Marketing With Blogs - Part 4
By Priya Shah, Sat Dec 10th
Copyright © 2005 Priya Shah
In the first three parts of this article series on marketingwith blogs, I discussed the reasons why are excellenttools for marketing, and provided some tips on using your blogto brand yourself, boost your reputation and sell your productsand services online.
In this article, I provide specific tips on using your blog helpyou boost your marketing ROI and visibility online.
#6: Use Good SEO Practices
Besides using keywords appropriately, take the time to learnabout using trackbacks, pingbacks, good linking practices andbasic SEO techniques.
Remember that in blogging, public relations equals PageRank. Themore you link to others, the more they will link to you.
Submit your and feeds to directories and search engines.
#8: Track Your Results
Keep track of your sales, inbound links, citations by usingtools like adtrackers, Blogpulse and Marketleap. Also offer yourreaders incentives to participate in surveys.
This information is very valuable because it will help youunderstand what your market needs and how to give it to them.
It will also help you understand how much your blogging ishelping your marketing efforts so you can tweak your methods andget more out of them.
#9: Listen And Learn
When we’re blogging we usually stating our opinions openly. Asbloggers it’s all right to be controversial and frank whileblogging.
But what happens when a potential customer posts a nasty or rudecomment? Some bloggers think its OK to be rude right back, andeven go so far as to call that person names.
I don’t believe that’s the way to treat someone who take thetrouble to sign-in and post a comment on your blog. For all youknow they may have a genuine problem and could be speaking forothers who have experienced the same.
Being rude will not only lose you a customer, it will alsoexpose you as someone who is too immature to handle customercomplaints.
Granted, some customers can be a pain in the butt, but everyonedeserves to be heard. And handling nasty or rude comments withrestraint will not only demonstrate your maturity, but buildyour customers respect for you.
People prefer doing business with someone they like and trust.So if you want your blog to be a place where your potentialcustomers can interact freely and openly, I suggest you learnhow to handle brickbats as well as bouquets with grace andmaturity.
It used to be said that the internet was the great levellerbecause it empowers small businesses to compete with bigbusinesses. But have completely levelled the playing fieldfor marketers.
Anyone with an internet connection can now sell their productsand services solely on the basis of the quality of informationthey provide.
And that's the reason are creating a revolution inmarketing online.
About the author:Priya Shah is the CEO of eBrand360 http://www.ebrand360.com Shewrites the Marketing Slave blog http://marketingslave.com andpublishes an internet marketing newsletterhttp://www.ebizwhiz.biz. Subscribe to her free Business BloggingeCourse. http://www.blog-maniac.com
This article may be reprinted as long as the resource box isleft intact and all links are hyperlinked.
